Presenting the New Christy Minstrels

The New Christy Minstrels were created by singer/songwriter Randy Sparks in 1961 by combining three smaller folk groups, the Inn Group trio (John Forsha, Karol Dugan, Jerry Yester), the Fairmount Singers quartet and his own Randy Sparks trio (Sparks, Jackie Miller, Nick Woods). He also included banjo player Billy Cudmore, folk-blues singer Terry Wadsworth, folk singer Dolan Ellis, jazz singer Peggy Connelly and singer/guitarist Art Podell. Sparks was experimenting with the notion of a folk orchestra and wanted to create a folk supergroup.[3]

The 14-piece group worked well together until "literally days" before recording their debut album when the Fairmount Singers were forced to withdraw because of a "poorly scheduled prior engagement."[3] Reduced to 10 members, the ensemble regrouped in mid-April 1962 and recorded Presenting the New Christy Minstrels.[3]

Randy Sparks directed and arranged the music and wrote four of the songs. The 14 tracks on Presenting the New Christy Minstrels are mostly traditional songs or covers of songs by other artists. Much of the material on the album would later become "synonymous with the early-'60s youth-driven folk movement."[3]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]
Record Mirror	[8]

In a review of Presenting the New Christy Minstrels,AllMusic critic Lindsay Planer was impressed by the ensemble's "rousing rendition" of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" and Terry Wadsworth's "lilting and poignant" song "Don't Cry, Suzanne".[3] Planner called Wadsworth's "Wellinbrook Well" an "underrated classic" and described Randy Sparks's "Whistle" as a "brilliant bout of wordplay."[3] Planner said that the most memorable performances on the album were "That Big Rock Candy Mountain", "Cotton Picker's Song", "Oh! Shenando" and "In the Pines".[3]

Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr., also of AllMusic. wrote in a review of the compilation album Presenting & In Person that while the album "captures the group's youthful, happy sound in all its glory," the presence of songs such as "The Cotton Picker's Song" seemed "ill-chosen."[7] Lankford wrote: "Anyone vaguely familiar with songs associated with Leadbelly will wonder what a group of vibrant middle-class white kids know about picking cotton or sleeping in the pines all night."[7]