The Caroleers' "The Little Drummer Boy" in "stereo": Putting the "junk" in "junk-label Christmas"

 

The "stereo" The Little Drummer Boy (Premier XMS-8)

The mono The Little Drummer Boy (XM-8, but the back jacket indicating a "stereo" issue.

We'll be hearing the disc which came with the pretty awesome Santa Claus cover.  This is one of those rare instances in which a junk-label Xmas jacket looks just as cool--or even cooler--than those of legit caliber.  But there's a bit of incongruity between THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY in big font, right over a picture of Santa.  But buyers of cheap vinyl weren't thinking about such matters--likely, there was an "Only 99¢" sticker on the album, and the purchaser thought, "Hey, Christmas music for only 99 cents. Cool!"  And another junk Xmas album left the racks, later to haunt a 21st-century thrift store.  Where, at the time of this post, thrift managers somehow imagine they can get $5.99 for a mildewed Sergio Franchi disc.

After ripping this and realizing that this is but a reissue of a (presumably) earlier mono LP, I gave some thought to replacing these fake/rechanneled-stereo with the mono ones, but the summed stereo sounds just as lousy as the mono, so...

Oh, and there is selection in actual, true stereo: The excellent Synthetic Plastics Co. title track, one of the best LDB versions ever.  Author and friend Brian McFadden has written about the SPC material which ended up at Premier, and the reasons why, so... just take my word: This is the superb SPC Little Drummer Boy, and in true stereo!  Except I summed the channels to mono.  The thing is, VinylStudio gives me the option of an entire LP in stereo or that entire LP "mixed down to mono."  But I'll stick the true-stereo LDB in an upcoming various-artists extravaganza.  

And then things get mediocre really fast, starting with a so-so Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, which might have succeeded with less sucky audio, and then the most lackluster budget Jingle Bells ever recorded, with polka-quality group vocals that sound slightly hungover.  Next, a hilariously lethargic Deck the Halls (originally, Hall) by another group of polka-background singers who are either 1) just coming out of their hangover or 2) on the verge of passing out in the studio.  We'll never know which.

Then, an inspired and very nicely arranged Twas (sic) the Night Before Christmas, which might have sounded great if it wasn't drenched in echo (the mono cut has the same liability).  This genuinely decent track is followed by a succession of hymnal Xmas songs sung professionally--and in low fidelity--making for typical Side 2 cheap-vinyl filler.  Things close with a decent version of I Heard the Bells originally released by SPC (on Promenade) and credited to the Caroleers--in much better fidelity.  Which seems redundant, since any fidelity would be better than this.

So, save for a few selections, this really does put the "junk" in "junk-label Christmas," but let's consider the highly probable reality that the average purchaser of Christmas material was 1) looking for something inexpensive (and possibly last-minute), 2) didn't especially care about the quality of the performances, and 3) was easily hooked by an awesome cover image like this one.  I know I was hooked when I came across this in the big-city Goodwill, where vinyl is still holding a 99 cents, so imagine the impact of this jacket back in... 1966?  1969?  1972?

It's not unreasonable, in my opinion, to suggest that the combined sales (or, to quote Google's AI, "sheer units") of cut-rate holiday vinyl sold as well or better than major-label LPs.  It's a thought.

But the budgets had pride, and in fact they often touted their second-rate products as superior to regular-priced material from legit outfits.  I doubt we'll ever run across a Have a Crappy Christmas With a Name-We-Just-Made-up Ensemble budget release.

DOWNLOAD: The Little Drummer Boy--Christmas Favorites.zip

The Little Drummer Boy (Coming in true stereo in a various-artists post)

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

Jingle Bells

Deck the Halls With Boughs of Holly

Twas the Night Before Christmas

Silent Night

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

I Heard the Bells

(The Little Drummer Boy--Christmas Songs for Children--The Caroleers--Premier XMS-8)

Lee

Christmas Everywhere; Christmas Isn't Christmas; All Around the Christmas Tree; more!

 

I have a request for the 1958 Fran Alexandre Christmas Everywhere, and this does seem to be one of my more popular posts.  So I was surprised to discover that there was no working blog link for this number (thanks, Workupload!), so... here it is, along with its flip side, One Star.  Neither number is terribly original, with the first an exercise in how many times the word "Christmas" can be inserted into a set of lyrics--but both are exceptionally well done, with Fran a more than capable vocalist (a contralto, according to my ears).  The uncanny precision of the chorus suggests the multi-tracking of one or two singers (and there's an apparent generational loss as the tracks were "bounced.").  In multi-tracking terms, Christmas Everywhere has a Beach Boys feel--not stylistically but technically.  Back in 2020, there was a 29-comment discussion of the number at this very blog.  Peruse it if you dare!  (No, really, it's went very well.)

This time around, I hear "wow" in the recording--an effect caused by unstable speed.  I had initially sensed (falsely, I think) an edit at each modulation, but I no longer hear anything like that.  I think what we have is a double-tracked lead vocal (as suggested by Brad), and possibly multi-tracked background singers, with everyone very professionally managing the frequent key changes.  Essentially, Christmas Everywhere is like an ultra-simple concept given a very careful and elaborate presentation.  The sense of perpetuum mobile might be the key to the track's genius.  The lyrics tell us that it's "Christmas everywhere," and the music evokes a fast trip across the holiday landscape.  Or whatever I just typed.  ("The holiday landscape"??)

One Star provides a wonderful contrast, since the track is static by comparison, despite a number of modulations (key changes).  The notion of the Star of Bethlehem shining forever is a standard and ancient trope, just as the Nativity was once celebrated by Medieval churches as an event happening just up the hill behind the church, where the congregation could walk and peek in on the holy proceedings.  Linear time is a recent cultural concept.

1952's Christmas Isn't Christmas might be the funniest incomplete-thought holiday title ever.  A perfectly ordinary Xmas number, but unintentionally hilarious (to me, anyway).

Santa Claus is Flying Thru the Sky made the budget-label rounds for years (sometimes with incorrect titles) since coming out in 1950 on Lincoln Records, where it is credited to Loren Becker and Sally Sweetland, with (who else?) Enoch Light.  The composer was Marion Rosette, who (says Discogs) "is best known for the compositions that were featured on the children's television show Captain Kangaroo, including Katie the Kangaroo, City Mouse and Country Mouse, and The Monkey Who Wanted to Fly."  She died in 1991.

And we have a very nice-sounding All Around the Christmas Tree (w: Johnny Stuart, m: Johnny Klein), which first appeared in 1945 on the Sonora label and in a lovely picture envelope/sleeve.  Dick Todd sings with the Mark Warnow and the Hit Parade Orchestra.  Mark was the older brother of Raymond Scott, and he conducted the Your Hit Parade radio orchestra from 1939 to 1949 (the year of his death).  My rip is from an uncredited Value Hit Parade Tunes 78rpm EP.  This was also issued on Royale and Varsity, and who knows where else.  

As for the two 1954 Cliff Martin and The Neighbor's Kids numbers, the label--Pic--had Don Costa, of all people, as the resident conductor.  I'm assuming this is the same Don Costa who was the Director of Artists & Repertoire for ABC-Paramount, and who discovered Paul Anka and is known for his work with Frank Sinatra.  Here, he's backing the Neighbor's Kids.

And three versions of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride (words: Mitchell Parish): 1) A nice, big-band-ish rendition by Fontanna's Orchestra and Chorus on the ultra-cheap Palace label, 2) the all-time great 1949 Boston Pops rendition (from a 1965 45-rpm reissue), and 3) a gorgeous vocal version by the Crystal Studio Choir on the Audition (Waldorf) label, year unknown.

On a Christmas Morning, recorded on 9/11/1911, might be my favorite "descriptive" Christmas number ever, and it was composed by Lillian Currie, about whom I can find nothing.

Dorothy Collins' Mr. Santa is a take on Mr. Sandman, and it's ripped from a various-artists LP on Coral.  Christmas Shopping, one of two stereo tracks in this list, is a fun 1967 number (which sounds very 1967) written by Bob Ashton and performed by Ralph Carmichael and His Singers.  Bobby Roberts' Jingle Bells, The Best Things in Life Are Free, etc. track is a weird relic from 1958.

Nineteen tracks.  I don't know what happened to number 6, though I hope it went to a happy place.

DOWNLOAD: Christmas Everywhere, more!--V.A.zip

SLEIGHLIST:

Christmas Everywhere--Fran Alexandre, 1958

One Star--Same

Christmas Isn't Christmas--Woody Wooddell and Bailey Sisters, 1952

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer--The Cadillacs, Orch. Dir. Jessie Powell, 1956

Santa Claus Is Flying Through the Sky--Uncredited (Loren Becker, Sally Sweetland With Enoch Light Orch., 1950)

Gee Whiz, It's Christmas--The Beginning of the End (Ray Munnings), 1970

Sleigh Ride--Fontanna, His Orchestra and Chorus

Santa Claus Is on His Way--Cliff Martin and the Neighbor's Kids, Orch. c. Don Costa, 1954

Three Little Dwarfs and Santa Claus--Same

Jingle Bells--The Music City Chorale With Bob Russell (Holiday Hits 902, 1963)

Sleigh Ride--Boston Pops Orchestra, Arthur Fiedler, Conductor, 1949

Sleigh Ride--The Crystal Studio Choir (Audition--Waldorf/Grand Award sublabel).

Merry, Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas--Ruby Wright With Cliff Lash and His O., The Dick Noel Singers, 1957

On a Christmas Morning--Prince's Orchestra, 1911

All Around the Christmas Tree--Dick Todd, Mark Marnow and Orch., 1945 

Mr. Santa--Dorothy Collins, Orch. Dir. Dick Jacobs, 1955

Jingle Bells--Jeanne Privette, RCA Victor Orch., c. Ardon Cornwell, 1951

Christmas Shopping--Ralph Carmichael Singers and Orch., 1967

Medley: Jingle Bells-Just in Time-The Best Things in Life Are Free--Bobby Roberts and His Orch., 1958

Lee

Christmas Holiday Time for Children--Colortone Studio Orchestra and Chorus

 

Colortone: Waldorf, who else?  This LP is yet another variant on a collection which started in 10"-LP form and (who knows?) probably some EP sets, as well.  Naturally, there is no artist credit beyond the fake "Colortone Studio Orch. and Chorus," an aggregation no doubt making appearances across the country when this was put out.  For once, the catalog number gives no clue as to the year--typically, these appeared in two-digit form ("58," "59," etc.).  But I doubt that this LP dates back to 1949 or 1943, and so the 33-4943 is pretty useless as a clue.

An achingly gorgeous rendition of Victor Herbert's Toyland is the highlight of Side A, and I have no idea who sings it.  Happy Days Are Here Again is the one totally-out-of-place track on this LP, and the fidelity is dreadful.  Nothing I attempted was able to save the audio, so I'm just assuming it was badly mastered, badly recorded to begin with, or both.  Stylus width, filter settings, etc., could not save this number.

Jingle Bells is the most aggressively let's-pretend-the-big-band-era-never-expired track, and it features the standard (for the genre) toying around with the rhythms in the Jingle Bells chorus.  You know, to give it a scat or jive quality, Daddy-o (or Mommy-o).   It's a c. 1942 groove, hep cats.

Jolly Old St. Nicholas, its melody from the 1880s, has always been for me about as soporific as ten rounds of Cantique de Noël  played at Larghissimo, but the superlative bass vocal and fancy scoring actually has me liking the number for once--so, congratulations to Colortone for a minor 2025 holiday miracle.  Meanwhile, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus always sucks, and it's only a matter of to what inexcusable extent of suckdom--but this uncredited child singer is only very slightly trying for an "Aren't I cute?" feel, and the arrangement is solid, and it deserves a D+, Leethinks.  Rudolph is similarly unmemorable (save for the Henry Busse-esque muted trumpet solos), with the singer sounding on the verge of dozing off.  An excellent March of the Toys (another Victor Herbert masterpiece) makes up for the three preceding bands, and I might learn to love this rendition.

And, as a big surprise, Christmas Has Come Again manages to worthily follow Toys, and while I should know the German melody from which this was cribbed, I do not.  Feel free to fill me in.  And The Gingerbread Man provides a cute coda, and if you have the time and motivation, check out the hyper-complicated history of this simple fairytale, which sounds like a cute Little Golden Books entry from the 1940s but which goes back a long ways and with umpteen variants.  It's an "accumulative" fairytale, maybe, or something close to same, and in its uncleansed version, the gingerbread man is tricked, and consumed, by a fox.  That couldn't be allowed for the Colortone label, and so the Man manages to get back home.  Where, in all probability, the lonely old woman decides, "This is no substitute for a son, and he won't stay put.  And I'm hungry."  Goodbye, Gingerbread Man.

And this LP pulls the usual trick of crediting P.D. material to label bigwigs.  Thus, Jolly Old St. Nicholas was somehow co-written by Enoch Light.  Surrrrre, it was.  The old arranger-as-the-writer scam.

DOWNLOAD: Christmas Holiday Time for Children.zip FLAC

Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town

Frosty the Snowman

When Christmas Comes to Our House

Toyland

Jingle Bells

Happy Days Are Here Again

Jolly Old St. Nicholas

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

March of the Toys

Christmas Has Come Again

The Gingerbread Man

Lee

Down in the valleys: "Death Valley Suite" (Grofe) excerpts: "Desert Water Hole," "Sand Storm," and "Valley of the Sun Suite" (also Grofe)

 

Cold weather coming on, and Christmas arriving in 32 days--so, as a reminder of the summer days of late June to late September, Ferde Grofe's 1949 gem, Death Valley Suite.  The occasion for this post is my eBay acquisition of the Purdue Symphony Band performing the third and fourth movement--a performance I predicted would be terrific--and I was correct.  

So, first off, Desert Water Hole and Sand Storm, from the 1962 A.B.A. Concert, which Google's AI describes as "the American Bandmasters Association (ABA) convention concert program, which the Purdue Symphony Band performed in."  The conductor is Al G. Wright.  

Then the same two movements as conducted by Grofe himself with the Capitol Symphony Orch., which was quite an outfit, despite a cutting review by (I think) Stereo Review when the Angel label reissued Death Valley.  Or maybe the review was in Hi-Fidelity magazine.  I never count on my memory much, since I recall it's pretty vague at times.

Meanwhile, Death Valley will be heading for nice summer-style highs just right for tourists eager to find solace from Jack Frost.  And I have no idea why I typed "solace from Jack Frost," but I did, and I only have myself to blame.  (Or maybe society itself.)

As an added bonus (forgive the redunadncy; bonuses are always "added"), Grofe's wonderful Valley of the Sun Suite, with Ferde conducting the Arizona State College (Tempe) Symponic Orchestra.  And this was my essay when I last posted the work (the zip file since deleted by Workupload): 

"From the mysterioso first movement to the joyous, Johann Strauss-esque (am I allowed to type that?) conclusion, this is mood music of the highest class. Making things more interesting are Grofe's reuse of cues from his 1950 movie score for Rocketship X-M (in The Dam Builders) and the insertion of a chord sequence from his very first work, Broadway at Night (1924), at the beginning of the last movement. Grofe was not shy about reusing material, and why not?  X-M itself reuses a portion of his Symphony in Steel (1935), and his score for The Return of Jesse James (1950) uses the opening section of his Tabloid Suite (for a telegraph office scene)." 

And Google's AI notes that Grofe premiered Sun in 1952, though he composed it in 1957.  That was quite a trick.  Enjoy, and stay warm...

DOWNLOAD: Death Valley; Valley of the Sun.zip

Death Valley Suite (Grofe, 1949)

Desert Water Hole 

Sand Storm

Valley of the Sun Suite (Grofe, 1952 or 1957)

Valley of Ditches

The Dam Builders

Masque of the Yellow Moon

Reclamation's Golden Jubilee 

The Purdue Symphony Band, c. Al G. Wright, 1962; The Capitol Symphony Orch., c. Grofe, 1951; Arizona State College (Tempe) Symphonic Orch., c. Grofe, prob. 1957.

Lee

The return of the 1927 "Pacific 231"!

November 5 1927, to be exact, making this recording 98 years old (plus almost a week)!  

And, since posting this in April of 2016, I realize now that I used the wrong bass turnover.  Though recorded in 1927, this "circle" Victor Red Seal label places this pressing (at the earliest) in 1938.  So, I've used the correct turnover of 500 Hz and a slight treble roll-off, and I think it sounds great.  The original engineers did a fabulous job of microphone placement, and the overall audio detail is superb--keeping in mind that this is from 1927 and not, say, 1957.  From my own collection.

Originally to be titled Mouvement Symphonique, this work was composed in 1923.  Honegger conducted his own recording in 1930.

According to DAHR, the "Continental Symphony Orchestra" was the Orchestre symphonique du Gramophone.
 
I love the way the orchestra speeds through Honegger's work, and flawlessly.  And Arthur's almost-as-wonderful Rugby (Mouvement Symphonique No.2), and his Mouvement Symphonique No. 3 are pretty widely available on vinyl and CD.  

DOWNLOAD:  Pacific 231 (Arthur Honegger).zip

Continental Symphony Orchestra (the Orchestre symphonique du Gramophone), under the direction of Piero Coppola, 11/5/1927.  

Lee