Christmas Archives - Page 12 of 18

Music Throwback Saturday: White Christmas

“The version sung by Bing Crosby is the best-selling single of all time, with estimated sales in excess of 100 million copies worldwide.”

There are, as far as I can ascertain, only two versions of perennial favorite White Christmas that charted on both the pop and the rhythm & blues charts.

One was the version by the Drifters, which got to #2 on the R&B charts in 1954 and returned to the top 12 the next two years. It also got up to #80 on the pop charts in 1955, and showed up on the lower parts of the pop charts the next few years. There were also special Christmas charts where the song showed up in the 1960s.

The other version was by an obscure crooner named Bing Crosby. In 1942, his version topped the pop charts a staggering 11 weeks and led the R&B charts for three weeks. The song hit the Top 10 in both charts in 1943. It re-entered the pop charts every year from then until 1951, and again from 1953 to 1962 before the Christmas carts were instituted in 1963 and dominated for many years.

There was a version recorded in 1947 by Crosby, which supplanted the iteration from Holiday Inn, the 1942 movie, because “the original masters had been worn out from all the pressings.”

From Wikipedia: Irving Berlin “often stayed up all night writing — he told his secretary, ‘Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I’ve ever written — heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody’s ever written!’

Here are movie facts from the 1954 movie White Christmas, starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye.

“The version sung by Bing Crosby is the best-selling single of all time, with estimated sales in excess of 100 million copies worldwide.”

Listen to
Bing Crosby 1942 here
Bing Crosby in the movie Holiday Inn (1942) here
Bing Crosby 1947 here
Bing Crosby & Danny Kaye, from the 1954 movie here

The Drifters here or here

A Beatles Christmas, in memory of John Lennon

As Christmas approached in 1980, the year John Lennon died, the song of his that made me most melancholy, other than the suddenly ironic (Just Like) Starting Over, was Merry Xmas (War Is Over). When someone has been advocating for peace, and is shot down by a fan, it just boggled the mind.

And so this is Xmas (war is over)
For weak and for strong (if you want it)
For rich and the poor ones (war is over)
The world is so wrong (if you want it)
And so happy Xmas (war is over)
For black and for white (if you want it)
For yellow and red ones (war is over)
Let’s stop all the fight (now)

A very Merry Xmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

I was going to post some of those Beatles Christmas 45s, which I have collected on an LP, but, thankfully, someone had already uploaded The Beatles – Complete Christmas Records, which came out every year from 1963 to 1969. Collectively, the cuts reflect the increasingly greater sophistication of the band’s music, as well as the eventually fractured nature of the group.

Even better, I discovered that someone else has made available The History of the Beatles’ Christmas, including everything from Merry Xmas to Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney to Ding Dong by George Harrison to some obscure Ringo song, plus those Beatles Christmas cuts, even the edited version of Christmastime is Here Again that came out at the time of the Beatles Anthology albums.

I’ve also come across a cover band called The Fab Four, which performs Christmas carols in the style of Beatles songs. The whole double CD you can find HERE. My favorite song on the album is the final one, Jingle Bells, performed in the style of the Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows. It shows the versatility of that last song on Revolver.

And for reasons that will become obvious, Come Together, a Christmas video for Swedish multinational clothing retailer, H&M. It was directed by Wes Anderson, and stars Adrien Brody.

Oh, yeah – All I Want For Christmas Is A Beatle – Dora Bryan (1963)

V is for A Very Special Christmas

Since the release of the first A Very Special Christmas album in 1987, the series has raised over $100 million for Special Olympics, more than any other benefit series.

I decided to do a second V post this week, the latter focusing on A Very Special Christmas, because:

1) My friend Carla had only recently heard a song from that first album, and didn’t know about the compilations

2) It is St. Nicholas Day, and I needed an excuse to put some more holiday music herein

3) It’s Wednesday, at least in some hemisphere

A Very Special Christmas is “the title of an ongoing series of Christmas music compilation albums that benefit Special Olympics,” and I own the first seven albums. It was “the brainchild of music producer Jimmy Iovine, who wanted to produce a Christmas album as a memorial to his father. The idea of the record benefiting Special Olympics was suggested by Iovine’s wife Vicki, as she was a volunteer for the organization.

“Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, the founders of A&M Records, along with Bobby Shriver, helped the Iovines realize the project. Since the release of the first album in 1987, the series has raised over $100 million for Special Olympics, more than any other benefit series. The album cover art is designed by artist Keith Haring.”

I’ve linked to each of the titles AND artists below (except Natalie Merchant, for whom I found only one acceptable version).

A Very Special Christmas (1987) – the original, and still my favorite. A few songs swiped the arrangements of Phil Spector’s Christmas album of a quarter of a century earlier.

1. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town – The Pointer Sisters
2. Winter Wonderland – Eurythmics
3. Do You Hear What I Hear? – Whitney Houston
4. Merry Christmas Baby – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band – Live track
7. Gabriel’s Message – Sting
8. Christmas in Hollis– Run-D.M.C.
10. Santa Baby – Madonna; Done previously by Eartha Kitt
14. The Coventry Carol – Alison Moyet

A Very Special Christmas 2 (1992)

1. Christmas All Over Again – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, written by Petty
16. What Child Is This? – Vanessa Williams

A Very Special Christmas 3 (1997) – ah, these are coming out every five years

3. Children Go Where I Send Thee – Natalie Merchant
8. Oíche Chiún – Enya. Almost every AVSC album has Silent Night, and this is my favorite version
16. We Three Kings – Patti Smith

A Very Special Christmas Live (1999) – or maybe not. “The album was recorded live in Washington, D.C. in December 1998 at a benefit party held by then-President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of Special Olympics.”

A Very Special Christmas 5 (2001) – “Several of the album’s tracks were recorded live in Washington, D.C. in December 2000 at a benefit concert hosted by then-President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton.”

A Very Special Acoustic Christmas (2003) – “As opposed to earlier editions that contained a wide variety of musical styles, this version… featured primarily Country and Bluegrass artists.” I found this only a season or two ago.

A Very Special Christmas 7 (2009) – and there are others, related to the theme, and benefiting the Special Olympics, which I don’t have (yet) such as Jazz to the World (1995) and World Christmas (1996). Maybe next year, I’ll list tracks from the later albums.

ABC Wednesday – Round 19

Music Throwback Christmas: For Unto Us A Child Is Born

Merry Christmas!

Isaiah 9:6 King James Version (KJV)

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Here are three traditional versions of the Handel Messiah piece:

Artist not listed. Some commenters think the tempo is a little fast; I think other versions can be a bit too slow.
Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Sir Colin Davis, Tenebrae, London Symphony Orchestra

Here is the Handel’s Messiah: A Soulful Celebration version:

Sounds of Blackness

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve 2015

A couple years, I’m drawing a complete blank.

One of the lovely things about December 24, Christmas Eve, pretty much since 1983, is that I know what I’ll be doing that evening: singing in church.

Back in the 1980s, the service at the Methodist church started at 10:30 p.m., and ended about midnight; when I went home, it was almost always snowing lightly. The service at my current church begins much earlier, but there’s a certain familiarity about the celebration, though the forecast this year is that the daytime temperatures will be in the 50s F (low teens C).

What I started thinking about was what did I do in the decade before I returned to the church. At least one year in the 1970s, I went to some random Roman Catholic church. Another year, I went with my then-girlfriend to her mother’s home near New York City; by New Year’s Eve, we had broken up.

Probably went out to eat with my girlfriend in the late 1970s, but what the heck did I do in 1980, after we had broken up earlier that month?

One Christmas, probably 1975, I lived in this coffeehouse in New Paltz, but, like the dorms, we had to vacate it during the winter break. I hitchhiked down to New York City and spent a week with my great aunt Charlotte. Surely we did NOT go to church – that wasn’t her thing – but we had a good time visiting cultural events that week.

Still, for a few years, I’m drawing a complete blank.

This is to say that I LIKE the tradition of going to church on Christmas eve. It’s not just theologically significant. It creates a sense of tradition when I feign not having one.

Links

1966 CBS holiday messaage, which I well remember.

Several versions of 12 Days of Christmas; the first one is my favorite.

Christmas Dishes From Around the World.

Mark Evanier’s Mel Torme story.

Listening While Feminist: In Defense of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”.

Charles Mingus’ Secret Eggnog recipe will knock you on your ass.

Tag: Christmas