Glenn Yarbrough

Glenn Yarbrough

Yarbrough in 1965
Background information
Birth name Glenn Robertson Yarbrough
Born (1930-01-12)January 12, 1930
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
Died August 11, 2016(2016-08-11) (aged 86)
Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
Genres Folk music
Occupation(s) Singer
Instruments Vocals, Guitar
Years active 1951–2010
Labels RCA Victor
Associated acts The Limeliters
Website glennyarbrough.com

Glenn Robertson Yarbrough (January 12, 1930 – August 11, 2016) was an American folk singer. He was the lead singer with the Limeliters from 1959 to 1963. He also had a prolific solo career, recording on various labels.

Biography

Yarbrough was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Bruce Yarbrough and Elizabeth Yarbrough (née Robertson). He grew up in New York City where he lived with his mother.[1] After leaving high school, he attended St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where he roomed with Jac Holzman and began performing after he and Holzman attended a concert by Woody Guthrie.[2]

During the Korean War he served in the United States Army, first as a codebreaker then joined the entertainment corps performing in Korea and Japan.[1] After military service, he moved to South Dakota, helped his father organize square dances, and started appearing on local television shows. By the mid-1950s, he started performing in clubs in Chicago, where he met club owner Albert Grossman and performers including Odetta and Shel Silverstein.[2] One of Elektra Records' first artists,[3] he was one of the first singers to record the traditional "The House of the Rising Sun."

In the late 1950s, Yarbrough moved to Aspen, Colorado, and ran a club, the Limelite. There he formed a folk group with Alex Hassilev and Louis Gottlieb, naming it after the club.

Career highlights

The group's first album, Limeliters, was released in 1960 on Holzman's Elektra label.[2] Yarbrough's lyric tenor voice was well-regarded.[1] Yarbrough left the Limeliters for a solo career in the mid-1960s. His most popular single, and the one for which he is most well-known today is "Baby the Rain Must Fall" (the theme tune from the film of the same name), which entered the Cashbox chart on March 27, 1965[4] and reached #12 pop and #2 easy listening. According to Chartmasters of Covington, Louisiana, the song was one of the all-time top 100 of the year.

Yarbrough provided vocals for the Rankin/Bass Productions animated versions of The Hobbit (1977) singing songs such as The Greatest Adventure, The Road Goes Ever On as well as The Return of the King (1980) singing "Frodo of the Nine Fingers" in addition to singing the title song in the 1966 holiday classic, The Christmas That Almost Wasn't. Yarbrough also performed Utah Composer Michael McLean's Forgotten Carols, creating a CD of the show as well as taking it on the road to local audiences in the 1990s.

There were several Limeliters reunion albums and tours, billed as Glenn Yarbrough and the Limeliters, from the early 1970s into the 1990s.

In 2016 (posthumously), the song "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven"[5] was sampled for a song by Ice Cube, which can be heard in a trailer[6] for the video game Mafia III.

Glenn Yarbrough was also an accomplished sailor who owned and lived aboard three different sailboats: Armorel, all teak and still in operation; Jubilee, which Yarbrough helped build, taking three years; and the Brass Dolphin a Chinese junk design, and has, according to Yarbrough, sailed around the world except for the Indian Ocean.

Later life

Yarbrough lost his ability to sing due to complications from throat surgery at the age of 80. In his last year or so of life, he suffered from dementia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other health problems, and was cared for by his daughter Holly in Nashville, Tennessee.[2][7] Holly recorded the album "Annie Get Your Gun" with her father in 1997.

Yarbrough died from complications of dementia in Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 86.[1]

Discography

Albums

Year Album Billboard 200 Record Label
1951 Follow the Drinking Gourd/The Reaper's Ghost – Stratford Records
1957 Come and Sit by My Side – Tradition Records
Songs By Glenn Yarbrough a.k.a. Here We Go Baby – Elektra Records
1958 Marilyn Child and Glenn Yarbrough Sing Folk Songs –
1964 Time to Move On – RCA Victor
One More Round 142
1965 Come Share My Life 112
Baby The Rain Must Fall 35
It's Gonna Be Fine 75
1966 The Lonely Things 61
Live at the Hungry I 85
1967 Honey and Wine 141
The Bitter and the Sweet –
For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her 159
1968 Let the World Go By –
We Survived the Madness –
1969 Looking Back ? Everest Records
1969 Each of Us Alone 18 Warner Bros. Records
Somehow, Someway; Yarbrough Country –
Glenn Yarbrough Sings the Rod McKuen Songbook 189
1970 Let Me Choose Life –
Jubilee; The Best of Glenn Yarbrough –
1971 Bend Down & Touch Me –
1974 My Sweet Lady – Stax Records
1977 Easy Now – Brass Dolphin Records
1977 The Hobbit (Rankin/Bass NBC Soundtrack) – Buena Vista Records
1994 Family Portrait – Folk Era Records
1995 Christmas with Glenn Yarbrough –
Love for Life –
Divine Love –
I Could Have Been a Sailor –
1997 Glenn & Holly Yarbrough Sing Annie Get Your Gun –
2000 Day the Tall Ships Came –
Chantyman –

With The Limeliters

Singles

Year Title Peak chart positions Record Label B-side Album
US AC
1957 "Here We Go, Baby" – – Elektra Records "All My Sorrows" Songs by Glenn Yarbrough
1964 "San Francisco Bay Blues" – – RCA Victor Records "The Honey Wind Blows" Time to Move On
"Jenny's Gone and I Don't Care" – – "An Acre of Gal to a Foot of Ground" Let the World Go By
1965 "Baby the Rain Must Fall" 12 2 "I've Been to Town" Baby the Rain Must Fall
"It's Gonna Be Fine" 54 9 "She"
"Ain't No Way" – – "You Can't Ever Go Home Again"
1966 "The Lonely Things" – – "Channing Way 2" The Lonely Things
"Spin Spin" – – "Love Are Wine"
1967 "Gently Here Beside Me" – – "Golden Under the Sun" For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her
"Honey and Wine" – – "Ain't You Glad You're Livin', Joe" Honey and Wine
1968 "Times Gone By" – – "Face in the Crowd" The Bitter and the Sweet
"Downtown L.A." – – Warner Bros. Records "Until You Happened to Pass By" Let Me Choose Life
1969 "Somehow, Someway" – – "Child of the Night Time"
"(Don't Let the Sun Shine on You) In Tulsa" – – "Wisconsin"
1970 "Jubilee" – – "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free"
"Goodbye Girl" – 35 Let Me Choose Life

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Fox, Margalit (August 12, 2016). "Glenn Yarbrough, Folk Singer With the Limeliters, Dies at 86". The New York Times. p. A14.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Thanki, Juli (August 12, 2016). "Singer Glenn Yarbrough dies at 86". The Tennessean.
  3. ↑ "Music Weird interviews Glenn Yarbrough". MusicWeird.com. March 26, 2014. Retrieved April 12, 2014.
  4. ↑ "Singles Chart". Cashbox. March 27, 1965. ISSN 0008-7289.
  5. ↑ From the album Joy Across the Land, by Glenn Yarbrough and the Limeliters (1993)
  6. ↑ Mafia III trailer on YouTube
  7. ↑ Lang, Derrik J. (August 12, 2016). "Limeliters folk singer Glenn Yarbrough dies at 86". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 10, 2016.
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