Ernie's continued Christmas blogging has inspired me to put up some material that I hadn't had time to include come the 1st of 2022: A four-selection EP on the Record Pak label (78 rpm), and 3/4ths of a four-EP Roy-Cliffs Christmas set on Gateway Records of Cincinnati, Ohio.
For the first time in my blog's history, I have provided a spoken introduction--something I've long though about doing but never did. Now I can say, with total accuracy, that I've done it. The intro is a little over seven minutes long, and the synthesizer background is all me at the keyboard, either playing carols from songbooks or plunking out my parallel-second-inversions arrangement of White Christmas. Wet Christmas is what we ended up with in this neck of the woods--light rain (very briefly preceded, I believe, by a dusting of snow) on Christmas and heavier rain on January 1st. Now we're experiencing seasonal weather, and of course it's something of a shock. Definitely, a shock to the flowers that were starting to bloom in our unnaturally spring-like weather.
Hope you enjoy. The Gateway 78s are a little bit noisy, but I didn't want to sacrifice any sound to hiss filtering. Never over-filter. That's one of my pet rules when it comes to coaxing sound out of shellac.
Some inexplicable image-adding issues had me putting my spoken prologue in a separate folder--I don't know why my media players were messing with me the way they were, but it seemed to help after I'd separated the spoken intro from the music tracks. Then, and only then, was I able to attach images to each individual mp3. Please access the prologue folder first--that is, if you want to hear the voice behind the blog. After all these years, I've finally played DJ. Or, I suppose, LeeJay.
DOWNLOAD: Record Pak and Gateway Records Christmas
Blue Christmas (Johnson-Hayes)/Auld Lang Syne--Jeri Shannon, Ralph Berger Orch. (Record Pak I-539-A)
I'll Be Home for Xmas (Ram)/Adeste Fidelis--Jerry Smith, Ralph Berger Orch. (Record Pak I-539-B)
The Roy-Cliffs Featuring the Baldwin Orga-Sonic Spinet Organ and the Baldwin piano
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer/White Christmas (Gateway Records 163-A)
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town/Jingle Bells (Gateway Records 163-B)
Adeste Fidelis/Silver Bells (Gateway Records 165-A)
Hark the Herald Angels Sing/It Came Upon a Midnight Clear (Gateway Records 165-B)
Little Town of Bethlehem/Silent Night (Gateway Records 166-A)
Away in a Manger/The First Noel (Gateway Records 166-B)
Lee
5 comments:
Thanks for continuing on, Lee. There's no reason Christmas has to end just because the calendar changes. :)
Thanks for this, Lee - there used to be a few DJs on Cleveland radio who accompanied themselves with piano interludes, as did Steve Allen at one time (or so I seem to recall). But I doubt they wrote their own material, except for Steverino.
Not much snow up here. Maybe Ernie is snowed in?
Ernie,
I absolutely agree. And the old cliche is that the Christmas spirit should be year-round, and it's hard to argue with that sentiment.
Buster,
I just had an urge to do a recorded segment, and I happened to be plunking around on the keyboard last week, checking out what "White Christmas" would sound like in parallel triads. And it turned out to have just the right space-music sound--with the aid of the synthesizer patch. So I fashioned it into an intro to my intro. The rest of the background sounds were me playing from Christmas carol books. Once I was finished editing my message, I overlaid the music track. And I hope Ernie's not getting any of the white stuff which, in pre-climate change days, would have come our way. Or would have at least bypassed the south. It's a scary development...
Well, the beaches are covered with a blanket of white, but that's about it. :)
Ernie,
Glad to hear you didn't get a major deposit. The lack of snow around these parts has been very weird.
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