Back in the 1930s, the American song collectors John Lomax and his son, Alan, had recorded Lead Belly singing the song in Angola prison, Louisiana, where the blues musician was serving time for attempted murder.
Despite praising the track, Idolator blogger Becky Bain stated that "at this point she still looks like a teenager herself, so it's a little disconcerting seeing her with that huge belly, singing about motherhood".
(Lead Belly sang several other originals for the Lomaxes, including "Goodnight, Irene", which subsequently became a huge hit for the folk group the Weavers).
Before it was bought by the Polish Army Veterans Association of America in 1948, it had been a Yiddish theater and a burlesque house, and big, big names have appeared there: Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly sang at hootenannies in the 1940s, and Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, spoke there on a visit in 1976.
"Boobs, butt, bra straps, and belly!" she sang out.
Hankinson felt that the Grinch was "the perfect touchstone for the heartless Ms. Sylvester and Jane Lynch's lanky frame made the physical humor (think gliding around the base of the tree on her belly) really sing".
"They spent months snuggled with mama's pregnant belly, talking and singing to the unborn babies.
It's like being stuck in that Levi's commercial where the belly buttons are singing, only not everyone's looks that nice.
"Last year, in the main arena of the festival, we had Japanese drumming, belly dancing, Russian folk singing and martial arts.
With a voice that is sour, strange and belly deep, he sings songs of death and darkness and poor horses.
The Dormen Theatre was founded in Istanbul in 1955 by Haldun Dormen; in the 1971 World Theatre season in London the company performed A Tale of Istanbul, a comedy that included elements of folklore, a puppet show, singing, and a belly dance.
