Last December (2013) I published a post on the history of the wonderful Christmas spiritual, first recorded (to my knowledge) by The Stanley Brothers back in the early ’60s. You can find that post here. Judging from views, it’s the post that has attracted more attention than any other to date.
We determined there that “O Beautiful Star of Bethlehem” was written by R. Fisher Boyce, though Adger M. Pace is sometimes credited; he was apparently the arranger/harmonizer of the song for the James D. Vaughan Publishing Company, which bought the song from Mr. Boyce. See the original post for more about the song and the Boyce family.
At the time I could not find a YouTube file of The Stanley Brothers’ recording, but a search now finds one. No video, but at least you can listen:
Even better, you can now get The Stanleys’ original recording of “Beautiful Star” on CD, thanks to a reissue by the folks at Gusto Records:
You can order direct from Gusto (click here) or from other outlets, like Amazon. Of course, others have recorded the song, like Emmylou Harris, on her Light of the Stable Album:
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