1992- "Christmas All Over Again"

[.....This entry was supposed to have been dated the 16th, but I've recently switched to a laptop and, in the reverse of my old PC, using the Google Chrome browser eliminates all control over font size and style and other composition tools. Oddly, I can now use those tools only in the otherwise clumsier Explorer browser.]

.....Gradually supplanting Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams and Bing Crosby as holiday standards are the excellent A VERY SPECIAL CHRISTMAS albums benefitting Special Olympics. I haven't covered them much here because they are mostly covers, albeit distinctly arranged covers. The first volume had only one original composition, the excellent "CHRISTMAS IN HOLLIS" by Run-D.M.C. The second had a few more, including another Run-D.M.C. number and this from an artist who had nothing he felt was good enough for the first album.

• 04:12 "CHRISTMAS ALL OVER AGAIN" (Tom Petty)
• performed by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
• original source: VACD A VERY SPECIAL CHRISTMAS 2 A&M 31454 0003-2 (US) 10/92
• and my source: 6CD PLAYBACK MCA Records MCAD6-11375 (US) 1995

.....I can't remember now if I bought Volume 2 of the Special Olympics album; I've heard it, and this song was the lead track. It was just promising enough to get me to follow through the rest of the album, which makes better listening than appearances would indicate. Volume 2 had half the star power of Volume 1. The biggest names were from previous generations (Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Charles Brown) and, although both Run-D.M.C. and Bon Jovi returned from the 1987, there were few other contemporary performers comparable to U2, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Sting or Bruce Springsteen. Michael Bolton, Debbie Gibson, Paul Young and Vanessa Williams didn't have much more weight then than they do now. There was, however, talent in there (Boyz II Men, Sinead O'Connor and a dream duet by Ronnie Spector and Darlene Love).

.....One good reason for using the PLAYBACK box as a source is that Petty wrote notes for every track, in varying detail. He had quite a bit to say about this song: "To me and Mike [Campbell, bandmate] there's only one Christmas album in the pop field and that's Phil Spector's-- that was the only one we could relate to." Since Spector was famous for getting the most out of a lo-tech recording process, Petty wanted any Christmas recording he did to be live-in-the-studio, meaning that he would not be able to use the modern practice of recording each musician's parts separately and then combining them in the mixing process to make them sound as though they were playing as a band. To do what he wanted he would not only have to write an original song but arrange each part and schedule rehearsals so that an entire ensemble would be as coordinated as if they had been touring and playing the song together every night on stage, otherwise they'd be doing dozens of takes when they got to the studio......

.....What Tom Petty had after Volume 1 came out that he didn't have before (when he was first approached to do a song) was The Traveling Wilburys. George Harrison gave Tom the ukelele used to write "CHRISTMAS ALL OVER AGAIN". "I took the ukelele with me to my house in Florida in the middle of the summer and wrote this Christmas song." Petty and Campbell and the rest of the Heartbreakers joined producer Jimmy Iovine at A&M Studios where Iovine had booked the remaining studio musicians, including Mitchell Froom, Jim Keltner and fellow Wilbury Jeff Lynne. Lynne helped produce the additional vocals after the original sessions and worked with Petty in the post-production process. The final mix was credited to Richard Dodd.

[posted January 7th, 2012]

1963- "All I Want For Christmas Is You"

.....This single actually has two originals, so we'll lead with the A-side.

• 02:00 "ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU" ([A.C.] Williams)
• 02:40 b/w "GEE WHIZ, IT'S CHRISTMAS" ([Carla] Thomas, [Steve] Cropper, [Vinnie] Trauth)
• performed by Carla Thomas
• original source: 7" Atlantic 45-2212 (US) 12/63
• and my source: VACD THE ORIGINAL SOUL CHRISTMAS Rhino/Atlantic and Atco Remasters Series R2 71788 (US) 1994

.....Carla Thomas is the daughter of soul and R&B legend Rufus Thomas, but while Rufus was a master of dance crazes and innuendo Carla became an artist in her own right with more straightforward mainstream hits while still in her late teens. These tracks were recorded on September 26th, 1963 in New York City for producer Jim Stewart, who had worked with Cropper when producing Booker T. and the MG's. 1963 was a great year for Christmas pop music with the Beach Boys' "LITTLE SAINT NICK" and albums from the Miracles and the Spector artists. This fine entry probably would have been lost in the crowd had the B-side not been a call back to a familiar hit from two years earlier. The A-side is the more solid tune, even if a little spare in this first recording. The actual running time on the 1994 CD I cited above 1:41; the time of 2:00 that I gave above is from the original vinyl's label (visible at Discogs and 45cat). The label also provides only last names of the composers, hence my use of the brackets in the notation. A.C. Williams was a long time Memphis, Tennessee disc jockey with strong connections to the music community there. It was on a label closer to home, Stax, that Carla Thomas issued a rerecording of the song:

• 02:50 "ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU" (A.C. Williams) [version 2]
• 02:53 b/w "WINTER SNOW" ([Isaac?] Hayes)
• performed by Carla Thomas
• original source: 7" Stax S-206 (US) Nov. 18, 1966

.....All I really know about "WINTER SNOW" is that Booker T. released a single by that name in 1968, two years after a Christmas album that didn't include it. I guess that's something to look for next year. The new A-side opens with a string section not on the original and has a slower tempo. Thomas is also displaying much greater control over her voice, taking some lines down almost to a whisper (counter to intuition for us non-singers, that's actually more difficult to sing at than the volume of a normal speaking voice). The lyrics are exactly the same, following a A-B-B verse order. Unfortunately, neither version made it onto VALP SOUL CHRISTMAS Atco Records SD33-269 (US) Nov. 8th, 1968. Instead, "GEE WHIZ, IT'S CHRISTMAS" closes its first side. Years later when the tracks from the first single were licensed to King Records for a seasonal reissue (7" King GG4816 (US) 1979), "GEE WHIZ, IT'S CHRISTMAS" became the A-side. It also became her default contribution to holiday various artists' albums with at least two notable exceptions.

.....In 1991 producer Yves Beauvais, then director of the Atlantic and Atco Remasters division at Warners, took advantage of the greater capacity of compact discs to compile the more ambitious 65 minute VACD SOUL CHRISTMAS Atlantic 7 82316-2 (US) 1991. This brought together the 1963 B-side "GEE WHIZ, IT'S CHRISTMAS" with the 1966 A-side "ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU"[version 2]. This must have prompted some kind of reaction from purists because only three years later the same division released a CD [refer to my notation at the top of this post] restoring the original program and artwork of the 1968 VALP SOUL CHRISTMAS, adding new liner notes and three bonus tracks, but calling it THE ORIGINAL SOUL CHRISTMAS. One of the bonus tracks was the original 1963 "ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU", reuniting it with its B-side for the first time on an album.

1974- "Star Of Bethlehem"

.....In the 1970's most new original Christmas music came from rock musicians in the U.K. and soul musicians in the U.S. Very little came from rockers in the U.S. (or soulsters in the U.K., for that matter) besides covers, notably Bruce Springsteen's "SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN". This is a sweet and subdued exception.

• 02:42 "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" (Neil Young)
• perfrormed by Neil Young
• original source: LP AMERICAN STARS 'N BARS Reprise Records MSK 2261 (US) May 27, 1977
• and my source: 2CD DECADE Reprise CD2257-2 (US) 1990

.....The compilation DECADE was previously released on vinyl (as SRS 2257) on October 20, 1977, mere months after the latest album from which it drew selections like this. Funny thing is, if you check out the catalogue number of LP AMERICAN STARS 'N BARS you may notice that it falls numerically just after that for 3LP DECADE. For any music label with a healthy release schedule those numbers are completely unrelated to order of release, but they are assigned in order at an early stage of production. Before I make this any more complicated than it needs to be, I should offer a brief chronology:

1. In November 1974 the song "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" is recorded, produced by Eliot Mazer. The line up is: Neil Young on acoustic guitar, harmonica and vocal; Emmylou Harris on vocal; Ben Keith on dobro and vocal; Tim Drummond on bass; and Karl T. Himmel on drums.
2. Young writes this about the song, later used in the liner notes of DECADE: "I cut this in Nashville where I cut HARVEST, but much later in late '74. It is from the unreleased album HOMEGROWN, sort of a sequel to HARVEST."
3. At about this time Frank Sampedro joined Crazy Horse as a guitarist. None of the band's regular members are credited on this track, although Ben Keith would later do session work for them (see below). Emmylou Harris, obviously, is also not a member of Crazy Horse. She had been singing with Gram Parsons until his death about a year earlier and after this song went on to record her first major label solo album. (She released a little known LP c.1970 before joining Parsons.)
4. In the spring of 1975, Young had completed a preliminary version of HOMEGROWN and played it for friends along with an incomplete project from 1973. He and they preferred the performances from 1973 and decided to cancel the release of HOMEGROWN and complete the earlier album, which was released as TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT.
5. In late 1976 the planned release of DECADE was delayed with the intention of releasing new material instead. Promotional material for DECADE had already been circulating when a different album, CHROME DREAMS, was announced in the music press. In early 1977 an acetate of the new album was created including the songs "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" and "HOMEGROWN" (a rerecording from late 1975).
6. In April 1977, after the acetate was cut, five songs were recorded with Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina and Frank Sampredo [i.e., Crazy Horse](with Ben Keith) that would eventually become side one of AMERICAN STARS 'N BARS. Needless to say, this meant CHROME DREAMS was not going to come out. The second side of AMERICAN STARS 'N BARS began with the 1974 recording of "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" followed by a 1976 recording called "WILL TO LOVE". Side two is completed by "LIKE A HURRICANE" and the newer "HOMEGROWN", both recorded in November 1975 with Crazy Horse. All four tracks were intended for CHROME DREAMS, with the play order of "WILL TO LOVE" and "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" reversed.
7. None of the recently recorded songs from side one of AMERICAN STARS 'N BARS were included on the compilation DECADE, but "LIKE A HURRICANE" became the first song on side six and "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" became the last song on side four, following the 1972 A-side "HEART OF GOLD".

.....The program position of "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" is not a trivial thing because of the nature of the song. It is not a conventional Christmas song because it uses the Star to evoke the journey of the Wise Men metaphorically, not literally. Where it is positioned relative to other songs can lead the listener to interpret the search differently. On one hand, the Star signifies the means to achieving an end, that is, it leads the Wise Men to Christ and it is understood that finding Christ is their objective. On the other hand, the Star signifies a journey that is an end in itself and it leads the Wise Men to discover Christ. The difference is that the second interpretation assumes that the Wise Men can only determine that the Star is a good omen and that following it is neccesary but that they had no idea what their saviour would look like until the Star led them to him.

.....By using the song at the beginning of an LP side followed by love songs, as it was on AMERICAN STARS AND BARS, it poses a search as the frame of mind with love, whether or not it is found, as the objective. By relocating the song so that it follows "HEART OF GOLD", a song that is explicitly about searching, on side four of DECADE, the song "STAR OF BETHLEHEM" becomes about the means to that end. The enigmatic closing line, "Maybe the Star Of Bethlehem wasn't a star at all...", means that the nature of the Star was never as certain as the need to follow it, or to follow something in the quest for purity or meaning, for a 'heart of gold'. Using this song in compilations requires not only considering how it mixes in in strictly musical terms but also in thematic terms.

1986- "Son Of Santa"

.....You know, there was a time when 'alternative music' didn't mean rehashes of Led Zeppelin. I remember the term being coined specifically to describe the hodgepodge of styles one could previously find only on college radio stations because they were outlets that (a) didn't agonize over commercial considerations and (b) had the highest concentration of a listener demographic defined by a desire to learn and experience new things, that is, college students. In fact, for the previous twenty years or so it was referred to as college music. The only reason people began to cast around for a new term is because during the eighties several events coincided that put much of that audience outside the gates of American colleges: public college tuitions increased not by increments but by multiples; affirmative action programs were under attack; and student loans briefly became taxable income (as though you were keeping the money rather than paying it back with interest). For the first time since the 1920's a student's academic potential became the least important consideration to their attendance. If you were poor, you could get accepted but you couldn't attend. You could, however, get a job a continue to be the intellectually curious person you always were. You could also live in a town with a college radio station and put your meager disposable income towards pursuing more of the bands you heard from it. There were enough people in that situation that it impacted the music market. Now that those people are middle aged, the music that they were told was non-commercial has become the soundtrack of their television ads. But there was a time when that music was unlike anything allowed onto commercial radio that was becoming more rigidly formatted every day.

• 03:40 "SON OF SANTA" (Mojo Nixon)


• performed by Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper


• original source: EP GET OUT OF MY WAY! Restless/Enigma 72185-1 (US) 1986


• and my source: CD FRENZY Restless/Enigma 72127-2 (US) 1987

.....FRENZY was Mojo Nixon's and Skid Roper's second album for Restless if you include the reissue of their eponymous debut, originally on an even-smaller independent label. It also marked a willingness among the emerging community for alternative music to be more visible and vocal in their rejection of the music industry in toto. By that point there were not only performers and audiences outside the mainstream, but many healthy labels, several competent distribution companies, viable retail outlets and mail-order services and even non-traditional venues all functioning parallel to their larger corporate subsidiary counterparts rather than subsisting on crumbs from their table. The corporations, however, seemed still convinced that these people and enterprises were merely competing with them and failing; there was an inability or unwillingness to comprehend that this smaller music scene had worked for (and to a large extent already achieved) different, unrelated objectives. Thus, when Mojo Nixon repeatedly butted heads with MTV's censors the assumption was that he would dissolve into a deserved obscurity. Instead he faced the greatest demand of his career. To keep ahead of it, he recorded an EP as a stop-gap measure until he could open space in his schedule to complete an album.

.....The first side of EP GET OUT OF MY WAY! starts with the title track, which sounds as though it might have been a likely single or recommended play track from a planned follow-up album to FRENZY. The next songs are both from the FRENZY sessions, "STUFFIN' MARTHA'S MUFFIN" (an anti-MTV harangue that became FRENZY's most popular track) and "RUTABAGAS" (an instrumental Skid Roper outtake). Side one closes with "BURN DOWN THE MALLS", which would have made an appropriate B-side to "GET OUT OF MY WAY".

.....The second side of the EP could have been a Christmas single. It begins with "SON OF SANTA", a song about the saint's errant offspring whose Christmas Eve jailbreak has alarmed the terminally nervous. Next is "TRANSYLVANIA XMAS", another Roper instrumental, this time an Eastern European flavored arrangement of "JOY TO THE WORLD". The last song is a rerecording of "JESUS AT MCDONALD'S" with Christmas references in the first verse. The original version is on the first album.

.....The song "SON OF SANTA" is a high octane rocker played almost entirely by Mojo and Skid with a large crowd of friends providing a vocal chorus. A year later they performed it live for a Christmas episode of I.R.S.'s "The Cutting Edge" series on MTV (which would have been about the end of the series). Not long afterwards, Mojo's long strained relationship with MTV had finally reached it's limit, their stated reasons being that his song "DEBBIE GIBSON IS PREGNANT WITH MY TWO-HEADED LOVE CHILD" constituted slander because their audience was likely to assume it was true. Then Roper left to pursue a more folk-oriented solo career, Enigma went out of business and finally Restless changed ownership. For the next decade Mojo continued to perform in several outfits before eventually becoming a staple of Sirius XM radio and offering his back catalogue as downloads. Paradoxically, his lo-fi music has become much easier to find in the digital age since most chain stores didn't have a "sexually depraved drunken street preacher" section. Be advised, though, that this song does not appear on his 1992 Christmas album CD HORNY HOLIDAYS.

1959- "Five Pound Box Of Money"

.....Although over fifty years old, this number could easily find an audience today. The B-side, I mean.

• 02:18 JINGLE BELLS CHA CHA CHA (Pearl Bailey)
• 02:35 b/w FIVE POUND BOX OF MONEY (J. Barker, P. Bailey)
• original source: 7" Roulette R-4206 (US) 1959
• and my source: (for the B-side) VACD HIPSTERS' HOLIDAY Rhino R2 70910 (US) 1989

.....Rhino Records compiled a number of excellent Christmas collections from the mid-1980's to the mid-1990's, often with different configurations on vinyl and CD. HIPSTERS' HOLIDAY was one of the best, with a cross-section of jazz acts from 1946-1966 and one horrible kitsch lounge act recorded less than a year before the compilation came out. Unlike many of their compilations, HIPSTERS' HOLIDAY provided detailed personnel and exact recording dates for most of the tracks. For jazz bands that could mean upwards of a dozen musicians on some performances. "FIVE POUND BOX OF MONEY" is one of the few for which there is "No session information available". Jazz isn't my strong suit and my resources are not nearly as extensive as Rhino's, but my guess is that their suggested date of release on the jewel case may be a typo. The year '1958' follows the songwriting credit, and that may be when the song was recorded or when the sheet music was copyrighted, but a discography of Roulette's singles maintained by Global Dog Productions places the single in 1959, as does an article in a music industry publication (Billboard, December 14th, 1959) announcing that several radio stations would be holding contests asking listeners to guess the dollar amount of a five pound box of mixed coins, specifically tying it to the release of the single. That said, the internet abounds with sites offering mp3's of the song identified (if by any date at all) as coming from 1958, which I guess tells us from where these tenth generation copies were ultimately stol-- uh, acquired. Both sides have actually resurfaced periodically in the CD age and I may dig around next year for "JINGLE BELLS CHA CHA CHA" and revisit this post or simply leave a link to any new post in the comment area.

1974- "Wombling Merry Christmas"

.....For Americans now accustomed to Barney and Teletubbies, the Wombles are no longer so hard to explain. I hope.

.....Boxing Day, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the day after Christmas. It's probably most commonly acknowledged in England and countries now or once part of the British Empire such as Canada. The idea was that most people spent Christmas Day enjoying a feast with their families at home. The next day they would make packages out of representative samples of the feast and bring them to non-relatives in their lives who would have been working through the holiday. Today that's known as "foisting leftovers on the help", but many Brits now celebrate it as a legal holiday for its post-festivity wind-down value. One particular Boxing Day in the 1960's Elisabeth Beresford took her young children for a stroll on Wimbledon Common. It was there that she conceived the idea of an entire hidden species of sophisticated rodents that lived under the Common, the Wombles. She began making sketches of individual Wombles, each with their own personality, and eventually they took on a well-defined collective identity with their own culture, ethos and history. The hallmark of their society is that they see new uses for the trash lying around the Common. Not having the same preconceptions as humans, everything they see has a purpose which they live to find. While we might see an empty bottle or food wrapper as something that has fulfilled its purpose and discard it, the Wombles discover it in that state and assume that its purpose has yet to be determined. Once created, the ecological and economical life lessons implied by the Wombles' way of life were obvious.

.....The idea blossomed into a franchise starting with children's books in 1968 and eventually including a television series, a feature film, dolls, toys, a variety of licensed products and a series of albums that spawned an string of consecutive top forty hits. Rocker turned jingle writer Mike Batt was asked to write an instrumental theme that evoked the personality of the characters when the television series was in the planning stages. He suggested it would actually be easier to go one step further and make it a song with lyrics. That turned out to be a fateful decision that consumed the next two years of his life.

• 03:18 WOMBLING MERRY CHRISTMAS (Mike Batt)
• -N/A- b/w MADAME CHOLET (Mike Batt)
• performed by The Wombles
• original source: 7" CBS 2842 (UK) 11/74; the B-side originally appeared on LP WOMBLING SONGS CBS 65803 (UK) 1973 and the A-side appeared contemporarily on LP KEEP ON WOMBLING CBS 80526 (UK) 1974
• and my source: 2CD THE CHRISTMAS ALBUM Global Television/Warner Music/Sony Entertainment RADCD152X (UK) 1999

.....After Batt left the franchise new releases slowed to a trickle. Ten years after he started, the label released LP THE WOMBLES CHRISTMAS ALBUM CBS 25805 (UK) 1983. Rather than an actual Christmas album, it was a compilation of previously released material with "WOMBLING MERRY CHRISTMAS" as the lead track. This was not only a dirty trick, it wasn't even an original dirty trick. The Pickwick label licensed a similar batch of album tracks from CBS for their LP THE WOMBLES CHRISTMAS PARTY Hallmark Records SHM977 (UK) 1978 five years earlier. The one bright light was that the Christmas song was reissued (with a later hit as the new B-side) in 1983 with the album. For Christmas 1989 CBS released a greatest hits album ending with the Christmas song (novelty song or not, it was a bone fide pop hit at #2). In 2000 Batt teamed up with Roy Wood for a new recording of the song, this time spliced with Wood's perennial Wizzard hit, "I WISH IT COULD BE CHRISTMAS EVERYDAY" for the once in a lifetime mouthful, "I WISH IT COULD BE A WOMBLING MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYDAY". This year however the original is being reissued (this week in fact) in a typically Womblish altruistic attempt to drown out the bad taste of Simon Cowell's "X Factor" with their very own "W FACTOR" compilation. Check out the video online. (For American readers: the twin Wombles with the mile-high pompadours who appear to be 'auditioning' in the video are a parody of real life would-be teen pop stars John and Edward Grimes, notorious X Factor contestants.) Don't just do it for England; do it for all of us. Godspeed, you Wombles.

.....So come this Boxing Day when you look around you at the remnants and fallout of the holiday and your newsfeed of choice is choked with end-of-year "best" lists and the unshakeable implications that the world has had just about enough of this year and has crumpled it up for a premature tossing, remember that you're a Womble. Others may conclude that this Christmas has fulfilled its purpose and discarded it. If so, pick it up and you may discover that it has a whole year to it that's only just beginning. And you'll be the only one trying to figure out just what its purpose will be.

1956- "I'm Gonna Lasso Santa Claus"

.....Brenda Lee was born Brenda Mae Tarpley on December 11, 1944. This makes her the youngest artist I've posted so far, but the field of Christmas pop music is peppered with child performers, especially in the 1940's and 1950's, and I doubt she set any records with this first of several Christmas singles. It could be, though. Augie Rios would be a few months older when he recorded "¿DONDE ESTA SANTA CLAUS?" in 1958. Jimmy Boyd, although he started his career earlier, was about a year older when he recorded "I SAW MOMMY KISSING SANTA CLAUS" in 1952. Yet, for some reason, her label felt it necessary to lie about her age on this early single. Both sides are originals, I think, but I'm focusing on the B-side, which I have in front of me.

• -N/A- CHRISTY CHRISTMAS (Marty Symes, Tony Starr)
• 02:17 b/w I'M GONNA LASSO SANTA CLAUS (Frankie Adams, Wilbur Jones)
• performed by Brenda Lee
• original source: 7" Decca 30107 (US) Oct. 29, 1956
• as well as: Decca Children's Series 9-88215 (US) 1956
• and my source: VACD ROCKIN' LITTLE CHRISTMAS MCA Records MCAD-25084 (US) 12/90

.....The A-side, just for the record, has a running time of 2:22 according to Amazon. The first evidence I can find of it ever being made available on CD is as part of a Bear Family box in 1997. It then surfaced again on CD ROCKIN' AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE: THE DECCA CHRISTMAS RECORDINGS MCA 70090-2 (US) 10/05/99, which was repackaged as CD THE BEST OF BRENDA LEE: THE CHRISTMAS COLLECTION MCA Nashville/Chronicles B0000520-2 (US) 09/23/03. Since then it's been licensed for a handful of hastily assembled compilations of familiar holiday recordings. The song was filed for copyright in 1952, but unless it was released regionally by a small country label somewhere I'm going to have to guess that Lee was the first to record it.

.....I first heard the B-side on the vinyl counterpart, MCA-25084 (US) 11/86, of the CD in the citation. I upgraded to the CD when it became available because it's a concentration of great singles in different styles in the Eisenhower-Kennedy era from several labels which were later absorbed into MCA. It also has a note of introduction by Brenda Lee written for the LP. But the compilation also has a number of flaws that have always bugged me. For one thing, it's less than a half hour long. The LP could have comfortably accommodated nearly twice as much playing time and the CD just less than three times as much. What makes the skimpiness even more egregious is that nearly all of the songs on the album were from singles whose flip sides were also Christmas themed. That's just a relatively minor example of something that was a chronic problem at MCA before the merger with PolyGram. When MCA dragged its feet in regards to putting Brenda Lee's 1964 Christmas album (MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM BRENDA LEE) back into print, Lee recorded a new album for Warner Brothers, CD A BRENDA LEE CHRISTMAS Warner Bros. 9 26660-2 (US) 10/24/91. MCA responded by taking the 1964 album, removing two songs from it, and issuing it on CD as CD JINGLE BELL ROCK MCA Special Products MCAD 20728 (US) 1992. The program order is otherwise intact. To add insult to insult, the two tracks that were removed became the lead tracks on a CD issued on a subsidiary called Hand the following year. CD MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM BRENDA LEE Hand/MCA HAND 22098 (US) 08/93 (which you may note uses the original title) not only was made entirely of tracks from the 1964 album again, but removed two different songs and rearranged the program order so that Lee's fans would first see the two songs not previously available and, perhaps, buy it before they realized that they already owned the rest of it. In other respects, ROCKIN' LITTLE CHRISTMAS avoids some of the characteristic sleaziness of MCA's vinyl days. For example, there are producer credits for some of the songs, yet no songwriting credits, something most major labels would consider a matter of basic competence. But even there MCA falls short. The song "I'M GONNA LASSO SANTA CLAUS" is credited to producer Owen Bradley, who took over production of Lee's sessions in 1958. This post's single was the second of Lee's first six, which were produced by Paul Cohen (except for the third, produced by Milt Gabler) from 1956 to 1957.

.....The 'lasso' image was in keeping with her Nashville recording locale, but like many young people who grew up immersed in country music during the fifties Brenda Lee leaned towards pop and rockabilly, eventually finding a broader audience than the one to whom she was marketed, as did The Everly Brothers and Buck Owens. But even the catchy, canter-like rhythm is not as memorable as her powerful voice. It's like getting hit on the head with a hammer by the sweetest little girl you've ever seen. Only five years later that same booming twang would be used to heartbreaking effect on the more adult song "BREAK IT TO ME GENTLY" while Lee was still in her teens. And the difference between her actual age and the mature sound of her voice certainly fueled interest in her records. This single, which was only her second release remember, carried the phrase "9 years old" on the label of the Children's Series copies although she would turn 12 just two months after its release. It may have been a ploy to make her obvious talent seem that much more remarkable but it caused a few headaches years later after she and her boyfriend, both 18 at the time, got legally married but had to continuously disprove poorly researched scandal sheet articles that claimed otherwise. For a saner and more concise look at her career, her official website has a clean look and is easy to navigate. It also has some brief notes specifically about her Christmas recordings.

1966-1970- James Brown on King

.....James Brown recorded about three and a half LP's worth of Christmas songs between 1966 and 1970. I would like to think that he was prompted by the success of Gary Walker's "SANTA'S GOT A BRAND NEW BAG", which I discussed in the previous post, if only because it made a good story. It probably had more to do with his expressed desire at that time to provide inspiration to impoverished black youth. It was a common sentiment at the time and much of his previous material was more oriented for adult audiences. What I can be certain about is that most of the songs were original compositions, many of them written by himself, Alfred "Pee-Wee" Ellis and Nat Jones. Since my purpose in this blog is to account for the earliest recordings of original 20th Century Christmas songs, Brown alone could provide about three weeks of daily entries. When I ran across a CD compilation I had and went to look up the original catalog numbers for the singles, I was reminded that Brown died on Christmas Day, 2006. That makes this year the fifth anniversary and perhaps deserving a little more than a mere mention. Instead I'm going to post a full discography of his original releases. A complete, exhaustive discography would be more difficult, since this material became the basis for numerous repackagings under similar sounding titles. All times are roughly approximate, since they vary among the reissues.

.....There were three singles released late in 1966, possibly all in December:

• 7" King Records 45-6064 (US) 12/66
• 02:41 THE CHRISTMAS SONG (Version 1) (Mel Tormé, Robert Wells)
• 02:44 THE CHRISTMAS SONG (Version 2) (Mel Tormé, Robert Wells)

.....

• 7" King Records 45-6065 (US) 12/66
• 02:54 SWEET LITTLE BABY BOY (Part 1) (James Brown, Nat Jones)
• 02:37 SWEET LITTLE BABY BOY (Part 2) (James Brown, Nat Jones)

.....

• 7" King Records 45-6072 (US) 12/66
• 02:53 LET'S MAKE CHRISTMAS MEAN SOMETHING THIS YEAR (Part 1) (James Brown, Nat Jones)
• 02:57 LET'S MAKE CHRISTMAS MEAN SOMETHING THIS YEAR (Part 2) (James Brown, Nat Jones)

.....Between the second and third single is the most likely time for the release of the album LP THE JAMES BROWN CHRISTMAS ALBUM King Records K1010 (mono) and KS1010 (stereo) (US) 12/66. Not only was this album pressed several times with minor variations to the jacket but the same songs were assembled in a different order and released again in 1967(?) under the title JAMES BROWN AND HIS FAMOUS FLAMES SING CHRISTMAS SONGS.

• 06:29 LET'S MAKE CHRISTMAS MEAN SOMETHING THIS YEAR (Part 1) (James Brown, Nat Jones)
• 00:00 LET'S MAKE CHRISTMAS MEAN SOMETHING THIS YEAR (Part 2) (James Brown, Nat Jones)
• 05:15 SWEET LITTLE BABY BOY (Part 1) (James Brown, Nat Jones)
• 00:00 SWEET LITTLE BABY BOY (Part 2) (James Brown, Nat Jones)
• 02:31 MERRY CHRISTMAS, I LOVE YOU (James Brown, Nat Jones)
• 04:37 SIGNS OF CHRISTMAS (James Brown, Nat Jones)
• 02:44 THE CHIRISTMAS SONG (Version 2) (Mel Tormé, Robert Wells)

.....and side B:

• 03:54 MERRY CHRISTMAS BABY (Lou Baxter, Johnny Moore)
• 02:41 THE CHRISTMAS SONG (Version 1) (Mel Tormé, Robert Wells)
• 03:21 PLEASE COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS (Charles Brown, Gene C. Redd)
• 02:59 THIS IS MY LONELY CHRISTMAS (Part 1) (James Brown, Gene C. Redd)
• 04:46 THIS IS MY LONELY CHRISTMAS (Part 2) (James Brown, Gene C. Redd)
• 02:53 CHRISTMAS IN HEAVEN (Billy Ward)

.....The two versions of "THE CHRISTMAS SONG" and the other three covers on side B seem to be the last of the non-originals. The next two albums contain songs written for (and a few by) Brown that I can't find in any earlier form. A fourth album was released in 1999 and a half a dozen times since under as many titles. It may contain covers or originals, but I haven't sprung for a copy yet and won't be examining it in a post until I have. The two tracks on side B above that aren't covers appear to have been prepared as a fourth single, following the pattern of the first three of being one song in two parts. It's at times like this that I wish I knew more about James Brown's catalogue but he was extremely prolific, in a very rare class with Frank Zappa, Chet Atkins and few others. For instance, a more fanatical fan might have come across a report of a test pressing for such a single or might know if the mastering codes for those two tracks were significantly lower numbers than the other album-only songs, suggesting (but not proving) that they were prepared separately for separate release.

• 7" King Records 45-6187 (US) 09/68
• 02:45 SAY IT LOUD-- I'M BLACK AND I'M PROUD (Part 1) (James Brown)
• 02:30 SAY IT LOUD-- I'M BLACK AND I'M PROUD (Part 2) (James Brown)

.....That's not a mistake. Although not a Christmas song, the above single leads the second side of the next album.

• 7" King Records 45-6203 (US) 12/68
• 02:55 SANTA CLAUS GO STRAIGHT TO THE GHETTO (James Brown, Alfred Ellis, Hank Ballard)
• 02:55 YOU KNOW IT (instrumental) (Alfred Ellis, Bud Hobgood)

.....

• 7" King Records 45-6204 (US) 12/68
• 03:05 TIT FOR TAT (AIN'T NO TAKING BACK) (James Brown, Nat Jones)
• 02:45 BELIEVERS SHALL ENJOY (NON-BELIEVERS SHALL SUFFER) (instrumental) (Bud Hobgood, Nat Jones)

.....The songwriting credit for the A-sides above and below were both changed to "Charles Bobbit, Nat Jones" after these recordings were repackaged by Polydor, which acquired the King Records catalogue in 1971. I really don't know which is correct, but Brown's name was on the 7" vinyl. Also, the subtitle for the above A-side is definitely "AIN'T NO TAKING BACK", despite numerous websites listing this song as "TALKING BACK" or "TURNING BACK" or who knows what. The song is about the child's game, Tit For Tat. Each child hits the other in turn and the other child is allowed to hit back at least as hard as they were hit themselves. The trick is to hit harder than you were hit yourself, but no harder than you can withstand being hit in return. Hence, "ain't no taking back", meaning that you can't hit someone and then change your mind when you realize how hard you have allowed them to hit you in retaliation. It's a way of saying, "No cheating". The game ends when someone quits before hitting back.

• 7" King Records 45-6205 (US) 12/68
• 02:42 LET'S UNITE THE WHOLE WORLD AT CHRISTMAS (James Brown, Nat Jones)(see above)
• 02:35 IN THE MIDDLE (Part 1) (Bud Hobgood, Alfred Ellis)

.....LP SOULFUL CHRISTMAS King Records KS1040 (US) 12/68

• 03:01 SANTA CLAUS GO STRAIGHT TO THE GHETTO (James Brown, Alfred Ellis, Hank Ballard)
• 04:03 SANTA CLAUS, SANTA CLAUS (Charles Bobbit, Nat Jones)
• 02:14 BELIEVERS SHALL ENJOY (NON-BELIEVERS SHALL SUFFER)(vocal) (Bud Hobgood, Nat Jones)
• 03:06 SOULFUL CHRISTMAS (Hank Ballard, Charles Bobbit, Alfred Ellis)
• 03:04 TIT FOR TAT (AIN'T NO TALKING BACK) [see note below single]
• 02:38 CHRISTMAS IS COMING (Bud Hobgood)

.....and side B:

• 04:46 SAY IT LOUD-- I'M BLACK AND PROUD (Part 1) (James Brown[and Alfred Ellis?])
• 00:00 SAY IT LOUD-- I'M BLACK AND PROUD (Part 2)
• 02:42 IN THE MIDDLE (Alfred Ellis, Bud Hobgood)
• 02:42 LET'S UNITE THE WHOLE WORLD AT CHRISTMAS [see note above single]
• 02:20 YOU KNOW IT (vocal) (Alfred Ellis, Bud Hobgood)
• 03:50 SANTA CLAUS GAVE ME A BRAND NEW START (Bud Hobgood, Nat Jones)

.....Soon after, one of the songs was rerecorded as a duet with Marva Whitney and released as an A-side with an earlier A-side as the flip:

• 7" King Records 45-6206 (US) 02?/69
• 02:44 IN THE MIDDLE (Part 2) (Alfred Ellis, Bud Hobgood) with Marva Whitney
• 03:05 TIT FOR TAT (AIN'T NO TAKING BACK) [see note below earlier single]

.....Both sides of "SAY IT LOUD... " also appear on an album of the same name, King Records KS1047 (US) 04/69.

....."IN THE MIDDLE" Parts 1 and 2 eventually appear together on the album LP JAMES BROWN PLAYS AND DIRECTS THE POPCORN King Records KSD 1055 (US) 08/69.

.....The first two albums continued to be available in 1969 but a new single came out as well:

• 7" King Records 45-6277 (US) 12/69
• 03:10 IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME (Part 1)(James Brown, Bud Hobgood)
• 03:15 IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME (Part 2)(James Brown, Bud Hobgood)

.....The following year two singles preceded the third album.

• 7" King Records 45-6339 (US) 11/70
• 03:42 HEY AMERICA (vocal) (Nat Jones, Addie Williams Jones)
• 03:42 HEY AMERICA (sing along) (Nat Jones, Addie Williams Jones)

.....

• 7" King Records 45-6340 (US) 12/70
• 04:24 SANTA CLAUS IS DEFINITELY HERE TO STAY (single version) (Nat Jones)
• 04:24 SANTA CLAUS IS DEFINITELY HERE TO STAY (sing along) (Nat Jones)

.....The third Christmas album was released with an art collage cover that was not obviously holiday themed. It was soon replaced with a cover featuring the title and subtitle in at least 2 inch font on a blank dark background over a small photo that looks like James Brown. Unlike many of the repackagings of Brown's Christmas music these both carried the same title: LP HEY AMERICA [IT'S CHRISTMAS] King Records KS 1124 (US) 12/70. It also became available as Polydor 2391 049.

• 03:49 HEY AMERICA (vocal) (Nat Jones, Addie Williams Jones)
• 03:59 A LONELY LITTLE BOY AROUND ONE LITTLE CHRISTMAS TOY (Nat Jones)
• 03:03 GO POWER AT CHRISTMAS TIME (Nat Jones)
• 06:00 CHRISTMAS IS LOVE (Nat Jones)

.....and side B:

• 04:22 SANTA CLAUS IS DEFINITELY HERE TO STAY [LP] (Nat Jones)
• 06:00 MY RAPP (Nat Jones)
• 03:03 I'M YOUR CHRISTMAS FRIEND, DON'T BE HUNGRY (Nat Jones)
• 03:55 MERRY CHRISTMAS MY BABY AND A VERY, VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR (Nat Jones)

.....The last two tracks were also pressed as a single in The Netherlands as 7" Polydor 2066 276. Again, I wish I had some way of knowing if there had been plans for a U.S. release, since most compilations don't include either track but do emphasize the singles. The one single that I can confirm was kept in print during the 1970's was:

• 7" Polydor 14161 (US) 12/72
• 02:58 SANTA CLAUS GO STRAIGHT TO THE GHETTO [1968]
• 02:50 SWEET LITTLE BABY BOY [1966]

.....Before Christmas this year I hope to post about the most notable compilations of these recordings. Except for the Marva Whitney duet, all the songs mentioned here can be found on 2CD THE COMPLETE JAMES BROWN CHRISTMAS Hip-O-Select/ Polydor 14791 (US) 10/12/10.

1965- "Santa's Got A Brand New Bag"

.....Five years ago this Christmas, the world lost James Brown. I couldn't let the first year of this blog go by without giving some mention to the man who released three Christmas albums (plus singles) in a five year period. "Hardest Working Man In Show Business" wasn't just some kind of press release hype. In the next post I'll begin covering the wealth of original holiday music he left us, but before I can do that I need to set up a little chronology to introduce it. Because the first James Brown Christmas single wasn't by James Brown.

.....At this time sixty years ago Brown was completing a prison sentence. He left determined to change his life and began performing with Bobby Byrd's Gospel Starlighters. Brown's personal charisma and powerful confessional style soon drew the lion's share of attention and Byrd's outfit increasingly gravitated towards secular gigs, renaming themselves The Famous Flames. They began recording as the Flames at about the same time as a gulf area band of young white musicians calling themselves the Boogie Kings made a notch for themselves in history by deciding to devote themselves to playing music recorded by black artists. Being a cover band normally isn't remarkable, but in 1955 that was thought to be a first. In 1958 they racked up another first by appearing on the first release by Louisiana based Jin Records, a single on which they backed Doug Ardoin.

.....A decade later, James Brown releases "PAPA'S GOT A BRAND NEW BAG" (backed with Part 2) on King Records 5999 (US) 07/65. Brown had long been a star on the R&B charts, but had only once previously entered the Top 20 on Billboard's Pop charts (with "PRISONER OF LOVE" in 1963 at #18). The success of "PAPA'S... " was palpable; it reached #8 on Billboard's Hot 100. In England, it's reported that the Who had completed recording their first album, including covers of Brown's "PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE", "I DON'T MIND" and "SHOUT AND SHIMMY". Daltrey had been a Brown fan for a while and his songs had been a part of the Who's live set since the beginning. In fact, the total number of covers concerned their management, who delayed the release of the album until December (April 1966 in the U.S.) while they recorded more originals to replace some of the covers. In October, "SHOUT AND SHIMMY" became a B-side and the other two made it to the final cut of the album. Meanwhile, back in the states both sides of Brown's "PAPA'S... " single opened a new album of the same name in September 1965 on King 938 (US) 09/65. He also used an instrumental version as the B-side of the instrumental version of "TRY ME" (an earlier hit) on Smash 2008 (US) 12/65. None of this was lost gulf area soul singer Gary Walker. That fall he went to Jin Records with a holiday song based on Brown's recent hit.

• -N/A- "LOSING MY MIND OVER YOU" (-N/A-)
• 03:08 b/w "SANTA'S GOT A BRAND NEW BAG" (James Brown)
• performed by Gary Walker
• original source: 7" Jin Records 45-195 (US) 1965
• and my source: VACD THE BEST OF COOL YULE Rhino Records R2 75767 (US?) 1988

.....'Answer' records were very common in the 1950's and still kicking around in the 1960's. In fact, one of the earlier posts on this blog was for "X-MAS TWIST". However, those songs are usually original songs with new lyrics and music about the same subject matter as an existing hit. What Walker did was set new lyrics to Brown's song and went one step further by doing a straight faced imitation of Brown while singing it. There was no attempt to sell the record as a James Brown recording-- Walker's name clearly appears in larger, bolder type as the performer than Brown's name does, parenthetically as the composer. But complicating matters is the fact that there was no separate credit for the new lyrics, however minimally they were changed. Also, listening to the song today on a properly mastered and balanced compact disc with headphones, it may be difficult to imagine anyone being fooled into believing that this was James Brown. But in 1965, listening to a vinyl copy played on AM radio over your car's speakers? Welll... we're not all audiophiles. As I mentioned above, Walker copped Brown's style of delivery if not his exact voice. It starts with a 'single-finger-on-piano' quote from "JINGLE BELLS" and a chorus singing the title before launching into the familiar horn blast. Then Walker delivers a credible take on "PAPA'S GOT A BRAND NEW BAG" with a few strategic lyric changes. He didn't go for a broad, farcical imitation (probably for reasons of good taste; at that time the often mercenary Brown was instead passing up paying engagements to do benefit concerts for civil rights interests and the SCLC). To this day it turns up on Christmas compilations routinely. It sounds like something Brown might have recorded, except that despite his gospel origins he had never marketed any explicitly holiday-oriented material. Yet.

.....James Brown began recording his own Christmas songs the following year and continued through 1970, after which that material continued to be occasionally pressed and sold every year to date. He did one more album in 1999, but never recorded (or at least never released) a version of "SANTA'S GOT A BRAND NEW BAG", contrary to the popularly held misconception. Despite this, when Rhino records got the go ahead to license his old King recordings from PolyGram Special Products, they called their compilation "SANTA'S GOT A BRAND NEW BAG", hopelessly confusing people still looking for that song. I hope to clear up a bit of that confusion with a James Brown Christmas discography over the next few days. While preparing this post I began getting error messages when I tried to save it. Unlike past experiences in which several paragraphs of original writing disappeared into the ether, I didn't lose anything except the time it took to copy the upper half of this post by hand, fearing it would also be lost. Cross your fingers and we'll all see it by the weekend if not sooner.

.....Oh, and one last note about Gary Walker. You may find it difficult to find much more by searching online. Too many websites take a research-by-robot approach instead of employing musicologists. They don't seem to realize or care that this is not the same Gary Walker as Gary Leeds, the Seattle area musician who joined some fellow expatriate Americans who were working in England under the name The Walker Brothers. About a year before the gulf area Gary released his Christmas single, the northwest Gary joined The Walker Brothers and changed his name to Gary Walker. When they hit big they eventually all released solo material under their Walker pseudonyms. From what I've been able to disambiguate, Gulf Gary had already released three singles for MGM Records in the late 1950's. In 1966 he released one more single for Jin. I haven't been able to track down all of Jin's various artists albums, but I was able to confirm that he joined the Boogie Kings in 1967, explaining the lack of visible material under his own name from that point on. There were two more Jin singles circa 1980, but I don't know how old the recordings were. According to the Boogie Kings' website, he has since passed away but they don't offer any details. If anyone living in that area (especially anyone involved in organizing musicians and other artists in the wake of Katrina) has verifiable knowledge, it would be greatly appreciated in the comments section. Thank you.

1972- "X-Mas Flexi Message"

.....You would think that a musician routinely described as 'elfin' by critics would have more Christmas music in their catalog. During the 1960's Marc Feld had a hard enough time selling his own singles to worry about the holiday market. After failing as a Donovan knock-off, mod clothes horse and avant-pop provocateur (that last one with John's Children), Marc decided to indulge his love of Tolkien and formed a duo with a percussionist who went so far as to rename himself Peregrine Took. Marc himself continued to use the stage name he'd used professionally since 1965, Marc Bolan. [Some detective work by Mark Paytress found that the pseudonym was taken from actor James Bolam of the British TV series "The Likely Lads", about blue collar youth with middle class aspirations. That sounds appropriately mod.] The two found cult stardom as Tyrannosaurus Rex and actually poked into the lower end of the UK singles charts. Maybe all those creative writing professors who mechanically chant, "Write what you know" were onto something all along. After three albums he dropped his junkie bongo-playing partner for a bongo-playing heartthrob, went from acoustic to electric and made himself as available as possible for radio sessions, but it made no difference commercially. Someone, probably producer Tony Visconti, suggested they shorten the name. Most radio DJ's and music critics in England at the time were not like John Peel, an unlikely early fan of the band. They dealt with the avalanche of new music every week by relying on their preconceptions about the band, not by listening to the record. And since they were pretty dim generally they wouldn't make the connection between the old band and the new name until it was too late and the public had heard the records. From that point on they became 'T. Rex', switched from one EMI subsidiary label to another EMI subsidiary label, got haircuts and Marc covered himself with glitter confetti for a TV appearance. For the next two years (10/70-12/72) their singles reached: #2, #1, #1, #2, #1, #1, #2, #2. Every day was Christmas for Marc Bolan. So, at the end of that enviable run he sent out a fan club flexi single.

.....The earliest Christmas recording from T. Rex I could find was actually an impromptu Bolan solo recorded as a bumper for the Bob Harris Show on BBC Radio in December 1971. It's the last track on 3CD BOLAN AT THE BEEB Polydor 530292 3 (EU [really Germany]) 2007. It goes under the name "CHRISTMAS JINGLE" and is only 17 seconds long. In its entirety:

• "Christmas is a good time
• Christmas is a good time
• On the Radio-o-o
• If you listen to this show"

.....A year later the last T. Rex commercial single of 1972 was released. Anyone getting that first pressing found an unannounced spoken message right before the B-side:

• 7" T. Rex Wax Co. MARC3 (UK) December 1, 1972
• A) 02:20 SOLID GOLD EASY ACTION (Marc Bolan)
• B) [0:12 X-MAS RIFF]
• ---02:04 BORN TO BOOGIE (Marc Bolan)
• The message reads: "This is Marc Bolan here. I'd like to wish you all a super-funk Christmas and a golden New Year. Yeah!"
• this track can be found on CD TANX Polygram Chronicles 314 534 356-2 (US) 1997, but is listed as "X-MAS MESSAGE"
• It surfaced again on 2CD THE T. REX WAX CO. SINGLES A's & B's 1972-77 Edsel Records MEDCD 714 (EU[UK]) 2002 as "X-MAS RIFF"

.....That spoken message was probably recorded at the same time as the fan club flexi single, in November 1972 in Tony Visconti's home studio. The flexi starts with about 44 seconds of conversation followed by an original song. The conversation breaks down like this:

• (0:24) Marc Bolan "Hello babes, this is Marc Bolan, um, and I'd like to thank you all for a really fine year. We've had a really good time, been everywhere, and, um, 'spect you've had a good time yourselves, um, I hope you have a good Christmas, really good and we're gonna be on "Top Of The Pops" on the weekend over Christmas and we're in London and everywhere so at some point we're going to see you and be close to you so, and also have a good year and don't cry."
• (0:10) Steve Currie "Hello, this is Steve Currie here. Thank you very very much for all you've made us. We really couldn't do without you and I hope to see you all again soon."
• (0:07) Mickey Finn [or possibly Tony Visconti reading his part?] "This is Mickey Finn here and I'm wis-- [Marc interjects, "Never!"] and I'm wishing you a merry, merry, merry Christmas."
• (0:03) Bill Legend [actually woman's voice, obviously reading from a script] "This is Bill. Have I got a Christmas surprise for you, oh boy!"

.....The remaining 1:28 of the flexi is an untitled song. The whole band is playing, except that Visconti is playing Legend's part. The lyrics, such as they are, are here:

• All I want to do
• Is spend some time with you
• 'Cause I want to spend
• My Christmas with you
• All I want to say
• Is everything OK?
• 'Cause I want to spend
• My Christmas with you
• [Chorus] Want to spend my Christmas with you [repeat once]
• Everything I do
• Makes me feel like a zoo
• 'Cause I want to spend
• My Christmas with you
• [Chorus] Want to spend my Christmas with you [repeat three more times]

.....Flexis are usually giveaways, perfect for mailings or magazine premiums because while their sound quality is inferior to hard vinyl they travel much better. They're lighter and flexible (hence the name) and won't break in shipping. This track appears as "X-MAS FLEXI MESSAGE" on at least two box sets:

• 3CD A WIZARD, A TRUE STAR Edsel Records FBOOK17 (UK) 1996
• 4CD 20TH CENTURY SUPERSTAR Universal 493-452-2 (UK) 2002
• 3CD INTERSTELLAR SOUL Edsel Records EDSB4001 (UK) 2007 (really just a repackage of the 1996 box)

.....It also appears on a few rarer sources with tomorrow's entry.

1951- "Amahl And The Night Visitors"

.....Yesterday most NPR stations noted the 100th birthday of composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who made history when he wrote the first opera commissioned for television. Although born in Italy Menotti had lived in the U.S. since his teens and, hoping to bring opera to as wide an audience as possible, wrote it in English. The story, "AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS", is about a boy unable to walk without crutches and in the habit of telling tall tales. His family's home happens to be on the route followed by the three kings seeking the birth of Christ and when they ask for temporary rest there, no one will believe Amahl when he says there are kings at his door.

.....Menotti is no longer with us, but ten years ago, on the fiftieth anniversary of the opera's live broadcast debut, NPR managed to secure an interview with him. At ninety years old he was not only aware and animated, but had clear memories of the production. As of this writing the interview was still available through the archives at npr.org, and this link should bring readers to the page with the audio link:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1135273

.....And the next link should bring readers to the page with yesterday's article on Menotti, including both audio and video links:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2011/07/07/137649623/making-a-case-for-menotti

.....My normal format for this post doesn't really account for video sources, let alone live broadcasts. I think I'll just write this off as a special occasion. I've four months of catching up to do and the general music blog is now getting dusty so I'm going to make sure I can complete at least another week here and then hopefully alternate between them after that.

1991- "Santa's Polka"

.....This is the fourth and final original song from Brave Combo's first Christmas album. I provided a few details about the album in the first of these posts (on Monday) but neglected to credit the band members. I'll rectify that now; note that each member is a multi-instrumentalist.

• Carl Finch
• Bubba Hernandez
• Jeffrey Barnes
• Mitch Marine

.....The fourth song is:

• 02:40 "SANTA'S POLKA" (Bubba Hernandez, Jeffrey Barnes)
• performed by Brave Combo
• original source: CD IT'S X-MAS, MAN! P-Vine PCD-2300 (Japan) 12/91
• and my source: CD IT'S CHRISTMAS, MAN! Rounder Records CD 9033 (US/Canada) 09/92

.....When Brave Combo's US label at the time, Rounder, showed an interest in releasing the album in the States, it asked if they could add a song about Hanukkah. This was not a problem (as if the band needed an excuse to record a hora). Rather than tack it on to the end, though, they placed the new song in the middle and relocated the secular instrumental "FROSTY THE SNOWMAN" from the end of the Japanese edition to after "HANUKKAH, OH HANUKKAH" (the new song), which would come after another secular number, "PLEASE COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS". The rest of the album's tracks experienced minor shuffling with two exceptions: "LITTLE DRUMMER BOY" went from track 3 in Japan to track 11 in the US and the brief instrumental version of "JINGLE BELLS" went from the opening track to the closing track. That could be because on the Japanese album it functioned as a feint that would have been lost on an American audience. The Japanese album begins with a 0:42 version of "JINGLE BELLS" reminiscent of Raymond Scott's intro to "POWERHOUSE", suggesting that perhaps this album might be perfunctorily framing standards within a polka/klezmer matrix. It then follows that with their now-famous arrangement of "MUST BE SANTA". The original version of that song was an Alma Cogan B-side of a novelty song that spent nearly a year at the top of the Japanese charts in 1960-1961, "HE JUST COULDN'T RESIST HER WITH HER POCKET TRANSISTOR". Cogan's version of "MUST BE SANTA" was the A-side in the UK, where it bombed and in America it was overwhelmed by the Mitch Miller & His Gang version. The Brave Combo version is a polka that grabs you by the ears and swings you around the room. Their arrangement was acknowledged by Bob Dylan as the basis for his 2009 recording and accompanying must-see video. That same year the song appeared again on Brave Combo's second Christmas album, CD CHRISTMAS PRESENT, which was unfortunately all-covers, including a third of the songs covered on the first album.

.....Oh, and "SANTA'S POLKA" is a pretty good, up-beat number as well.

1991- "Corrido Navideño"

.....This is the third post of original songs from the following album:

• 02:57 "CORRIDO NAVIDEÑO" (Bubba Hernandez)
• performed by Brave Combo
• original source: CD IT'S X-MAS, MAN! P-Vine PCD-2300 (Japan) 12/91
• and my source: CD IT'S CHRISTMAS, MAN! Rounder Records CD 9033 (US/Canada) 09/92

.....There's more information about the album in the previous two posts which I won't repeat here. Regarding this song specifically, my Spanish is a little rusty but I know the word "navideño" is the adjective form of the word "Christmas". If I had to guess (because I don't know who would take polls about matters like this) I would assume that Americans who don't speak Spanish are more likely to recognize the noun "Navidad". [In English we use one word to mean both the holiday (noun) and a description (adjective) of things related to it.] The word "corrido" as it is used here points up some of the idiomatic differences between European Spanish and Mexican Spanish. The use of the word originated in Europe and described songs meant to praise, lionize or flatter leaders or persons of power (deserving or not). In a way, when we see someone serenading a loved one in a sitcom what we're seeing is a tongue in cheek allusion to a European corrido, since that practice is now considered antiquated and engaging in it is even more of a quixotic romantic gesture than whatever words are being sung. On the other hand, the Mexican corrido had evolved into something of a public service announcement. It may have had its origins in publicly applauding the local governors but before the days of television and improved literacy rates the corrido became a means of passing on folk wisdom and life lessons of all kinds. "CORRIDO NAVIDEÑO" is a retelling of the birth of Christ and if I didn't already know that the band was based in Texas I still would have concluded that this leaned more towards the Mexican tradition. The tempo is designated ranchera, and not being a dancer I'll certainly take their word for it.

.....A little internet sleuthing leads me to believe that Bubba's given name is Cenobio, named for his grandfather as is his publishing company, Don Cenobio Music. Tomorrow I'll make a point of including the band's full line-up.

1991- "It's Christmas"

.....High on my long list of albums overdue for reissue on CD is the soundtrack album to the David Byrne film "TRUE STORIES". About a year ago I posted the details on my general music blog:

http://lgcmusic01.blogspot.com/2010/07/v03-t05-people-like-us.html

.....And here, a year later, it remains out of print. I didn't recognize the name twenty-five years ago but Carl Finch, the only member of Brave Combo to have been in every line-up since the beginning, had a couple of credits on that soundtrack album and Jeffrey Barnes arranged one of David Byrne's songs as well. Finch contributes one of the four originals on Brave Combo's Christmas album [see previous post], a cha cha with lots of minor chords that would not be out of place in a They Might Be Giants set.

• 03:39 "IT'S CHRISTMAS" (Carl Finch)
• performed by Brave Combo
• original source: CD IT'S X-MAS, MAN! P-Vine PCD-2300 (Japan) December, 1991
• and my source: CD IT'S CHRISTMAS, MAN! Rounder Records CD 9033 (US/Canada) September, 1992

.....The third original is tomorrow.

1991- "Christmas In July"

.....Christmas has taken on a life of its own in Japan where gift giving was already an art and way of life long before Americans started to worry about the holiday becoming materialistic. It's true that there has been a Christian presence in Japan for a long time now, but one has to wonder if the prospect of wrapping presents doesn't have an even stronger spiritual appeal for the Japanese.

.....It was probably in the hopes of marketing some of those presents that someone from the Japanese record label P-Vine approached the Denton, Texas based folk-dance band Brave Combo about releasing an album of Christmas songs familiar to Americans. After more than a decade as a recording unit, Brave Combo hadn't considered doing a Christmas album since, while still a niche market, it has become saturated with rerecordings of the same few standards. They had already done well in folk/klezmer/polka circles are weren't interested in what would amount to competing with Barbara Streisand and Johnny Mathis for name recognition. The prospect of reimagining and reinterpreting traditional songs from a new perspective was always intriguing though, and the opportunity to play them live to an entire nation with few or no preconceptions about the songs was even more of a lure. So, in the summer of 1991 they recorded the self-produced album at Inside Track Studio in Denton and toured with the album's release in Japan in December. The not-so-dirty little not-so-secret of Christmas music is that it's almost never recorded during the season which it's intended to evoke. To be in stores ahead of Christmas it must be recorded at least a few months in advance. Thus, the likely inspiration for one of several originals from this fine album:

• 02:12 "CHRISTMAS IN JULY" (Bubba Hernandez, Jeffrey Barnes)
• performed by Brave Combo
• original source: CD IT'S X-MAS, MAN! P-Vine PCD-2300 (Japan) December, 1991
• and my source: CD IT'S CHRISTMAS, MAN! Rounder Records CD 9033 (US/Canada) September, 1992

.....Unlike many of the songs on the album, this one is not designated by a dance tempo. There is a touch of zydeco in it, but it's definitely not one pure style. There's also an odd break where they rewrite the titles of well known songs and carols to reflect summer themes and sing each in the melody of the respective song. If this song hasn't caught on it's not likely due to Rounder's small stature as a label (they're routinely up for Grammys). It's more likely due to the requisite musicianship to even attempt a cover of it.

.....There are a few more originals here and I'll be noting them over the next few days.

1984- "Thank God It's Christmas"

.....While I was turning my attention to my other blogs this spring the band Queen began yet another remaster/reissue program. It began with the first five studio titles in May, in which the bonus tracks of previous programs were removed and relocated to a second CD for each title, with additional material added. This may be great news for anyone too young to have sought out these albums before discovering the band while playing their songs in a video game, but it's harder for older collectors to get too excited over reissues of a band whose catalog has been generally well-handled and available for the better part of two decades. While I like the band, I could never keep pace with the fans who seek out what seems like an endless stream of rare alternate versions and test pressings that are constantly surfacing. In some cases the differences between variants are cosmetic and just a matter of packaging. In others, the differences are genuine such as with alternate takes or radically different mixes. Today's post involves a simple digital remaster, but it heralded the Silver Anniversary reissue program, which garnered more attention than this year's Fortieth Anniversary. Because most of their catalog had already been remastered for the band's Twentieth Anniversary, the Silver 'Jubilee' had to be a bit over the top, so they issued a 20-CD box called ULTIMATE QUEEN. Yet, even with 20 CD's you won't find this song on it.

• 04:19 "THANK GOD IT'S CHRISTMAS" (Roger Taylor, Brian May)
• -N/A- b/w "MAN ON THE PROWL" (Freddie Mercury)
• -N/A- b/w "KEEP ON PASSING THE OPEN WINDOWS" (Freddie Mercury)
• performed by Queen
• original source: 7" EMI QUEEN5 (UK) November 26, 1984
• and my source: CD5 EMI Parlophone CDQUEEN22 [7243 8 82611 2 8] (UK) December 11,1995

.....The only US release of the song in 1984 (and for some time after that) was 12" Capitol V-8622, which, like the British 12", had extended versions of the two B-side tracks. Throughout 1984 EMI had released four other singles from the LP WORKS. Those two B-sides were the only songs from the album that had not yet been released on a single in some form or another. The A-side was recorded in a special session late in the year and they must have seemed like conspicuous candidates for the flip, despite having nothing to do with Christmas.

.....The following year Queen had no new album prepared and instead released the 14-LP box COMPLETE WORKS. It contained all their previous original studio albums (including WORKS) plus 2LP LIVE KILLERS and an exclusive rarities LP called COMPLETE VISION, which contained "THANK GOD IT'S CHRISTMAS". The box couldn't be released in the US because the albums prior to WORKS were released through Elektra in the US. Another UK-only appearance of the song in 1985 was the first Christmas edition of the popular compilation series NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC. Brazilians got the most convenient package for Queen fans that year, a latter-era compilation that not only included "THANK GOD IT'S CHRISTMAS", but was named after it, an unusual move for an otherwise secular compilation but any fan in Brazil who still couldn't find the song just wasn't trying.

.....I first encountered the song on CD. It was an unusual package, 3CD THE QUEEN COLLECTION Hollywood Records HR-61407-2 (US) November 10, 1992. While the UK and Europe had recently seen GREATEST HITS Volumes I and II on CD, North America made do with two haphazard, non-chronological compilations: CLASSIC QUEEN and GREATEST HITS (no relation to the UK version). Bizarrely, THE QUEEN COLLECTION repackages those two compilations with a third disc entitled QUEEN TALKS, a nearly hour-long BBC Radio One interview followed by "THANK GOD IT'S CHRISTMAS".

.....After their final album, MADE IN HEAVEN, was released in November 1995, England saw the release of the CD5 that I cited as my source. It was the first single off the album, "A WINTER'S TALE". Track 2 was "THANK GOD IT'S CHRISTMAS" and track 3 was a live track called "ROCK IN RIO BLUES". The third track was not on the 7" vinyl format, but it was on the first US single off the album. It was the B-side of "TOO MUCH LOVE WILL KILL YOU", which wouldn't become a UK single until February 1996. Both the UK "TOO MUCH..." and a second version of the "A WINTER'S TALE" single use remastered mid-70's A-sides as their 'flip' tracks (even though CD singles aren't flipped over to play and don't have B-sides; there really should be a better term for the subordinate, non-hit tracks on CD singles). That was probably done to advertise the 20CD ULTIMATE QUEEN box, out at the time. If you're shopping online for the song "THANK GOD IT'S CHRISTMAS" and don't want a full album be advised that it's not on the second version of the "A WINTER'S TALE" single. Be careful to check the full track listing or the catalog number I included in the source note.

.....Another convenient location for the song is CD GREATEST HITS III Hollywood Records HR-62250-2 (US) 1999. The whole album is really a good distillation of their spotty final years. Since the second five albums due to be remastered for 2011 don't include WORKS, this compilation might be the most readily available source after downloadable mp3's.

1962- "Henry Had A Merry Christmas"

.....Well, I'm a little rusty at this. Let's start with something tricky, then the rest of the month will seem easy. I first found this number (both sides of the single, actually) on a two-for-one CD. Both albums were originally released in 1962 on the Liberty label:

• LP OLD RIVERS Liberty LRP-3233(mono) or LST-7233(stereo) (US) 1962
• LP 'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS...BACK HOME Liberty LRP-3257(mono) or LST-7257(stereo) (US) 1962

.....Complication #2? These aren't even consecutive albums. Due to the success of his television series, "The Real McCoys", on top of decades of film work, Walter Brennan released five albums in 1962. If the release schedule strictly followed the order of the catalog numbers, these would be the first and fourth, respectively. More likely, the Christmas album was recorded and/or mixed fourth and held back until the holiday season, probably making it the last album of the year. He only made two further albums for Liberty as far as I can tell and did spotty, irregular recording before and after that. That he released more than two or three albums such as this in his lifetime, let alone more than eight is a testament to the public's boundless appetite for faux sentiment and maudlin kitsch. Brennan doesn't really sing so much as speak song lyrics as though he were giving a dramatic poetry reading in that rusty door hinge of a voice; his vocal chords were damaged by toxic gas during his World War I military service, according to imdb (The Internet Movie Database). The homespun plainsman demeanor was also an act, an amalgamation of numerous film characters he was often typecast to play. He was born and raised in Massachusetts and reportedly did not speak with either the accent or folksy idioms he affected when on mike. Most of his recordings are formulaic studies in insincerity, wistful recollections of a past he never lived, always including a calculated whine timed to imply how physically painful it is that there has been some form, any form, of change in the world. It's like someone spliced Ronald Reagan with Dr. Zachary Smith.

.....Complication #3? None of the songs here are given song-writing credits. The CD insert reduces the jacket art for the LP's in order to fit both on the cover. The interior of the insert reproduces the art from the backs of the jackets, but since the original format didn't have songwriting credits on the back, the CD doesn't either. There's no information on the inlay card or the disc surface. The label's website no longer lists the title. Predictably, websites offering song lyrics attribute credit to Brennan, but most of those sites don't even have the correct lyrics. Their only reason to exist is to be tar pits of viruses and pop-up ads, so they'll promise access to any kind of information but they gain no advantage in being accurate and suffer nothing for delivering misinformation. The next line of action would be to find a scan of the label, either for the single or for the full album. My usual sources turned up nothing but I noticed a number of You-Tube videos, some of which open and/or close with shots of the actual record and sat through a couple. Either the videos or my monitor wouldn't attain a sharp enough focus to read the label, unfortunately. Bored at the prospect of running down another blind alley, I read the comments left for the videos while I thought about what kind of search options I had left. One of the commentors claimed that their grandfather, Cliff Crofford, was the author. I took that with a grain of salt, since delusional people and would-be con artists are always claiming tangent relationships to fame, however minor. The name clicked for some reason, though, and when I reread the CD insert I noticed that the liner notes for the earlier of the two albums, OLD RIVERS, mentioned that the author of that title track was Cliff Crofford. It took little time to find a few different biographies of Crofford and the records of a library's holdings. The sheet music in the library corroborated what I found in the biographies, that Crofford did indeed write the song below and at least two others on the Christmas album.

• 02:30 "HENRY HAD A MERRY CHRISTMAS" (Chris Crofford)
• 02:29 "WHITE CHRISTMAS" (Irving Berlin) [see below]
• performed by Walter Brennan [and possibly the Johnny Mann Singers]
• original source: 7" Liberty 55518 (US) 1962 [probably December]
• and my source: CD TWO CLASSIC ALBUMS FROM WALTER BRENNAN: OLD RIVERS & 'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS... BACK HOME EMI-Capitol Music/Collectors' Choice Music 72438-19218-2-1 (US?) 1996

.....Both sides were produced by [Thomas] "Snuff" Garrett and arranged and conducted by Ernie Freeman. Cliff Crofford, I discovered, was a staff writer at Liberty. That might explain why I couldn't find any trace of an earlier recording of "HENRY..." by Crofford himself. In fact, I couldn't find any recordings other than Brennan's. It's possible that he also wrote the poem about snow that Brennan recites during what would otherwise have been the instrumental break in "WHITE CHRISTMAS", but since the A-side is the focus of this post and the B-side is far from an original recording I'm going to absolve myself from tracking down that detail. Like Crofford, the Johnny Mann Singers were part of the Liberty staff and performed as backing vocalists for a number of artists on the label, occasionally releasing titles of their own.

.....Complication #4? Most sites still selling the two-for-one CD cite the release date as 2004. As I mentioned earlier, the label's site no longer offers it and my own copy was bought used. The price sticker has the name of a store that I seem to remember closing at about that time. It could be that the CD was pressed twice or it could be that the 1996 copyright date on my copy refers to an earlier cassette issue. For what it's worth, Amazon places the cassette as being released in 1998 and the CD in 2000. It could also be that the 1996 date is when Collectors' Choice made the CD available for mail order only and that 2004 was when remaining copies circulated through retail outlets. I remember being on CC's mailing list and receiving their catalog, even though I had never ordered anything from them. (I used to buy a lot of music, and, even before the days of the internet, if you paid by credit card you'd get some strange offers in the mail. The CC catalogs were interesting and full of artists not seen in years, but not on the bizarre end of the scale.)

.....If any reader has inside information on the CD package (or, ideally, the original vinyl), feel free to leave a note in the comment field. I'll be notified, even after the post has become old.

Christmas In July

.....Sorry for the delay. I discovered in February that while I owned copies of all of Motown's Christmas pop music, there were in fact some subsidiary titles (now long out of print) of which I was unaware, including some instrumental jazz and a ventriloquist's album. (I know, I know: how can you tell if he's moving his lips on a record?) It looks like the delay will extend the blog's life into next year anyway, so I'll complete the Motown listings next February. Tomorrow, when it's not so late, I'll give a full entry. At the moment I want to explain something about the criteria for selections. I touched on this somewhat in the second post, "Label Glossary", but I've avoided making hard and fast rules about what I'll discuss because, after all, this is a hobby done for fun. One objective is to maximize verifiable information, citing sources when necessary. Another is to keep an open mind and include the widest variety of original twentieth century music related to Christmas. What gets excluded? Usually covers, for the sake of brevity. Anything else? Well, when I finally dragged myself back to this poor neglected blog the Elton John song "COLD AS CHRISTMAS" occurred to me. The chorus has the line "It's July, but it's cold as Christmas in the middle of the year." It's the lead track on his 1983 MTV-era comeback album, LP TOO LOW FOR ZERO, so even though I don't remember it being a 7" single (was it?) I've heard it enough that it keeps cropping up in my memory when I try to recall pop songs about Christmas. Of course, one huge advantage that my memory has over an online term search is that I know that the song takes place in July and it's about a divorce or break up. It's a simile, not a Christmas song. A decent song, but this blog isn't the right place for it. So, while I hadn't seen it as necessary to mention before, I may as well go on record that the songs here need to be about the holiday or season in some sense. And I hope to see more of them soon.

1965? Winter Wonderland (instrumental remake)

.....From 1960 to 1990 Motown released seven single-artist albums and three various artists albums of Christmas music, not counting singles, repackagings and overseas editions. Of these, only the first, 1963's CHRISTMAS WITH THE MIRACLES, contained the song "WINTER WONDERLAND". I mention this because there are two collections that have come out since then containing previously unreleased material from that period and each have an outtake of that song-- the same outtake in two different mixes, actually-- attributing it to two different producers in two different years. Here's what I know...

.....first the mono mix:

• 02:02 "WINTER WONDERLAND" (Felix Bernard)
• performed by The Funk Brothers
• produced by Ronald White
• recorded 1965
• original source: VACD CHRISTMAS IN THE CITY Motown Master Series 37463-6326-2 (G) 1993
• and my source: the same

.....and next, the stereo mix:

• 02:00 "WINTER WONDERLAND" (Felix Bernard, Dick Smith)
• performed by The Funk Brothers
• produced by Norman Whitfield
• recorded September-October 1968, as an instrumental only during the sessions for the Temptations' album CHRISTMAS CARD
• "First issued with a different mix on the Various Artists album CHRISTMAS IN THE CITY, Motown 6326, October 1993." [per liner notes of 2001 CD]
• original source: VACD A MOTOWN CHRISTMAS VOLUME 2 Motown/Universal 440 016 364-2(US) 2001
• and my source: the same

.....Ronald White produced the only other version from the 1960's, on the aforementioned Miracles' album. It's not the same music, even though it's probably some of the same session men playing the same song. It's not a radically different arrangement but different enough to distinguish between them. The only Christmas project at Motown in 1965 was the Supremes album, produced by Harvey Fuqua. My guess is that someone compiling notes for the 1993 CD got confused at some point.

.....The most noticeable difference between the mono and stereo mixes is that the stereo mix has a string section. Both versions feature what sounds like a toy xylophone, which sounds sharper in the stereo mix. Because the song isn't an original (see the 1963 posts until I can get around to posting about the 1934 versions), I'm going to hold off doing any more commentary on it until I cover the Temptations' 1968 single.

1964 Purple Snowflakes

.....Marvin Gaye seems to have spent ten years intermittently trying to get a Christmas recording of some kind off the ground. The earliest attempt I could find was a live recording of Cole's "THE CHRISTMAS SONG", but this one is not only an original composition, it's a real gem that the public never heard until years after he died. Take your pick, mono or stereo mixes:

• 02:53 "PURPLE SNOWFLAKES" (Dave Hamilton, Clarence Paul)
• performed by Marvin Gaye
• recorded in 1964 but not contemporarily released; instrumental track used for "PRETTY LITTLE BABY" [Tamla 54117 (US) 6/18/65]
• original source: VACD CHRISTMAS IN THE CITY Motown Master Series 37463-6326-2 (G) 10/19/93
• and my source: the same
• produced by Clarence Paul

.....That was the mono; here's the stereo:

• 02:54 "PURPLE SNOWFLAKES" (Clarence Paul, Dave Hamilton)
• performed by Marvin Gaye; background vocals by The Supremes
• recorded November 5 and 7, 1964 but not contemporarily released; "Track used with different lyrics as Gaye's single PRETTY LITTLE BABY, Tamla 543117, June 1965"[*]
• original source: VACD A MOTOWN CHRISTMAS 2 Motown/Universal 440 016 364-2 (US) 11/06/01
• and my source: the same
• produced by Clarence Paul

.....First of all, the [*] is to note that the catalog number is incorrect in the liner notes that came with the stereo version. I gave the correct number with the mono version. Secondly, I want to identify Clarence Paul as a Motown songwriter and producer and Dave Hamilton as a jazz musician in the Funk Brothers. Although both had careers prior to their time in Motown the song seems to be a Motown original with Gaye being the only artist to record it before using the music as the basis for "PRETTY LITTLE BABY", which was credited to Gaye, Paul and Hamilton. And in an odd coincidence, Clarence Paul soon after produced a Stevie Wonder B-side called "PURPLE RAINDROPS", written by Ted Hull and found on the flip of "UPTIGHT (EVERYTHING'S ALRIGHT)" Tamla 54124 (US) 11/22/65.

.....Not exactly a Christmas song per se, it's one of the many seasonal songs that doesn't mention the holiday but is often remembered alongside carols and standards because it so effectively evokes the time of year. Had it been released three years later at the height of psychedelia it might have been remembered differently due to the lyrics alone. Speaking of lyrics, the numerous online sites that clog every musical term search with offers of free lyrics and mp3's are annoying enough, but those purporting to have the lyrics to this song must have set a record for errors. One site calling itself "Song Meanings" had a mistake on nearly every line of every verse. Since this is one of the few songs from that early soul period with only one known recording, how they managed to be so wrong so often is one of those mysteries that, as Spinal Tap said, "is better left unsolved".