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]