music Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Xmas songs on non-seasonal albums

Getting Ready

One can find several Xmas songs on non-seasonal albums, so this is hardly a complete list. Of course, what a Christmas song is has baffled many for decades.

Is Baby, It’s Cold Outside a holiday song? It shows up on a number of both seasonal and non-seasonal albums. Ditto My Favorite Things from The Sound Of Music; Kelly says YES.

I assert that River, from Joni Mitchell’s legendary 1971 album Blue, qualifies: It’s coming on Christmas
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – James Taylor, the last song on his 2001 album October Road.

There are at least a couple Lyle Lovett tracks. Christmas Morning is from his 1996 album, The Road to Ensenada, and The Girl With The Holiday Smile is from his 2012 album, Release Me.

2000 Miles by The Pretenders is from their 1983 album Learning to Crawl. Wikipedia: “It was most popular in the UK, where it peaked at No. 15 on the UK Singles Chart in December 1983. In the US, it was released as the B-side of both the 7-inch single and 12-inch single remix of the band’s hit “Middle of the Road”.

My father had, and I currently own, the LP Negro Folks for Young People, sung by Leadbelly. It included the very short Christmas Is a Comin’.

Christmas Tree Farm by Taylor Swift was included on her deluxe edition of Lover and the 2020 album evermore.

Child of Winter was a late 1974 Beach Boys track that I have on the 1975 Loss Leaders album The Works.

Same Old Lang Syne by Dan Fogelberg was released as a single in 1980 and included on his 1981 album The Innocent Age.

A fave rave

Tom Petty’s Christmas All Over Again appears on A Very Special Christmas 2 (1992) but is also included on a CD in the Tom Petty box set. This is one of my favorite holiday songs.

Likewise, Jackson 5’s Christmas Album was released in 1970, but two of the songs contained therein, Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town and the somewhat treacly Christmas Won’t Be The Same This Year, appear in their box set.

Links to Simon & Garfunkel Christmas include a couple of early album cuts, plus Star Carol & Comfort and Joy from their box set. It also contains a couple of Amy Grant/Garfunkel songs. It ends with the bawdy Steve Martin piece, What Christmas Means to Me, with Simon and Billy Joel singing Silver Bells. But it does NOT include Getting Ready for Christmas Day from Paul Simon’s 2011 album, So Beautiful Or So What.

Finally, a video from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Merry Christmas And Happy Chanukah From “Weird Al” Yankovic

Guitar virtuoso Steve Cropper (1941-2025)

STAX Records songwriter, composer, producer

FILE – Guitarist, songwriter and record producer Steve Cropper poses Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

Because I’ve known about Steve Cropper for decades, I forget that others weren’t so fortunate. It’s partially due to STAX Records having a less prominent profile in popular music in the 1960s than Motown.

Rob Bowman wrote the detailed Soulsville, U.S.A.: The Story of STAX Records, published in 1997. Steve Cropper is mentioned no fewer than 100 times. There was also a four-part HBO documentary in 2024 of the same name, with Bowman as a consultant.

Cropper was a founding member of the Mar-Keys and Booker T. and the MGs. He, among many others, worked at the Satellite Record Store, which STAX co-founder Estelle Axton ran; it became a “conduit for talent.” Estelle’s brother, STAX co-founder Jim Stewart, recognizing Steve’s acute ear, picked Cropper to be the STAX A&R man in 1965.

Waren Haymes noted, “It is quite another thing entirely to be part of creating a sound or a ‘movement.’ Steve Cropper… helped invent a genre- ‘the Memphis sound’ [with the other MGs] (among others) was an integral part of the bigger movement at that time, which came to be known as Soul Music, which changed the lives of millions of hungry music lovers- myself included.

“As a gifted songwriter and producer, his rhythms laid the foundation for the groove in Booker T. & The M.G.’s and The Mar-Keys. Known for his riveting guitar licks and prolific songwriting, his sound became a defining voice of the Stax era on classics like Eddie Floyd’s ‘Knock On Wood, Otis Redding’s ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,’ and Wilson Pickett’s ‘In the Midnight Hour.'”

Post-STAX

After leaving STAX in 1970, he kept busy. From the Songwriters Hall of Fame page: “Producing soon became second nature as ‘The Colonel’ turned out timeless tracks by such renowned artists as Wilson Pickett, Tower of Power, John Mellencamp, Jose Feliciano, Poco, John Prine, and Otis Redding. Cropper’s exemplary guitar work can be heard on the albums of Rod Stewart, Peter Frampton, Art Garfunkel, Booker T. and the MG’s, Ringo Starr, and Wynonna, to name a few. He has toured with such greats as Neil Young and Jimmy Buffett.

“In the late ’70s, Steve began his now-famous work as an original member of the Blues Brothers Band, appearing in both major motion pictures and numerous TV shows.”

From an interview in Uncut Take 331 (November 2024), “You might wanna write this,” says Steve Cropper, handily summarising his myriad musical achievements. “There are only three people in history who are in all three halls of fame – the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, the Musicians’ Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame: Keith Richards, Roy Orbison, and Steve Cropper. Pretty good company!”

Jim Peterik of Ides of March wrote what many others shared: “Perhaps the best part of this was getting to ‘hang’ with him and hear his stories, all of which were of definitive moments in music history. He was a true Southern Gentleman, humble and warm.” And, as others noted, a hockey fan.

Wikipedia

New York Times (gift link)

NPR, including part of a 1990 interview with Terry Gross

Here’s Play It, Steve, 30 videos celebrating his legacy, and a narrative

Chinese Checkers -Booker T & The MG’s (Stax S-137, 1963)

Soul Man – the Blues Brothers (SNL)

A Beatles Christmas again

War is Over, if you want it

I thought I would do A Beatles Christmas again, as I did in 2016. This year is Ringo Starr’s 85th birthday, and would have been John Lennon’s as well. It’s also the 45th anniversary of John’s death this month.

As some may know, the group “sent out spoken and musical messages on flexi disc to members of their official fan clubs in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) each Christmas between 1963 and 1969. An LP compilation of all seven was sent out in 1970, entitled From Then to You in the UK and The Beatles Christmas Album in the US.” I have said US LP; of course, I do.

From here: “The Fan Club Christmas Messages is more about the wit and humor the Beatles shared than actual musical quality. This is more about the ‘funny four’ than the ‘fab four.’ In the middle years (‘65-‘67), these Christmas Messages might be compared to ‘You Know My Name (Look Up The Number).'”

Unsurprisingly, some of the links from nine years ago don’t work. Moreover, there are no available replacements for some songs, but several YouTube tracks are mislabelled. Some are Beatles outtakes, but a chunk are misrepresented as being by the Beatles when they are purported soundalikes.

The songs

Beatles Christmas Records from 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1969.

Christmas Time Is Here Again is a song from the Free As A Bird single (1995), copped from the 1967 Christmas record that I can’t find. Here’s an extended snippet.

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) – John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Harlem Community Choir (1971). This made me cry every time I heard it in 1980.

Ding Dong – George Harrison (1974). More of a New Year’s tune.

Wonderful Christmastime – Paul McCartney and Wings (1979). Quite the hated tune.

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reggae – Paul McCartney and Wings (1979). Though the B-side, the song is from 1975

I Wanna Be Santa Claus – Ringo Starr (1999)

The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) – Paul McCartney with Diana Krall (2012)

Wonderful Christmastime – Straight No Chaser feat. Paul McCartney (2013)

So what else do we have?

All I Want For Christmas Is A Beatle – Dora Bryan with an accompaniment directed by Johnny Gregory (1963)

Jingle Bells – Fab Four

Top Country Christmas Hits

Eddy Arnold

From Joel Whitburn’s Christmas in the Charts, 1920 to 2004, Top Country Christmas Hits lists the peak positions these seasonal songs reached on the country charts.

If We Make It Through December– Merle Haggard, from 1973, four weeks at #1 CW, #28 pop

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer – Gene Autry with the Pinafores from 1949, one week at #1 CW, #1 pop for one week. It eventually sold eight million copies, second only to Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. A new version of the song got to #70 pop in 1957.

Blue Christmas – Ernest Tubb from 1949, one week at #1 CW, #21 pop in 1950. “The song was originally recorded by American country singer, musician, and actor Doye O’Dell in 1948. It was popularized the following year in three separate recordings: one by Tubb, one by musical conductor and arranger Hugo Winterhalter and his orchestra and chorus, and one by bandleader Russ Morgan and his orchestra. Elvis Presley cemented the status of the song as a rock-and-roll holiday classic by recording it for his 1957 LP Elvis’ Christmas Album.

Snow Flake – Jim Reeves from 1966, three weeks at #2 CW, #66 pop

Jason Ritter’s grandfather

Christmas Carols By The Old Corral – Tex Ritter from 1945, one week at #2 CW. Maurice Woodeward Ritter was the star of c. 85 Hollywood westerns from 1935 to 1945. The late John Ritter was his son.

Thank God for Kids – Oak Ridge Boys from 1982, two weeks at #3 CW

Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane) -Gene Autry from 1948, one week at number 4 CW. It reached #8 pop in 1948 and #24 pop in 1949

Frosty the Snowman – Gene Autry with the Cass County Boys and Carl Cotner’s Orchestra, from 1950, one week at number 4 CW. #7 pop in 1951, #23 pop in 1952

Will Santy Come to Shantytown – Eddy Arnold from 1949, one week at #5 CW

C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S – Eddy Arnold from 1949, three weeks at #7 CW, co-written by Arnold

Top R&B Christmas Hits

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

From Joel Whitburn’s Christmas in the Charts, 1920 to 2004, Top R&B Christmas Hits lists the peak positions these seasonal songs reached on the Billboard rhythm and blues charts.

White Christmas – Bing Crosby with the Ken Darby Singers, orchestra conducted by John Scott Trotter (Berlin) from 1942, #1 for three weeks RB, #1 for 11 weeks pop, from the film Holiday Inn. It was the “1947 Bing remake that piled up the majority of the title’s sales from its subsequent reissue throughout the decades on nearly all 78s, 45s, LPs, cassettes, and CDs.”

White Christmas – The Drifters from 1954, #2 for one week RB. Not only is this one of my favorite carols, it’s a wonderful video cartoon by Joshua Held. Featuring Bill Pinkney on lead bass and Clyde McPhatter on tenor.

Let’s Make Christmas, Baby – Amos Milburn from 1949, #3 for four weeks RB. Is it just me, or is this song blue, and I don’t mean sad?

The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You) – Nat King Cole from 1946, #3 for three weeks RB, #3 pop. Every year, Mark Evanier shares a story about this song some know as “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…'”and Mel Tormé, who co-wrote the song

Merry Christmas, Baby – Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers with Charles Brown from 1947, #3 for two weeks RB. Co-writer Moore also is the guitarist; Brown does piano and vocals.

This is rhythm and blues?

The Chipmunk Song – The Chipmunks with David Seville (Ross Bagdasarian) from 1958, #5 for one week RB. #1 for weeks pop in 1958, then #41 pop in 1959, #45 pop in 1960, #39 pop in 1961 and #40 pop in 1962. My house had a copy of this single when I was growing up; the label was greenish.

(It’s Gonna Be A ) Lonely Christmas -The Orioles from 1949, #5 for one week RB

Faraway Blues (Xmas Blues) – Johnny Otis Orchestra with Little Esther and Mel Walker from 1950, #6 for two weeks RB. I wrote about Otis here back in 2008.

Silent Night (Christmas Hymn) – Sister Rosetta Tharpe with the Rosetta Gospel Singers from 1949, #6 for one week RB. She was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018 as an early influence. “Sister Rosetta was the first guitar heroine of rock & roll. Her heartfelt gospel folksiness gave way to her roaring mastery of her trusty Gibson Les Paul Custom, which she wielded on a level that rivaled the best of her male contemporaries.”

Lonesome Christmas (Part 1 and 2) – Lowell Folson from 1950, #7 for one week RB