A happy sleighlist--Bobby Helms, Linn Sheldon, Sandpipers!

Not merely reasonably content, but happy is this sleighlist! (I have no idea what I just typed.) You'd be happy, too, if you contained Bobby Helm's 1965 re-do of Jingle Bell Rock, plus the greatest of all cheap-label holiday classics, My First Christmas Tree, plus Linn Sheldon's Boofo Goes Where Santa Goes. Well, wouldn't you?

And... three by George Beverly Shea, a trio of dance-class renditions of Winter Wonderland (at three different tempos, er, tempi), and what I believe to be a contemporary (that is, 1958) cheap label knock-off of The Little Drummer Boy, though in a later issue.

I can feel it--you're hooked. You can't not download. So, download already! To the music: A happy sleighlist!

MY FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE--Treasure Records 824.
JINGLE BELLS--Treasure Records 824.
LITTLE DRUMMER BOY--(Christmas Party for Children, Yulesong 0222).
THE BELL THAT COULDN'T JINGLE (Bacharach--Kusik)--Bobby Helms, 1965.
JINGLE BELL ROCK--Same.
THOU DIDST LEAVE THY THRONE--George Beverly Shea.
C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S--Same.
PUT CHRIST BACK INTO CHRISTMAS--Same, 1954.
WINTER WONDERLAND (Three renditions, three tempos)--Velmo 677
RABBITS HAVE A CHRISTMAS--Linn Sheldon (Barnaby), 1960.
BOOFO GOES WHERE SANTA GOES--Same, 1960.
MASSACHUSETTS MIXTURE (JINGLE BELLS)--Lawrence Joy, Wilbur Waite, 1951.
PARADE OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS--Sandpipers, Ann Lloyd, Mitch Miller, 1951.
SANTA'S TOY SHOP--Voco VX-630.


Lee

Trinity Choir, 1926.

Trinity Choir--Christmas Hymns and Carols, 1926.

Cool electrical-era recording of the Trinity Choir singing (you'll never guess) Christmas numbers! Some surface hiss, but I guess we can cut the disc some slack. It's 85 years old, after all.

Includes the once-standard Christians, Awake! (which I plan to use as the organ prelude on Christmas Eve), and the still-popular A Joyful Christmas Song. Here's an extremely good (and much newer) performance of the latter by the Roseville Area High School Choir: Chanson Joyeuse de Noel.



Lee

Christmas Favorites--Tops Orchestra and Choristers (1957)

1957 is the release year for this LP, but Tops only knows when the tracks themselves were recorded. Frosty, in particular, sounds much earlier. In fact, I just checked, and it's Bud Roman's version, from Tops 309 (c. 1950), which I have on 78. Good job, ears. (Ah, I also have it on a 7" Tops for Tots single.)

Another pre-1957 track is the gloriously tacky Santa Claus Is Riding Through the Sky , which came out on a number of different labels in addition to Tops, including Wonderland, Crown, and Treasure, though the title is usually Santa Claus is Flying Through the Sky. Tops is just keeping us on our toes.

My rip sounds great, if you ask me, and the tracklist just flows along, despite the cobbled-together nature of the collection. Of all the bargain-basement labels of its day, Tops probably had the most conventional looking covers--i.e., covers that resemble those put out by "real" outfits. The snowy-white jacket border, by the way, is my doing, and with Paint software, no less. I enlarged the image as much as the program permitted, and then I cut out the browned edges, leaving a white area.

Wow, I just noticed that Tops sprung for two commas in the jacket playlist--impressive! I hope no one got fired over that....

To the music: Christmas Favorites--Tops O. and Cho.

WHITE CHRISTMAS
SILENT NIGHT
DECK THE HALLS
RUDOLPH, THE RED-NOSED REINDEER
JOY TO THE WORLD
IT CAME UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR
FROSTY THE SNOWMAN
'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
GOD REST YE MERRY GENTLEMEN
WINTER WONDERLAND
O, COME ALL YE FAITHFUL
HARK THE HERALD ANGELS SING
JINGLE BELLS
SANTA CLAUS IS RIDING THROUGH THE SKY
THE FIRST NOEL
O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM
AWAY IN A MANGER
GOOD KING WENCESLAUS

Christmas Favorites--Tops Orchestra and Choristers (Tops L-1525; 1957)


Lee

Christmas Music for the Winter Season (Ultraphonic/Golden Tone/Rondo-lette/Royale 51500)

What a deal--four labels to choose from! I settled on Rondo-lette, though you might prefer Ultraphonic or Golden Tone, whose logos also show up on this. The Royale label is present by implication, since the tracks are credited to the Royale Concert Orch.

Three of these four el-cheapo labels were owned by Eli Oberstein, while Golden Tone belonged to Tops. Therefore, this LP might have been put out by Pickwick, which in 1963 had bought Tops, which itself had earlier bought the whole Oberstein stable of labels. Or it could be a Tops release. Or it could be a very clever fake designed by a forger with way too much time on his hands and no nose for profit.

So, how's the music on this Golden Tone/Ultraphonic/Royale/Rondo-lette/possibly Pickwick/Tops release, you ask? Quite good, surprisingly. While the hymn selections on side A are kind of so-so, the pop stuff on side B is lively, colorful, and skillfully arranged, even if two of the numbers show up twice. They're in different arrangements, mind you, but they're the same numbers (I refer to March of the Toys and Jingle Bells). Being clever, Golden Tone/Tops/Royale, etc. titled the second instance of March of the Toys as March of Toys, leaving out the "the." Meanwhile, they simply omitted any mention of the second Jingle Bells (having no "the" to leave off).

Yup--the ol' six-tracks-listed-but-seven-tracks-on-the-side trick. Very clever, Ultraphonic/Royale/Tops/Golden Tone/possibly Pickwick.

Since Side B is so much better (I think, anyway) than Side A, I flipped the order. That, plus I wasn't paying complete attention when I ripped these. I was too busy trying to figure out what label I was dealing with. I'm open to suggestions.

I forgot to mention that the jacket and label titles don't even match. Jacket says, Christmas Music for the Winter Season, whereas the label promises An Hour of Christmas Orchestral Music--an hour which clocks in at 36 minutes and 17 seconds. And you thought you were disorganized.

To the music: Christmas Music at Winter Time (Or, An Hour of C. Orchestral Music)

TRACKLIST

Jingle Bells
White Christmas
March of the Toys
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
Toyland
March of Toys
Jingle Bells (2)
Silent Night, Holy Night
The First Noel
Adeste Fidelis
O Little Town of Bethlehem
We Three Kings of Orient Are
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
Angels We Have Heard on High

The Royale Concert Orch. (Rondo-lette 51500)



Lee

Music at Christmas Time (For Elementary Grades)--RCA WE-88

From the RCA Victor Record Library for Elementary Schools series, a 45 rpm, four-EP set from around 1950. (I'm guesstimating from the label color.) Superb concert-style, vocal-and-orchestra Christmas renditions of the type that almost make up for the piped-in stuff Bev and I were subjected to at Meijer today. Don't get me wrong--Meijer's a great store. But that contemporary pop holiday stuff... aieeeeee!!!!

It doesn't help that I can't stand 99+ percent of modern pop music of any type. It's not as if Meijer can help that. Anyway, to the vastly superior holiday readings of decades past:

Music at Christmas Time

Tracks:

1) UNDER THE STARS--I SAW THREE SHIPS--ONCE IN ROYAL DAVID'S CITY
2) JINGLE BELLS--AWAY IN A MANGER--I HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY
3) WHILE SHEPHERDS WATCHED THEIR FLOCKS BY NIGHT--JOY TO THE WORLD
4) IT CAME UPON THE MIDNIGHT CLEAR--THE FIRST NOEL--DECK THE HALLS
5) O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL--O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM
6) SILENT NIGHT--HARK! THE HERALD ANGELS SING
7) WE THREE KINGS OF ORIENT ARE--BIRTHDAY OF THE KING
8) O HOLY NIGHT--NAZARETH (Gounod)

Performers:

1) Jeanne Privette, Soprano, w. RCA Victor Orch., cond. by Ardon Cornwell
2) Same.
3) Joseph Laderoute, Tenor; Leo Bernache, Tenor; RCA Victor Orch.
4) Joseph Laderoute, Tenor; RCA Victor Orch.
5) Same.
6) Jeanne Privette, Soprano; Leo Bernache, Tenor; RCA Victor Orch.
7) Joseph Laderoute, Tenor; Jeanne Privette, Soprano; RCA Victor Orch.
8) Jeanne Privette, Soprano; Leo Bernache, Tenor; Elsie MacFarlane, Contralto; RCA Victor O.



Lee

Have a Line Material Christmas!!

(I'm not above repeating my own essays):

This blog is your source for Line Material Christmas recordings. Accept no imitations. Get your LM groove on here.

We'll start with an explanation of Line Material. Here are two great links for that purpose: Cooper Power Systems and The Line Material Co.

Seems that Line Material annually produced cool Christmas give-away records from (at least as early as) 1949 to (at least as late as) 1964. If you find yourself wondering why the 1957-1962 sides sound so spectacular, consider the talent involved during that particular period: choral arranging by John McCarthy (of Ambrosia/John McCarthy Singers fame) and instrumental arranging by David Carroll (of Mercury). I know for sure they were behind Santa's Factoree, and I'm guessing they're the architects of/on the others from 1957-1962. Line Material was apparently able to hire the best, though I'm guessing that John McCarthy's services were cheaper prior to his 1961-66 stint as choral director for the London Symphony Orchestra.

The LM (and CLM of Canada) sides which date from before and after the 1957-62 period have proven--so far, at least--to be considerably less spectacular, especially 1964's The Story of Santa Claus, which pulled double duty as a Turkish Information Office issue! All the sides are entertaining, but the McCarthy/Carroll efforts raised the company-holiday-record bar to the stratosphere. To the thermosphere, even. Well, maybe not the thermosphere--too hot.

The Magic of Christmas is courtesy of holiday maniac Ernie (who snail-mailed me the small, vinyl 78-rpm disc in 2007), and the 1964 file (replaced here by a cleaner copy) was kindly provided by Stubbysfears.

You'll love these, even if you've heard them before. If you haven't, prepare to be spending the next several weeks singing "Merry Christmas, from Line Material. (Repeat X3, fade)." We start with the 1957-1962 McCarthy/Carroll classics. The two Canadian (CLM) editions are courtesy of Captain OT of A Christmas Yuleblog:

Click here to hear: Have a Line Material Christmas!

LINE MATERIAL CHRISTMAS LIST:

KEEPING CHRISTMAS--Jim Ameche, 1949.
THE MAGIC OF CHRISTMAS--1956.
SANTA'S NORTH POLE BAND--1957.
THE KINDS OF CHRISTMAS--1958.
THE SOUNDS OF CHRISTMAS--1959.
SANTA'S FACTOREE--1960.
THE DAY THAT SANTA WAS SICK--1961.
LET'S TRIM THE CHRISTMAS TREE--1962.
THE SOUNDS OF CHRISTMAS--CLM version, 1959.
SANTA'S FACTOREE--CLM version, 1960.

Lee