Singalong Jubilee - Singalong Jubilee Rousers featuring Jim Bennet and Bill Langstroth

Tracks

Side 1

		Track Name	Length
	1	Bill Langstroth, Jim Bennet and the Jubilee Singers - Devilish Mary	02:40
	2	Jim Bennet and the Jubilee Singers - The British Mermaid	01:45
	3	Bill Langstroth and the Jubilee Singers - Cod Liver Oil	03:07
	4	Jim Bennet and the Jubilee Singers - Michael Roy	01:21
	5	Bill Langstroth and the Jubilee Singers - Ezekiel Saw the Wheel	01:59
	6	Jim Bennet and the Jubilee Singers - Jack Was Every Inch a Sailor	01:54

Side 2

		Track Name	Length
	1	Jim Bennet, Bill Langstroth and the Jubilee Singers - The Green Grass Grew All Around	02:51
	2	Bill Langstroth and the Jubilee Singers - Oh Mary	02:32
	3	Jim Bennet and the Jubilee Singers - Oh, You New York Girls	01:57
	4	Bill Langstroth and the Jubilee Singers - Seeing Nellie Home	02:21
	5	Bill Langstroth, Jim Bennet and the Jubilee Singers - I'se the Bye	01:23
	6	Bill Langstroth and the Jubilee Singers - Tina Singu	02:09

Photos

Videos

No Video

Information/Write-up

Singalong Jubilee was one of the most influential and quietly far-reaching programs in Canadian music history, serving both as a weekly national showcase for folk and roots music and as a proving ground for an extraordinary generation of Canadian performers. Produced from CBC Television’s Halifax studios, the series aired from 1961 to 1974 and helped define how Canadian folk, country, gospel, and traditional music was heard, understood, and celebrated across the country during the 1960s and early 1970s.

The show emerged as a summer replacement for Don Messer’s Jubilee, but quickly developed an identity of its own. Rather than focusing on established stars, Singalong Jubilee centered on community singing, regional repertoire, and contemporary folk material, encouraging audience participation and emphasizing musical authenticity over polish. Under producer Manny Pittson’s guidance, the series blended Maritime tradition with the wider folk revival then sweeping North America, presenting a mix of ballads, spirituals, sea songs, humour pieces, protest songs, and newly written Canadian material.

At the heart of the program were its hosts and musical anchors. Bill Langstroth, who combined his on-air role with behind-the-scenes work as producer-director at CBHT, became the show’s guiding presence, introducing songs, leading group numbers, and shaping the program’s inclusive tone. Alongside him, Jim Bennet emerged as one of the show’s most versatile voices, equally at home with traditional folk airs, country-leaning material, and original songs such as “Nova Scotia Diet.” Multi-instrumentalist Fred McKenna contributed a distinctive instrumental voice on guitar, banjo, fiddle, and steel, while also serving as a featured singer across a wide stylistic range.

One of Singalong Jubilee’s most lasting legacies was the careers it helped launch. Catherine McKinnon became an early standout, her clear soprano and theatrical poise making her one of the series’ most recognizable performers. In 1965–66, a young Anne Murray joined the cast fresh from university in New Brunswick, making her television debut on the program before going on to an international recording career. The show also introduced audiences to Ken Tobias, whose songwriting would soon attract wide attention, as well as Acadian singer Edith Butler, whose inclusion reflected the program’s expanding embrace of French-language and regional traditions.

The ensemble aspect of Singalong Jubilee was central to its sound. The Jubilee Singers—a rotating vocal group drawn largely from the Halifax area—provided rich choral backing and frequently stepped forward as soloists. Over the years, the chorus included performers such as Karen Oxley (who also served as choral director), Hal Kempster, Lorne White, Penny MacAuley, Marg Ashcroft, Jay Gallant, Linn Carroll, Michael Scott, Clary Croft, Tom Kelly, Vern Moulton, Gordon McMurtry, Hazel Walker, and others. Instrumental support evolved as well, with musicians such as Brian Ahern, Don Burke and the Don Burke Four, Vic Mullen, Garth Proude, Jack Lilly, Paul Mason, and Georges Hébert contributing to the show’s flexible, folk-rooted arrangements.

The material presented on Singalong Jubilee ranged widely. Traditional songs from the British Isles and Maritime oral tradition sat alongside African-American spirituals, Acadian folk songs, gospel numbers, and contemporary compositions by writers such as Gordon Lightfoot and Phil Ochs. The program made little distinction between sacred and secular, old and new, instead presenting Canadian music as a living continuum shaped by geography, community, and experience. This approach helped normalize Canadian-written songs on national television at a moment when domestic content was still finding its footing.

The popularity of the series naturally extended into recordings. Beginning in 1964, CBC partnered with Arc Sound to issue a run of Singalong Jubilee LPs, including Singalong Jubilee, Singalong Jubilee Volume II, Volume III, and The Singalong Jubilee Christmas Album. These releases captured many of the show’s most requested performances and preserved early recordings by artists who would soon achieve major success. In the early 1970s, material from the program was reissued on RCA Camden, and later anthologized on CD, ensuring the music remained accessible long after the television series ended.

By the time Singalong Jubilee concluded in 1974, it had quietly reshaped the landscape of Canadian folk and country music. It provided sustained national exposure for regional artists, documented a broad cross-section of Maritime and Canadian traditions, and helped bridge the gap between community music-making and the professional recording industry. Today, the show stands as one of the clearest audiovisual records of Canada’s folk revival era—a program rooted in participation, regional pride, and the belief that the country’s most compelling music was already being sung at home.
-Robert Williston

Brian Ahern: leader, guitar
Don Burke: banjo
Earl Fralick: bass
Jack Lilly: drums

Engineered by Don Jackson

Liner notes:
An understandably anonymous bard has described a rouser as a song that is “singalong-able”. This mutilation of the language notwithstanding, those of us who are connected with the show welcome this opportunity to present twelve of our most singalongable rousers in one collection. Estimating conservatively, Bill Langstroth and Jim Bennet must have twelve hundred more tucked away, for rousers are the essence of SINGALONG JUBILEE, the type of song that is most readily identified with this, Canada’s top summertime TV program. Indeed, if SINGALONG JUBILEE is enjoyable because of its easy, informal and casual qualities, these qualities it owes to its musical content. It is hoped that fans of SINGALONG will enjoy our rousers on record as much as they do on television.
-Manny Pittson
Producer
SINGALONG JUBILEE

Comments