Singles I didn't get to--Christmas Singles, 2019--Part 3

Here are fourteen singles that were ripped and ready to go up, but which didn't get their chance at the blog (chance at the blog?) because I ran out of time.  But I still want to share them, so here they are.  And did I remember to wish everyone Christmas?  Mary Fran Ward does just that in I Wish You Christmas, a single from... I don't know.  Nothing comes up on line in reference to it, and Discog's listing on the label gives me no way to get an approximate year by comparing release numbers.  But I do wish you Christmas.  I could make out about half of the words on both sides, but maybe you'll do better.

Fiona Kennedy's Olivia Newton-John-style Father Christmas is the kind of thing I normally dislike, but oddly enough, I find it very catchy and fun.  The flip is a gorgeous version of the classic Cherry Tree Carol, the real reason to listen to this single.  Fiona sounds like Olivia, only way better.

Silver Spurs was a book and a record, but I don't know if it was a movie.  Spurs presents the standard theme of something little (an elf or tree, typically) proving its worth.  A message to children that, though they may be wee (as the Scots say), they have value.  The Silver Spurs character is also shunned a la Rudolph, so we have two closely related themes in one.  I try not to hear children's material with the ears of an adult, but this strikes me as too arty, and the payoff takes longer to arrive than the revelation in the 1966 REMC record (I won't ruin it for you if you haven't heard it).  And the John Alden Carpenter-style piano background on the story side is too much.  This was 1975, not 1924.  But kids very possibly loved this, so I should shut up.

Ernie put up the Don Wilson sides years back, but he ripped them from an LP reissue--my 45 rpm version has the fun pic sleeve you see above, and this may have been the original issue, though I'm doubting it.  I do know that the tracks go back at least as far as 1954.  If they began life as 78s, then they're earlier.  Neither story is Christmas-related, but the background music is from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. so....  "A Child's Library of Musical Masterpieces" is the series, and apparently having Don Wilson shout at them over familiar Classical music is how you turn children on to great music.  Or have them running out of the hi-fi room.

Robert Goulet narrates One Solitary Life, which we also heard in Frank La Spina's version in the previous singles post.  Here, there is author credit, and the arrangement is in that Jesus movement style of c. 1969.  Today, we call it praise music.  As I noted before, this text has found its way around the block any number of times--here's Johnny Cash: Here Was a Man.  Cash does a far better job than Goulet, I noticed.  As noted before, the text has been traced back to a sermon given during the 1920s--it's been considerably altered from the original source.

Gene Ewing gives us a spoken Christmas message with lots of reverb, Brandae gives us Everyday Should be Christmas, and Marv Meredith and his musicians give us two Space Age Pop-style instrumentals.  SAP is not my bag, but lots of people love it.  The Christmas-all-year-round cliche probably goes back to the 1500s, and I felt like a sell-out when I inserted it into a sixth grade paper in 1968.  I got an A, the teacher circling my "What can't we have Christmas 365 days a year?" with the comment "Good!"  Or maybe it was "Excellent!"  I'd sold my soul for an A.  To the singles...




DOWNLOAD: Christmas Singles, 2019--Part 3




I Wish You Christmas (Ward)--Mary Fran Ward  (AVC Records 101082)
Peaceable Kingdom (Ward)--Same
Father Christmas (Nick Farries-Colin Smedley)--Fiona Kennedy (Radar Records CKS 1004; 1981)
The Cherry Tree Carol (Trad., Arr. Gillinson/Kennedy)--Same
Silver Spurs: Christmas Song (Betty Knigge)--Vocal: Keith Lester; Voice of Santa: Dr. Dwayne Jorgenson (1975)
Silver Spurs: A Christmas Story (Robert Knigge)--Narrator: Dr. Dwayne Jorgenson (1975)
Chin Chow and the Golden Bird (Foster-Pierce)--Narrator: Don Wilson, w. the Continental Symphony Orch., (Capitol KASF-3193), c. 1954
Little Abou, the Camel--Same
One Solitary Life (Bock)--Robert Goulet, the Choir of Bel Air Presbyterian Church (Creative Sound, Inc. CSM 555)
My Christmas Prayer/Leave It There--Gene Ewing (Compassion Record LLP-1005)
The Christmas Letter (Lloyd P. Ratcliff)--Brandae (R&A Records 101; 1984)
Everyday Should Be Christmas (Ratcliff)--Same
Teen Sleighride (Mort Garson-Grace Lane)--Marv Meredith and His Orch. (Strand 25010; 1960)
Swingin' Sleighbells (Garson)--Same



Lee