The New Christy Minstrels®
Under the Direction of Randy Sparks

Been there, done that! In the humorous words of Yogi Berra, ‘It’s like deja vu all over again!’ Randy Sparks, presiding over a faithfully restored group offering no less than three Original New Christy Minstrels, reclaim their rightful place on stage & in the hearts & minds of millions. “Life is wonderful,” says Randy, “so much better than before. We’ve also been blessed with old age and the wisdom that arrives therewith, so we can better appreciate how special is our time on each and every stage. We love what we do.” Sparks invented the BIG FOLK GROUP concept and format in 1961. He actually sat down with a pen and a notebook and designed his dream band, a happy blending of the exuberance of The Kingston Trio with the choral harmony of The Norman Luboff Choir. The name came from his reading on the struggles of Stephen Foster. Steve had been a wannabe songwriter with a whole pile of good ditties that nobody wanted; ditto R. Sparks. Foster solved his problem by leaning on the most popular musical ensemble of his era, Christy’s Minstrels, and shortly became a household name. ‘Might the same formula work again more than a hundred years later?’ Randy Sparks asked himself. The answer was yes. Randy and his group rode their musical chariot to the very top of the mountain, achieving world prominence, then wandered away, one by one, busying themselves with other challenges, always performing, but not being billed as The NCM. “When my mentor and friend Burl Ives died,” Randy explains, “I suddenly had more time to devote to other forms of music, and I began writing for my old group again. A reunion concert became the logical next step, and the restored group has now been in high gear for more than four years.

For more information about these Grammy Award-winning Folk Giants,
please visit: www.thenewchristyminstrels.com
and the web site for their newly established NEW CHRISTY MINSTRELS FOUNDATION www.newchristyminstrelsfoundation.org

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Randy Sparks' Take On His 1961 Invention

It doesn't quite rival the creation of the airplane or the hula hoop, but I invented
the big folk group, and if I'm not allowed to be proud of that, what else do I have?
Yes, I'm glad that my offspring are decent human beings, all fending for themselves admirably enough, but I didn't do that; they did. I like being counted as a fountain instead of a drain, a sail, rather than an anchor, and I appreciate being
listed among the movers and shakers. What I really created was a juggernaut, and I have learned to my occasional dismay that it rolls along quite well, no matter who's aboard or who is supposedly in charge. My juggernaut has been hijacked so many times that a volume on its actual history would rival War And Peace in number of pages, but its chronicles has been rewritten with every conquest. I founded The New Christy Minstrels, created the name, hired all the performers, wrote most of the music, and produced most of the recordings through the first nine albums, including all of the hits, but once the stewardship was entrusted to others, my name disappeared almost completely. Now I'm back, and although some of those folks who ran the group for so many years deserve much credit for their tending the fires, keeping it alive, I am following their example and leaving their credits off the scroll. No, I didn't do it all by myself, but all the others are gone, and I can't seem to remember their names.

This story begins with Stephen Foster, the songwriter. He's one of the reasons that
I became a songwriter, and he inspired the name of my group. One day in the
Vancouver, WA Public Library, I read that Steve once had a problem similar to mine. He had written a pile of good songs that nobody wanted, and his solution was brilliant. He leaned on the most popular musical group of his era, Christy's Minstrels, later dubbed The Christy Minstrels, to get his ditties heard by the public, and my light-bulb moment came along as soon as I connected the dots from his winning formula to my troubled career. I would call my group The New Christy Minstrels. E. P. Christy's ensemble wasn't a big group, just six in number, but the
formula was admirable: everybody did double-duty, each performer with a solo offering, playing and singing, dancing, doing humorous sketches; then they all joined together for rousing choruses. I wanted more people in my group. The
original target number was fourteen. My dream group would have the brash, imperfect excitement of the Kingston Trio, but with enough good singers to rival the Norman Luboff Choir. It worked.

I'm pleased to point out that there have been two high-points in the story of The NCM: The first three years were wonderfully successful, and the pace of the restored group in the past three years has been phenomenal. For a while there, we did it with most of the same performers who were onboard in 1962-'64. Even now, we boast three Original Minstrels, and that's three more than The Kingston Trio has nowadays. It's also three more than The Limeliters can throw at an audience. We still have an abundance of authenticity, with just enough younger performers to
promise another forty years of happy juggernauting. RS

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Top photo taken by Mari McGuire May 2, 2010 ©2010
Bottom photo courtesy of Life Magazine