Good morning, and welcome to "Revive a Post," a new holiday tradition made possible by workupload dumping most or all of my uploads. And no wonder--Merv's estate needs the money, I'm sure. The money I have shamelessly swiped by sharing his music for free. There must be some logic there, and so I'll keep looking.
This delightful Pickwick collection contains material re-re-recycled for years. I believe the year is (er, was) 1957. So these are all close to the source. And, wow: This LP is as old (er, young) as me. A number of these tracks were later released on the Playhour Records label and (I'm sure) beyond. And, also, in the worst fake Design stereo (in awfulness, second only to RCA's).
Pretty cool jacket art--Design would eventually decide that such was too much trouble/expense. But, in 1957, this attitude had yet to change. And is Christmas, in fact, for children? Well, that's been the general direction of its evolution. Nowadays, I'm not so sure. Banning traditional aspects of the holiday (including its standard carols and hymns) is a pretty common event, which means my childhood experience of Christmas is not the current edition thereof. Which is fine--time marches on. Sensibly or not. My own take, simply put, is that Christmas is the people's holiday in the U.S. This is plenty obvious, given that 92 percent of us observe it. Inevitably, this group includes Jewish Americans, Muslim Americans, atheists, agnostics, and so on. I'm not all that thrilled over the pointless watering down of the holiday, and my idea of eternal punishment would be perpetual exposure to grocery-store Christmas "music," but it's all an inevitable aspect of Christmas as a holiday for everyone. That is, a culture's dominant, all-are-welcome holiday is going to lose some of its edge. Various staples of the holiday, as it has evolved over 1700 years, will be casually tossed aside, but such is the price of fame. We can't expect Christmas to endure in the format we experienced as kids, and especially in our age of MASS mass mediation. Personally, I miss the age when TV ads were packed with traditional holiday symbols. But I have no power to bring those back--or to declare the current status quo incorrect. I want to age a little more graciously than that. The new replaces the old. That's just how it is. And the stock human tendency is to not jump with joy over the demise of traditions WE knew and loved.
Wow--a group of rack jobber classics, plus a deep-thoughts essay!
DOWNLOAD: Christmas Is for Children (Design DLPX 2; 1957?)
Lee
3 comments:
Good one! Thanks, Lee.
Ernie,
Sure! I've always thanked the stars for this find, because I don't think it's common. Which can mean that it had a short run, OR that it came out in bulk but didn't survive in bulk. But, since Pickwick kept these tracks going forever, it doesn't matter...
And the day you re-posted this album, Gilmarvinyl began uploading cuts from this album to his YouTube channel (TheWorldOfBudgetVinylRecords)!
I do think that Design used the same company that pressed Decca's jackets during the same time period! The back cover spines look almost identical to theirs.
Also, you were talking about Merv Griffin in this post. As I was going through my Christmas CD's, I came across a version of Sleigh Ride that he did that I did not know I had in my collection! Sharing it with you now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZtrkeT5CJE
Also, two great recent uploads on Lee's Fake Hits! Prom's Kansas City is a lot better than the Broadway/Gilmar fake, with Prom's version having a great guitar player done by the man who probably did the solo on their "Big Hunk Of Love" fake. Excellent Diamonds cover, with the singer having a slightly lower register than Dave Sommerville did on the original Diamonds recording. Sounds really good on headphones.
Looking forward to hopefully seeing the "John Logan" and "Michael Reed" takes on "Primrose Lane" and "Just Ask Your Heart" from the Stereo RCA Camden Rockers Biggest Hits of '59 LP on Lee's Fake hits soon. God bless you.
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