1967- Stevie Wonder Album

.....In 1967 a Stevie Wonder A-side from the previous year, "SOMEDAY AT CHRISTMAS" (see two posts ago), became the title track of a full album of otherwise newly recorded material. The sessions were produced by Henry Cosby (except for the last track, as noted) and included a number of original songs co-written by Ronald Miller, who co-wrote both sides of the single. There were at least a half dozen on one day.

• 03:08 "THE CHRISTMAS SONG" (Mel Tormé, Robert Wells)- Recorded 08/08/67 and previously released by The Miracles. At the time there were also unreleased versions by Marvin Gaye and The Supremes.
• 02:50 "EVERYONE'S A KID AT CHRISTMAS TIME" (Ronald Miller, Aurora Miller)- Recorded 08/15/67, but the only song here not included on the album. It's like a slightly more buoyant versions of "THE MIRACLES OF CHRISTMAS", the B-side of the 1966 single. The post for that single has already detailed its appearances.
• 02:43 "ONE LITTLE CHRISTMAS TREE" (Ronald Miller, Bryan Wells)- Recorded 08/15/67. Boy, Charles Schulz has a lot to answer for. Just for the record, The Supremes recorded Jimmy Webb's "MY CHRISTMAS TREE" months before the first broadcast of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" in December 1965. Although, truth to tell, most of these stories can be traced to Hans Christian Anderson's "The Fir Tree" (1845). For the curious with a little time to kill: http://hca.gilead.org.il/fir_tree.html
• 03:35 "THE DAY THAT LOVE BEGAN" (Ronald Miller, Deborah Miller)- Recorded 08/15/67. Musically this really doesn't have a hook but lyrically it fits with "LITTLE DRUMMER BOY" and "WE THREE KINGS" among songs that try to find a new perspective on the Nativity through the lives it directly intersected.
• 03:29 "BEDTIME FOR TOYS" (Ronald Miller, Orlando Murden)- Recorded 08/15/67 with arrangements by Wade Marcus. It was also used as a B-side in 1971. While "EVERYONE'S A KID AT CHRISTMAS TIME" and the aforementioned B-side went over pretty smoothly, this one made it on to the album while they didn't. I find that curious, because all three involve childhood at Christmas and Stevie Wonder had been moving away from being 'Little Stevie' for just a few years, so it would be understandable that he would want to put a low quota ceiling on this sort of thing, but on this song more so than the other two it sounds as though he's singing it through clenched teeth. If so, he was right to resent it, the song is awful regardless of how it's performed. I'm not sure at what point during the day this track was recorded but it's worth noting that the four songs recorded on the following two days were covers.
• 03:14 "TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE ME" (Ronald Miller, William O'Malley)- Recorded 08/15/67 and previously recorded for the 1965 Supremes' album. This might be the first time an original Motown Christmas song was covered. I'm certain it's the first time such a cover was released.
• 03:26 "A WARM LITTLE HOME ON A HILL" (Ronald Miller, Bryan Wells)- Recorded 08/15/67. This would be at the opposite end of the spectrum from "BEDTIME FOR TOYS". Although Wonder was not yet 18 years old (and this song would be more appropriate for someone ten years older) he actually sounds convincing as someone looking at a wife and two children and seeing domesticity as a refuge instead of a dead end. Although technically a Christmas song because of the passing mention of Santa and stockings it is more of a New Year's song in the sense of assessing one's life and the state of your surroundings. It might be my favorite song on the album, but it rarely appears on the label's domestic compilations such as 1994's VACD A MOTOWN CHRISTMAS GIFT.
• 02:23 "SILVER BELLS" (Jay Livingston, Ray Evans)- Recorded 08/16/67 and the third Motown version to see light after The Miracles (1963) and The Supremes (1965).
• 02:32 "CHRISTMAS TIME" (Sol Selegna)- Recorded 08/16/67. This should be a good time to point out that producer Henry Cosby is no relation to the more famous Dr. William Henry Cosby, better known as the comedian Bill Cosby. 'Bill' grew up in Philadelphia and 'Henry' grew up in Detroit. The reason I mention this now is that my attempts to find an earlier recording of this song took a strange turn. The composer's name, 'Sol Selegna', doesn't appear anywhere in Don Waller's book "The Motown Story" (Scribner's, 1985), a book whose whole raison d'être is to name-drop. An online search yielded numerous credits in the last ten years, one in the 1980's and this song in 1967. We can reasonably assume that the more recent credits are for someone else with the same name, but there is one earlier credit for a single track on a Bill Cosby spoken word comedy album, also called "CHRISTMAS TIME". The track is credited to Cosby and Selegna, but while I remember listening to that album as a kid I can't remember if there was any music on it. Most of Cosby's early stand-up albums (this was his second) were in front of live audiences and I know he wasn't singing on any of them. I can't imagine that when his career was starting that he would splurge on having a live band sit on stage waiting to play a minute of music for a particular bit. The short version? I'm willing to believe that this recording is the first commercial release of the song, but I'm more than willing to listen to other opinions and any clues as to whether Selegna c.1967 was a real individual or a pseudonym.
• 03:58 "AVE MARIA" (Franz Schubert)- Recorded 08/17/67 and needless to say not the first recording but a notable arrangement. Wonder sings in Latin, reverently and passionately, and even on a Christmas themed album it must have turned a number of heads among listeners expecting R&B remakes of "JINGLE BELLS", et al. Then, halfway into into it, he inserts a harmonica break, still in keeping with the original tempo and following the dynamics you would expect for a first violin in an orchestral arrangement. The take (if it is a single take and not an edited overdub) is seamless and yet still jarring by the mere fact that the harmonica is there. I've read people disagreeing over whether this was a statement to be taken seriously as an adult musician or just a bratty prank and I would argue that the superior quality of the performance demands serious consideration regardless of what the intentions were in the planning stages. This is beautiful and has earned its spot on numerous compilations over the last forty years, as well as being released as a single in its own right in Italy in the mid 1970's.
• 03:05 "THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY" (Katherine Davis, Henry Onorati, Harry Simeone)- Recorded 08/17/67 and the third song to also have been recorded for the Supremes' album.

.....Over a month after those sessions one further recording was made, produced by Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol and providing them with a real kicker to close the album:

• 02:28 "WHAT CHRISTMAS MEANS TO ME" (Anna Gordy Gaye, Allen Story, George Gordy)- Recorded 09/26/67 and inevitably an A-side, although not until 1971. It went on to appear on most of the major label compilations (1968, 1973, 1995 and 2009) and must be what these groups were hoping for every time they went into the studio.

.....The first pressing of the album jacket had a large circular photo of Stevie Wonder on an orange background. The 1978 reissue and all subsequent pressings replaced that with a square painting of a 'warm little home on a hill' tilted on a background of red and green ribbon stripes. The releases I've managed to find are below:

• 7" Tamla T-54142 (US) 11/22/66 "SOMEDAY AT CHRISTMAS" b/w "THE MIRACLES OF CHRISTMAS" (see earlier post)
• LP SOMEDAY AT CHRISTMAS Tamla TM(mono) or TS(stereo) 281 (US) 11/27/67
• 7" Tamla 54214 (US) 12/71 "WHAT CHRISTMAS MEANS TO ME" b/w "BEDTIME FOR TOYS"
• LP SOMEDAY AT CHRISTMAS Tamla T7-362R1 (US) 10/78
• LP SOMEDAY AT CHRISTMAS Motown 5255ML (US) 07/82
• CD MERRY CHRISTMAS/SOMEDAY AT CHRISTMAS Motown/MCA MCD08041MD (US) 1986 [This CD combines the 1965 Supremes album with the 1967 Stevie Wonder album without cutting any material. There are no bonus tracks. The catalogue number I've given is the correct one, impressed on the inner ring of the disc and printed on the spine and back of the jewel box. However, the number is altered to '8141' when printed on the disc surface and I've seen online auction and retail sites use this number instead. If buying from them, be certain to find out if the jewel box is included.]
• CD SOMEDAY AT CHRISTMAS MCA Special Products 737463525527 (US) 08/09/00 (same as LP)
• CD 20TH CENTURY MASTERS/THE CHRISTMAS COLLECTION: THE BEST OF STEVIE WONDER Motown/Universal Booo283102 (US) 09/21/04 [This isn't really a 'best of'; it's the 1967 album in the original program order plus the B-side "THE MIRACLES OF CHRISTMAS" and the outtake "EVERYONE'S A KID AT CHRISTMAS TIME"]

.....The only other Christmas recording I can find from Wonder is a 1973 promotional greeting, but there may be some covers in his later career.