Ken Aoki, "My Grandfather´s Clock", at The 22nd BohemRagtimeJazzFestival.

The 22nd BohémRagtimeFestival, 2013, Kecskemét, Hungary, featured a great number of old goodies, such as "My Grandfather´s Clock", with Ken Aoki, an outstandingly skilled banjoplayer from Japan. Copied from Wikipedia: "Grand-Father's Clock" was first published in 1876. "My Grandfather's Clock" is a song written in 1876 by Henry Clay Work, the author of "Marching Through Georgia". It is a standard of British brass bands and colliery bands, and is also popular in bluegrass music. It has also been sung by male choruses such as the Robert Shaw Chorale. It was in this Piercebridge hotel that the author encountered a remarkable clock that inspired the song. The song, told from a grandson's point of view, is about his grandfather's longcase clock. It is purchased on the morning of his grandfather's birth and works perfectly for ninety years. When the grandfather brings his bride into his house, the clock rings 24 chimes. Before the grandfather dies, the clock rings an alarm and the family gathers by the old man's bed. When the grandfather dies the clock suddenly stops, and never works again. The Oxford English Dictionary says that the song is responsible for the fact that a longcase clock is also called a "grandfather clock". "My Grandfather's Clock" was often played in Britain on Children's Favourites and during that period was recorded by the Radio Revellers. In the United States, a version, without the last stanza of lyrics, was on an extended-play 45 rpm record on the Peter Pan label (the other song on that side was The Syncopated Clock, and the flip side had The Arkansas Traveler and Red River Valley). Johnny Cash covered the song twice on his 1959 album "Songs of Our Soil" and his 1975 album, The Johnny Cash Children's Album. Also in 1959, it was included on The Four Lads' album, Swing Along. Other versions became popular in other countries. It is well known to many generations in Japan. The song was the inspiration for the 1963 Twilight Zone episode "Ninety Years Without Slumbering", and was recorded by Boyz II Men in 2004. In the music for American Mcgee's Alice, and the accompanying soundtrack, a music box version of the chorus is included in the song, "I'm Not Edible". A Japanese cover by Ken Hirai (ookina furudokei) was a great success in Japan in 2002. In 2009, The Vietnamese singer -- Dai Nhan, covered and re-wrote this song with the new title "The Last Class" (or" Tiet Hoc Cuoi Cung"). Japanese pop vocalist Angela Aki, who is natively fluent in English, recorded this song in English on her 2011 album, White.
An Australian one hit wonder band "The Creaky Buttocks" had their moment of fame when their a cappella version of My Grandfather's Clock went to number 9 in Indy Charts. Jamaican guitar legend Ernest Ranglin recorded My Grandfather's Clock on numerous occasions, firstly in 1969 on Federal Records. Subsequently he recorded it on Below the Bassline and on Order of Distinction. The song is given a nod by the English band Half Man Half Biscuit in their song Joy Division Oven Gloves, which features the line My Grandfather's clock was too tall for the shelf/So I sold it and opened up a stall/Selling Joy Division Oven Gloves.