1967- "Won't Be Long Before Christmas"

.....In the latter half of the 1960's The Supremes sporadically worked toward an album of songs from Walt Disney films. It appears to have been abandoned in 1970 after Diana Ross left, but more than half an album's worth finally saw light in the early days of CD. When aging music fans were showing reluctance to replace their collections with a different format and the hardware to play it, there was and industry-wide effort to encourage people to invest in a CD player by offering them music that had been withheld from them by the same industry for twenty years. The Supremes' Disney songs that hadn't yet found their way to other outlets became part of CD THE NEVER-BEFORE-RELEASED MASTERS Motown/MCA MCD09075MD (Japan/US) 07/31/87. This post concerns only two of them, both recorded on April 26th, 1967 in a session produced by Frank Wilson. The first to consider is:

• 02:10 "TOYLAND" (Victor Herbert, Glen MacDonough)

.....The song was originally from the 1903 operetta "Babes In Toyland", which has a Christmas theme. When the song was performed on stage, it was sung by the male character Tom Tom and a male chorus. It has since been recorded numerous times as the play has been adapted for different media. When it was adapted by Disney for film in 1961, therefore, the fact that it was noticeably newly arranged wasn't perceived as being as radical as the unauthorized trashing of Stravinsky in "Fantasia". In fact, the story was rewritten and other songs were given different lyrics, so some believe "TOYLAND" got off easy. In the Disney film the song was sung by Tommy Sands (as Tom Tom) and Annette Funicello with a chorus of children. The music was arranged by George Bruns and the lyrics were adapted by Mel Leven. The Supremes' version that appears on the 1987 CD could be the second finished take, but I can't find the song anywhere else in the group's catalogue.

.....The second song has become a bit more accessible.

• 02:41 "WON'T BE LONG BEFORE CHRISTMAS" (Richard Sherman, Robert Sherman)

.....This song was written for a Disney film, but its history starts with a book called "My Philadelphia Father" by Cordelia Biddle Duke Robertson. The book was adapted into a play and the play was adapted into a musical film by Disney in 1967. The Supremes' version of the song was recorded while the movie was still in production, apparently anticipating their album's release to benefit from a tie to a current movie. Unfortunately, during 1967 they had to replace Florence Ballard with Cindy Birdsong and had to consider whether to complete the album or rerecord the existing portions. By the time the movie came out at end of the year, Disney had edited a further 20 minutes from what should have been the final edit. The song was among the pieces removed, which would have made its inclusion on the album problematic, had the album not been shelved. In the past decade (2004) there has been a DVD release of the movie restored to its full, near three hour length. In it, Greer Garson performs the song, although the soundtrack CD (released two years earlier) credits Anne Shelton as the performer. Of course, the song wasn't included on the original 1967 Buena Vista label soundtrack album and without being able to compare the CD to the DVD I can't tell if Garson is singing herself or lip-synching. It's more likely that the Shelton recording comes from her own single, 7" Buena Vista Records DF 476 (UK) 1969. Then, it only becomes a matter of determining whether Garson or The Supremes made the earlier recording.

.....The Motown "WON'T BE LONG BEFORE CHRISTMAS" was reissued at least twice before the restored DVD came out. Once on VACD CHRISTMAS IN THE CITY Motown Master Series 37463-6326-2 (Germany) 10/19/93 and again on VACD A MOTOWN CHRISTMAS- VOLUME 2 Motown/Universal 440 016 364-2 (US) 11/06/01 in a previously unreleased stereo mix, which is recommended.