The New Christy Minstrels

If you prize authenticity, time is running out.  It seems that most old-fashioned musical concerts these days present only tribute bands, younger folks playing and singing in the style of well known idols, and what's the difference, as long as the programs are sincere and accurate? The difference for Randy Sparks and most of the born-again New Christy Minstrels is extraordinary excitement on a nightly basis.  The surviving Beatles could only be, at best, a duo, but there are five original Minstrels in a presentation of The New Christy Minstrels these days, occasionally as many as seven. Randy invented the format and founded the group in 1961, recorded them on the Columbia label in 1962, won a Grammy for their first album in '63, and reached millions of people across the world via television and their hit singles and albums.  Now they are back, and not just a famous name along with only newer, younger faces, but as John Madden might say it’s, 'the real deal.'

"I try not to explain my group to anybody under the age of fifty," says Sparks, "but if they really want to know about us, it helps to invoke names like Kim Carnes and Kenny Rogers and Barry McGuire, even John Denver and Steve Martin.  Kenny and Kim and Barry were helped along to greater fame and fortune by being members of The New Christy Minstrels, and whereas John and Steve were never Minstrels, they were discovered in the New Christy Minstrels-related talent scout operation in West Los Angeles.  It was Henry John Deutschendorf who came looking for a big break in showbiz, and I changed his name to John Denver, gave him his first job in music.  Steve Martin came to me as a banjo player, and actually became a comic on my stage. That's all part of our history."

Randy Sparks sold his controlling interest in the group at the peak of their success, devoting himself to other projects: The Back Porch Majority, The New Society, and being Burl Ives' writer and opening act for more than thirty years.  "When Burl moved on to join that Great Hootenanny In The Sky," explains Sparks, "I had the opportunity to do whatever I wanted with my remaining years...or months or minutes, so quite naturally, I decided to relive the glory days of my youth.  I was writing songs that sounded, amazingly enough, exactly like my old group, so I leased the name back from the fellows to whom I'd sold it 34 years earlier, and I was in the same business again.  Well, not exactly.  I began to read the disappointment in the faces of fans who had come to our show, expecting to see the likes of Clarence Treat and Dolan Ellis and Jackie Miller Davidson and Art Podell and Barry McGuire, all Class of 1962.   Nick Woods had died, so they understood why he wasn't there, but where were all the others?  It was difficult to explain to the crowd that nobody but a few younger performers wanted to join me in my reforming of the group.  We were hardly The New Christy Minstrels that they remembered.

I did that for two years, then gave back the name.  We became Randy Sparks & The Minstrels, and people, I think, understood that billing a lot better.  We were not trying to pretend to be the same gang I had led to importance decades earlier.

Then there were two important events that came along at about the same time.  PBS wanted me to reconvene my old group, with as many Original Minstrels as I could muster, to do a Special, American Soundtrack, and I explained to them that I had zero interest in performing in such a nostalgia show.  They wanted only our hit songs, and I'm much more interested in playing and singing the songs I wrote yesterday or last week.  I told them no, and so did Barry McGuire, for the same reason.

We both offered to do the show, only if they'd let us do a new number.  I had one in mind, so I wrote to them, offering to preface my song Just Americans with our version of This Land Is Your Land, one of our hits from 1962, explaining how similar conditions were back then and now, just after 9/11.  They liked the idea so well that they retitled their Special for us; that's how it became This Land Is Your Land."

“The other event," according to Randy Sparks, "had to do with a meddling presenter in Arizona.  He really wanted all-original performers when we agreed to do a concert for him, and he took the liberty of inviting one and all.  There were nineteen old and new Minstrels on stage, and that was a bit overwhelming, for the audience and performers alike, but from this happening there came along a movement to get the best possible group of old-timers and youngsters, just enough authenticity to convince the die-hard fans, and just enough young blood to maintain the amazing energy for which the big folk group was famous.  When the seven best candidates were selected and relentlessly trained and rehearsed, then we went on a few shake-down cruises, mini-tours around the country, and only then did we go back into the st udio to rerecord our old hits."  The resulting CD is titled The New Christy Minstrels RECYCLED, and Sparks says, "Even though most of us were over seventy, we outdid our previous efforts.  'How's that possible?' you ask...well, we have better technology these days, vastly superior electronics, and we've been rehearsing these same songs for forty-five years!"

There are three newer stars connected to The New Christy Minstrels.  One was awarded this past January at The NCM's major concert at The McCallum Theater in Palm Desert, CA.  The group now has its own small but impressive piece of real estate on The Walk of Stars in Palm Springs, a very pleasing honor for all concerned.  The other two stars represent a conscious and deliberate effort to prepare for the transition of eventually handing the group over to younger players.  They aren't so young as to be out-of-context or embarrassing, and they add significant energy and enthusiasm.  They are Becky Jo Benson, Class of 1997, and Eddie Boggs, Class of 1998.

Where is all this leading?  Randy Sparks, who is seventy-five and counting, hasn't a clue, so he says.  "It's more fun that any older person ought to be allowed to have, and we love what we're doing.  In fact, I'm thinking we'd likely have a glorious future, if we weren't so darned old!"

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