Category: Music

This album is a Reader’s Digest compilation that collects a number of popular tracks from Bing Crosby. Jeez, I feel a little weird here, wondering if I have to explain who Bing Crosby is to you damn kids. You know him for his rendition of “White Christmas”, which he originated in the film Holiday Inn and then again in the film White Christmas. But, for Pete’s sake, you know he was a big time recording artist, the father of all pop music and music recording, and a hip enough fellow that he poked fun at his hipness and its own aging in the film High Time when the man was older than my father ever was. He’s Bing Crosby, &%^$&*!

Where was I?

Oh, yes. The album was released after his death, and collects a number of his songs, including:

• Hark! The Herald Angels Sing/It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
• O Holy Night
• What Child Is This?/The Holly And The Ivy
• The Little Drummer Boy
• I Wish You A Merry Christmas
• Frosty The Snow Man
• Winter Wonderland
• Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
• Christmas Dinner, Country Style
• Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

What’s missing? The aforementioned “White Christmas”. Instead, we get a treat that doesn’t appear often elsewhere, “Christmas Dinner, Country Style” about a large family gathering for a meal. The song is a treat; the others, standards. You’ll find them elsewhere, on compilation collections, but it’s fine to have them on a single platter to have as either background or mood music.

I mentioned that you don’t find Perry Como albums outside the Christmas work in book fairs, garage sales, or antique malls in southwest Missouri often. You do, and by “you do” I mean “You might if you get there before me,” find the occasional Bing Crosby album in the wild. I suppose that’s because he sold more albums than Perry Como did. Or maybe it’s just because that’s what I’ve found.

Regardless, this album should be pretty widely available since it’s a Reader’s Digest pressing. You could do worse, and probably will with anything you buy with a copyright date after 1980.

(See also Famous Today, Forgotten Tomorrow: If we don’t remember Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, will tomorrow’s generation remember the Beatles and Bob Dylan? from today’s Wall Street Journal.)

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It’s strange; Perry Como was pretty popular in the early part of the 20th century, as he released records and starred on television, but you rarely see his albums in the wild. My mother owned a copy of this album, and I guess it must have sold for a buck at one of her garage sales as I had to buy my own copy. At an antique mall. For $3. That’s how fondly I remember the album from my youth. I spent three dollars on it.

Como has a baritone voice and inhabits the songs much in the way his early influence Bing Crosby does. As such, he does a great job with the Christmas music.

The track list includes:

• ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas
• The Twelve Days Of Christmas
• God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
• C-h-r-i-s-t-m-a-s
• Joy To The World
• Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
• Frosty The Snowman
• The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You)
• That Christmas Feeling
• I’ll Be Home For Christmas
• Silent Night
• O Come, All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles)
• Jingle Bells
• White Christmas
• Winter Wonderland

This is definitely a definitive Christmas album to own, as Como really was associated with Christmas television specials into the 1980s and beyond (apparently, his last was in 1994). Unfortunately, my copy sticks, so I’m in the market for a replacement for it. And I’m willing to pay $3 for it.

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This album is the Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme Christmas album. No, I’m not emphasizing it enough: this is the Steve Lawrence and EYDIE GORME Christmas album. Too subtle? It’s the Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme Christmas album. Listen, bub, they’ve taken the <blink> tag away, so I don’t know how much more clearly I can make it: I’m an Eydie Gorme fan, and I was very happy to find this album this year. Oh, her husband is okay, too. But he’s not Eydie Gorme.

The track list includes a number of common songs and a couple variations:

• Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
• What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve
• Happy Holiday
• Sleigh Ride
• Winter Wonderland
• White Christmas
• Let Me Be The First To Wish You Merry Christmas
• Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
• The Christmas Song
• Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town
• That Holiday Feeling
• That Ol’ Christmas Spirit

“What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” has become a jazz/songbook standard of sorts and makes its appearance mixed into Christmas carols on the radio, but I don’t have many renditions of it on LP. “Let Me Be The First To Wish You Merry Christmas” might be the only representation of that song I have available, and “That Ol’ Christmas Spirit” is infrequent enough to be a treat when it appears.

As you would expect, especially if you’re familiar with the LPs where Steve and Eydie appear together, the songs are duets in most cases and they switch off primary duties on the songs. Their version of “Sleigh Ride” is particularly fun, with Steve singing the lyrics and Eydie chanting “Sleigh Ride” at the end of lines. Sadly, their laughter at the end of the song is forced and a bit desperate and maniacal.

Gorme’s voice is expressive and fun, and Lawrence’s is warm and engaging as well. It’s definitely mood music; something worth listening to with a bit of focus.

As I mentioned, I only bought this album this year, but it’s already in the rotation here at Nogglestead as often as I can get away with without making my wife fear I have an unhealthy obsession with Eydie Gorme.

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I got this album a couple of years ago, and I play it a couple of times a week throughout the season. It’s a serviceable collection of known favorites and a song that appears sparsely on Christmas albums (“Mistletoe and Holly”). It’s good background music, but it’s not ideal mood music because Sinatra’s more of a technical perfectionist of a singer rather than a warm singer who inhabits the songs. That is, when you hear these songs, you imagine being in a room where Sinatra is singing the songs on stage instead of someone who’s singing the songs with you.

The track list includes:

• Jingle Bells
• The Christmas Song
• Mistletoe And Holly
• I’ll Be Home For Christmas
• The Christmas Waltz
• Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
• The First Noel
• Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
• O Little Town Of Bethlehem
• Adeste Fideles
• It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
• Silent Night

According to Discogs, this is one of the more expensive Christmas albums I’ve reviewed so far. And I only spent a buck on it at a book sale if I remember correctly.

So it’s worth a couple of spins every year in fairly heavy rotation at Nogglestead, but mostly it’s because of the Sinatra cool factor than the music itself.

Speaking of the Rat Pack, I’ve already reviewed the The Dean Martin Christmas Album.

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This album belonged to my mother from the time she served in the Marine Corps; the address label in the corner was for El Toro MCAS. The price tag in the corner means she tried to sell it at one or more yard sales after she moved on from LPs. Obviously, it didn’t sell, which is fortunate, since it is a relic from my youth I can hold onto.

It’s a compilation album, and the second of a series. It has Christmas carol standards by a number of the popular artists from the middle of the 20th century.

The track list includes:

• Mitch Miller And The Gang, “Joy To The World”
• Robert Goulet, “O Holy Night”
• Anita Bryant, “It Came Upon The Midnight Clear”
• Andre Kostelanetz, “Sleigh Ride”
• Steve Lawrence, “The Christmas Song”
• Mahalia Jackson, “O Little Town Of Bethlehem”
• The New Christy Minstrels, “Here We Come A-Caroling”
• Jim Nabors, “Jingle Bells”
• Doris Day, “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”
• Johnny Mathis, “Silver Bells”
• Skitch Henderson And His Orchestra, “We Need A Little Christmas”
• Johnny Cash, “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day”
• Eydie Gorme, “White Christmas”
• Bing Crosby, “What Child Is This? The Holly And The Ivy”
• The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, “Silent Night, Holy Night”

It’s a fine mix, and I enjoy the compilation albums more than most Christmas albums by a single artist simply for the variety’s sake. Some songs on the compilations appear on some of the individual albums (cough, cough, Robert Goulet).

This album includes “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”, a song not found on many of my other compilation discs and a couple of artists I’ve not heard of or seen in record bins (Mahalia Jackson, Skitch Henderson and His Orchestra). Additionally, this album, played in my youth, would have been the first times I heard Eydie Gorme, and how could I tell thirty-five years ago how big of a fan of hers I would become?

At any rate, this album is aces and gets a lot of play during the Christmas season here.

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This album features Kate Smith of “God Bless America” fame singing a selection of Christmas carols and other things. I know, a day after saying that Robert Goulet’s Christmas album was too big, I’m giving a favorable review to Kate Smith’s.

However, the different between the two is a big voice and a big delivery. Although Kate Smith has a big voice, she’s singing these songs instead of belting them out. Additionally, she’s balanced well with the other musicians on the album, including other vocalists who help out and the instrument arrangements. Besides, Kate Smith is like your grandmother singing these things if your grandmother could sing.

The track list includes:

• Deck the Halls
• White Christmas
• Hark, the Herald Angels Sing
• The First Noel
• O Come All Ye Faithful
• Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
• He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands
• Greensleeves
• Joy To The World
• O Little Town of Bethlehem
• God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
• Moonlight In Vermont
• It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
• Silent Night
• Jingle Bells

The set includes a couple of interesting, non-Christmas specific songs (“He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands” and “Moonlight in Vermont”) which tangentally touch on the theme. They’re nice enough interludes in the Christmas music to be welcome.

You can get this album in vinyl or MP3 on Amazon, but it looks to be a collection that the studios overlooked when releasing material on CD. I, of course, recommend the vinyl.

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This album comes from early in Goulet’s career; in 1960, he got his big break in the musical Camelot, and three years later this album was out. You can tell that Goulet’s got a musical theatre background from this album, as he’s not so much singing these songs in a recording studio as he’s booming these songs out so you can hear them in the cheap seats.

The track list includes:

• This Christmas I Spend With You
• Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
• December Time
• Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
• The Christmas Song (Chesnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)
• Silver Bells
• Winter Wonderland
• White Christmas
• O Holy Night (Cantique De Noel)
• Panis Angelicus
• Ave Maria
• O Come, All Ye Faithful

Given the booming presentation of each, this record does not get a lot of play. I think I hit it once last year (the first year we owned it), and I played side one this year. And that might be enough. It’s not mood music, and it’s not background music. It’s like a recording of a concert, and I’m not into live albums.

But if you’re into musical theatre or to an over the top style, perhaps it would be to your liking.

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This album is less of a big band sound than a modified bell and chimes choir sound. There are no singers vocalizing the words from the carols, but there are some choral voices singing notes to accompany the orchestra. And, as I said, bells and chimes (and harpsichord) are featured, but they’re backed with a depth of other instruments. So it falls somewhere in between a bells and chimes album and an instrumental bell album.

The track list includes:

• Silent Night
• Hark the Herald Angels Sing
• I’ll Be Home for Christmas
• White Christmas
• Deck the Halls
• God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• The First Noel
• Adeste Fidelis
• It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
• O Little Town of Bethlehem
• Joy to the World
• Good King Wenceslas
• Thanks for Christmas

I bought this album this year, so I don’t have a large sample size of its presence in the rotation, but it’s pleasant enough to have as background music while cooking or otherwise doing things in rooms adjacent to our parlor, where we have the record player and its records. But it’s not mood music, where you want to be in the same room while the record plays.

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If you’re expecting “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” on this album, baby, it’s the wrong record; that omnipresent song, the one most associated with Dean Martin and Christmas, is from his 1959 platter A Winter Romance.

This album, from 1966 (and on a different label), features Dean Martin’s laid back takes on these classic Christmas songs:

• “White Christmas”
• “Jingle Bells”
• “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”
• “Blue Christmas”
• “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”
• “Marshmallow World”
• “Silver Bells”
• “Winter Wonderland”
• “The Things We Did Last Summer”
• “Silent Night”

It’s a mood-setting collection, which is a step above background music; it’s worth listening to Dean sing the songs as he invests feeling in them, and his relaxed delivery is reflective.

My beautiful wife quibbles with the inclusion of “Marshmellow World” on the album, as it is her least favorite secular Christmas carol of all time and might be mathematically the absolute worst song for her ever as she cannot stand marshmallows, whipped cream, or most of the things the winter landscape reminds the singer of. On the other hand, it transitions right into “Silver Bells”, which is her favorite secular Christmas carol, so the crisis is averted.

Meanwhile, I think it’s odd to include “The Things We Did Last Summer” on the LP as it’s more of a reflective, nostalgia song than a winter song or a Christmas song. But I guess it gets included to break the theme up a little bit with a tangental tune, like “A Few of My Favorite Things” gets included on Christmas albums because it mentions packages and gifts.

At any rate, I recommend it; it’s definitely on heavy rotation here at Nogglestead.

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