1965- Supremes sessions 2

.....In the previous post the first half of the Supremes' recordings for their 1965 Christmas album were covered. Of the nine songs known to have been completed by September 14th, only the last one, "LITTLE BRIGHT STAR", was a Motown original. The next nine include a few more. As before, the instrumentals were recorded in Los Angeles in August and the vocals in Detroit in September (see previous post). The sessions were produced by Harvey Fuqua with Hal Davis and Marc Gordon. The dates used below were found on the website Don't Forget The Motor City. Research on the origins of the songs was done using a variety of books and sites, including Allmusic, Wikipedia (US and UK), Discogs, BMI, ASCAP and imdb.

.....From LP MERRY CHRISTMAS Motown MT(mono) or MS(stereo) 638 (US) 11/01/65

• 02:48 "BORN OF MARY" (Don Gustafson) Recorded 09/15/65. For the life of me, I can't find a single other song written by Gustafson, nor an earlier recording of this one. The name might be a pseudonym. Or it could be the work of someone motivated by the subject who doesn't ordinarily write music. In any event, it's not a bad song but very obviously a pastiche of Christmas-evoking musical sounds (finger-cymbals for the Middle East, chimes for Dickensian England, a too-loud string section for soaring spirits) used as a backdrop for the story of Christ's birth. The music and lyrics coincide but it doesn't feel like either one is naturally growing out of the other. Pretty but not hummable. And I'm not sure if there are any other recordings of the song. The only compilation I've seen it on is the redundant CD CHRISTMAS TIME WITH MOTOWN (1995).
• 03:02 "TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE ME" (Ronald Miller, William O'Malley) Recorded 09/15/65 and certainly a Motown original. Miller was a staffer and will show up a few more times in this month's posts. This became the B-side of the single accompanying the album. In contrast to the previous song, this is a perfect example of how a song can be slight or weaker on paper but hold up much better in the execution. "BORN OF MARY" might have been better served without the string section and instead allowing the Supremes' vocals to stand out as they do here. They take lyrics that should be cloying and manage to make them warmer and sweet. Although often licensed out to other companies, I could only find it on the second volume of the 20th Century Masters Motown Christmas compilations.
• 02:51 "CHILDREN'S CHRISTMAS SONG" (Isabelle Freeman, Harvey Fuqua) Recorded 09/16/65 and another Motown original. This became the A-side of the single mentioned above. The liner notes of the album's 1999 remastered edition identifies the children Diana Ross instructs in the spoken parts as her own brother Chico and Berry Gordy's children Joy, Berry, Jr. and Terry (for whom his publishing company, JoBeTe, is named). Picking a children's sing-along as an A-side is an odd marketing strategy and I'd put this down to the senior Gordy giving his kids (or himself) an expensive gift.
• 03:07 "THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY" (Katherine Davis, Henry Onorati, Harry Simeone) Recorded 09/16/65 and a cover of the Harry Simeone Chorale's one time hit that almost every holiday album dutifully and mechanically acknowledges. I don't know why; the success of the original was, I thought, obviously tied to its multi-voiced delivery and whatever combination of elements were in place at its release, unlikely to ever be duplicated. Of all the songs on the album, it's the only one that nearly fifty years later has never been used on a company compilation. It's not because of the quality of the recording; there's just no point in hearing three women in chiffon dresses and bouffant hairdos sing "I am a poor boy, too".
• 03:10 "MY CHRISTMAS TREE" (Jimmy Webb) You should probably sit down for this if you're not reading at a PC. Webb was a country boy from Oklahoma studying music in Southern California in 1964. Early in 1965 his mother died and his father was unable to pay for his studies. Rather than return home he dropped out to turn professional as a songwriter. He signs with Gordy as a publisher and this song becomes his first to be released commercially. As was common in pop music, the song's genders were transposed so that Ross (in the lead vocal) refers to herself as "a girl" and the song seems to be about a meager looking Christmas tree representing her life after her boyfriend left. But the line "there's no little angel on top where it used to be", in fact most of the lines, echo Webb's loss of his mother: "the best little present a [boy] could have has gone away from me", "I have been so lonely since you left me all alone". There's nothing specific to the lyrics that state that the missing person was a romantic partner or even that they left willingly. It is an archetypal image of a young person living on their own for the first time in their lives in a strange city in an almost empty room and realizing that the feeling of being alone in the world isn't just a feeling. They really are alone. The one note of hope is a line about "one lonely present" early in the song, one tenuous connection to some other person, still there unopened after "the New Year's already gone". If the song really is a way of dealing with his grief and the unopened present is in some way a last piece of his mother it could be that the song and the present are one and the same. By inspiring the song that months later launched a prolific career as a songwriter, she may have left him a gift he had yet to open. The song was recorded 09/16/65, a month and a day after his 19th birthday. It must be the most historically significant original song on the album, but after being used on the 1968 Motown compilation I've only found it on a 1973 UK LP and no other domestic label sets.

.....From CD NEVER-BEFORE-RELEASED MASTERS Motown/MCA MCD09075MD (Japan/US) 07/87

• 01:08 "SILENT NIGHT" (Joseph Mohr, Franz Gruber) Recorded 09/16/65 with Florence Ballard as the lead vocal. This edit has only the first verse.

.....From VACD CHRISTMAS IN THE CITY Motown Master Series 37463-6326-2 (Germany) 10/19/93

• 02:40 "SILENT NIGHT" (Joseph Mohr, Franz Gruber) Recorded 09/16/65 with Florence Ballard as the lead vocal. The oldest recording I have of this song is from 1911, but it's sung in German. I'm aware of contemporary English recordings but I haven't acquired one yet. "SILENT NIGHT" has been translated into over 200 languages and there are numerous conflicting English translations. What many people don't realize is that the original German poem by Mohr has six verses and none of them mention the Virgin Mary. She was added for the English and many subsequent translations. Considering how many variant translations exist, it is likely that many have never had a "first recorded version" and I'm not sure if any recordings predate 1900. Comparing and even locating recordings of different verses is a major headache. There's an entire website devoted to this one song and even they don't bother documenting the different recordings. Even so, I'm betting that I'm safe assuming that this is not the first recording of this version.
• 02:23 "JUST A LONELY CHRISTMAS" (Harvey Fuqua, [Alan] Freed) Recorded 09/16/65 and previously recorded by the Moonglows in 1953. Alan Freed's first name isn't used either for this 1993 debut or as a bonus track for the 1999 remastered album. For an explanation of Freed's involvement, refer to the post of January 18, 2011 about the Moonglows' version.

.....From VACD A MOTOWN CHRISTMAS CAROL Motown Master Series 73145-30433-29 (US) 10/24/95

• 02:31 "OH LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM" (Phillips Brooks, Lewis Redner) Recorded 09/16/65 and credited to 'Traditional', but I found the actual composers' credits in Ian Bradley's "The Penguin Book Of Carols" (Penguin, 1999). When The Supremes' Christmas album was remastered for 1999 only three tracks of the nineteen I'm examining were not included: "O HOLY NIGHT", which wouldn't be released until 2001; the one-verse edit of "SILENT NIGHT", which was replaced by a longer edit; and this song, which was the only unreleased song on VACD A MOTOWN CHRISTMAS CAROL, although it did include some of the rarely heard 'Season's Greetings' from old promotional singles. A better source for this song would be VACD A MOTOWN CHRISTMAS VOLUME 2, the compilation that debuted their recording of "O HOLY NIGHT" (see previous post).

.....From LP MERRY CHRISTMAS Motown MT(mono) or MS(stereo) 638 (US) 11/01/65

• 02:58 "SILVER BELLS" (Jay Livingston, Ray Evans) Recorded 09/21/65 and previously recorded by The Miracles. There should be no trouble finding this recording, as it ties with "WHITE CHRISTMAS" for the Supremes Christmas song most frequently on the company compilations.

.....The different pressings of the album are:

• LP MERRY CHRISTMAS Motown MT638 (US) 11/01/65 [mono]
• LP MERRY CHRISTMAS Motown MS638 (US) 11/01/65 [stereo]
• LP MERRY CHRISTMAS Natural Resources NR4010 (US) 10/78
• LP MERRY CHRISTMAS Tamla Motown STMS 5084 (UK) 1982
• CD MERRY CHRISTMAS/SOMEDAY AT CHRISTMAS Motown/MCA MCD08041MD (US) 1986 (combined with Stevie Wonder album)
• LP MERRY CHRISTMAS Motown 5252ML (US) 1988
• CD MERRY CHRISTMAS Motown/MCA MCD09085MD (Japan/US) n.d.
• CD MERRY CHRISTMAS Motown/Universal 012 153 355-2 (US) 10/12/99 (four bonus tracks)
• CD 20TH CENTURY MASTERS/THE CHRISTMAS COLLECTION: THE BEST OF THE SUPREMES Motown/Universal 602498-60343-7 (US) 09/23/03 (same as 1999 with new art)
• CD MERRY CHRISTMAS Spectrum 600753224397 (UK) 2009 (without bonus tracks)