Here’s another piece composed by Willy Reske (1897-1991) of New York City. The music is dedicated to Claude Cyril Cornwall (1889-1983), originally from Salt Lake City and a member of the YMMIA General Board, who probably met Reske when Cornwall was based in Hoboken, New Jersey, from 1926-1933. During those years Cornwall was the recreation director aboard the S.S. Leviathan, one of the world’s great passenger liners … despite the American-registered ship’s legal requirement to comply with Prohibition.

Click here to hear “Christmas Carol” played by Keepa’s own “Phantom of the Chapel.”

As Joseph was a-walking, He heard an angel sing –
“This night shall be the birth night of Christ our heav’nly King.”
His birth bed shall be neither in house nor in hall,
Nor in the place of Pardise, but in the oxen’s stall.

“He neither shall be cloth-ed in purple nor in pall,
But in the fair white linen that usen babies all.”
Then be you glad, good people, at this time of the year;
And light you up your candles; His star, it shineth clear.