More holiday Shellacmas (plus, a mini-Mervmas)! Another post rescued from "ban"-nation.

DOWNLOAD: Merry Shellacmas, Part 2 (The budget edition)

A revised 2020 zip and text, though only slightly so.  Gone are Merry Christmas Polka (featured last post) and my hopeless 1901 copy of The Holy City.  Maybe, at some point, I can give that another try, but it is demonstrating its age, to put it mildly.  1901 78s do that, sometimes.  And I found an electrically recorded The Star of Bethlehem 12-incher (for later), meaning we can together discover the lyrics.  The 1910 recording sounds like a hand held over the singer's mouth.

Two helpings of Merv Griffin, with 1949's Merry Christmas Polka, apparently a cover of the version by The Andrews Sisters and Guy Lombardo (Frankie Yankovic recorded it in 1951), and Snowflakes, with The Fontane Sisters and Freddy Martin's Orchestra (1951).  The Gilmar Christmas Favorites 78 is clearly a reissued Tops label release (big clue: "Tops All-Star Orchestra and Chorus"), complete with not-so-good fidelity (I think the tracks are reissues of reissues of reissues).  The Record Pak Christmas EP is cheap-label fun that sounds way better in this present (2020) rip than any of my previous tries.  The Ottar Agree Quinette's Santa Claus Polka, from 1926, sounds very 1926--and very polka.  Very polka-1926, we might say.  I just now found it listed in an ethnic discography at Google Books, and the discography confirms the year, which I had figured out using the matrix number.  

The United Artist label is actually the Bell label--or a subsidiary thereof, and all I know about Bell is that it was a Hawaiian label.  Not the famous Bell label.  Organist Edwin Sawtelle was a Waikiki Theater fixture (if you want to Google-search him, use both spellings of theater--"-er" and "-re"), as was the Waikiki Theater's Girls' Chorus.  This one's for Diane!  I would have included the flip, but it was badly worn, so I passed.  Frankie Carle and His Orchestra's The Winter Waltz is nothing other than Émile Waldteufel's 1882 Les Patineurs Waltz, aka The Skaters' Waltz, with words added.  The label says, "with vocal," but we get a good-sized sing-along chorus.  So why not "with vocal chorus"?  Maybe someone accidentally left off the "chorus" part.  It's always fun to hear pre-Mitch Miller sing-along sides.  There are many out there.

Enjoy!  Download link up topside.

TOPS ALL-STAR ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS (Gilmar RX 100, 78 rpm)

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

Frosty, the Snowman

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Jingle Bells

White Christmas

Silent Night

O Come All Ye Faithful

Deck the Halls

VARIOUS

Blue Christmas--Jeri Shannon w. Ralph Berger Orch. (Record Pak I-539; 78 rpm EP)

Auld Lang Syne--Same

I'll Be Home for Christmas--Jerry Smith w. Ralph Berger Orch. (Same)

Adeste Fidelis (sic) (O Come All Ye Faithful)--Same

Jingle Bells--Edwin Sawtelle, Waikiki Theatre Organ w. W. Theater Girls' Chorus (United Artist LKS 86)

The Winter Waltz--Frankie Carle and His Orch., unknown vocal, 1950

Merry Christmas Polka--Merv Griffin and the Martin Men, Freddy Martin Orch. (Promo vinyl 78, 1949)

Snowflakes--The Fontane Sisters and Merv Griffin w. Freddy Martin Orch., 1951 (78 rpm)

Lee