A
STOCKINGFUL OF SHELLAC! (and
some Metrolite, and a tiny bit of vinyl)
1. MAE
WEST: Santa Claus Is Back In Town (Dagonet LP DG-4)
2. ALVINO
REY with the KING SISTERS: Santa Claus
Is Comin’ To Town (BB11353B)
3.
MAE QUESTAL: I Want You For Xmas (Decca 1544B)
4.
LINDSAY CROSBY: That’s What I Want For Xmas (Decca 27812A)
5.
THE FONTANE SISTERS and friend: A Howdy Doody Xmas (RCA 45-5324A)
6.
PEGGY LEE: Ring Those Xmas Bells (Decca 28939A)
7.
THE FONTANE SISTERS: Silver Bells (Dot 15434B)
8.
THE DE CASTRO SISTERS: Snowbound For Xmas (Quality 1434A)
9.
JONI JAMES: Christmas And You (MGM 11637A)
10.
PERRY COMO: There’s No Xmas Like A Home Xmas (RCA 3933A)
11.
BUDDY CLARK: Merry Xmas Waltz (Col 38600)
12.
PEGGY LEE: It’s Xmas Time Again (Decca 28939B)
13.
THE VOICES of WALTER SCHUMANN: Xmas In The Air (Capitol CDN9016)
“Christmas Time With Arthur Godfrey (and
all the Little Godfreys)”:
14.
LU ANN SIMS Here Comes Santa Claus/
JULIUS LA ROSA The Xmas Song (Col 40109)
15.
ARTHUR & THE MARINERS & THE CHORDETTES: Jingle Bells (Col MJV88)
16.
HALELOKE: Melekalikimaka (Col 40110)
17.
TONY MARTIN: Xmas in Rio (RCA 6317)
18.
THE DE CASTRO SISTERS: Xmas Is A Comin’ (Quality 1434B)
19.
THE FONTANE SISTERS: Nuttin’ For Xmas (Dot 15434A)
20.
JONI JAMES: Nina Non (MGM 11637B)
21.
PATTI PAGE: Where Did My Snowman Go? (Mercury 70260B)
22.
SISTER ROSETTA THARPE: White Christmas (Decca 48119B)
23.
ROY ROGERS AND DALE EVANS: Xmas On The Plains (RCA 48-0128A)
24.
FREDDY MARTIN w. MERV GRIFFIN: Merry Xmas Polka (RCA 47-3072A)
25.
THE FOUR LADS: Mary’s Little Boy Chile (Col 4-40788)
26.
ELLA FITZGERALD: Santa Claus Got Stuck In My Chimney (Decca 9-27255B)
27.
BILLY ECKSTINE: What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? (MGM K11623)
28. MAE WEST: My New Year’s Resolutions (Dagonet
DG-4)
All
tracks originally released on 78 rpm except for #s 1 & 28 (from lp).
Transfers
from 78 rpm by Tom Bumbera except #s 23-27 (from 45 rpm).
NOTES
Few
things make me happier than adding a new Christmas record to my collection.
If
this assortment seems a bit heavy on 1950’s kitsch, it’s because A) the 50s
were the
Golden
Age of Xmas records, and B) I really like 50s kitsch.
For
our opening and closing numbers, however, we turn to the late 60s, stereo,
and
one of my top-three Xmas lps of all time, Mae West’s WILD XMAS! If you’ve never
heard
this, and you probably haven’t, you’re in for a treat. This would seem to have
been
a
vanity production on “Dagonet” records; I bought my copy in Austin, Texas for
5.99. It
goes
for a lot more these days on eBay. The wonderfully tacky cover features a
(then)
fifteen-year-old
black and white photo of Mae pasted next to a drawing of Santa; the record
is
wonderfully tacky, as well.
We
enter the world of shellac with the first of several singing sister acts, the
marvelous King
Sisters
with Alvino Rey, and a “hep” version of SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN.
This
was the flip of Glenn Miller’s JINGLE BELLS and may be the only time Miller was
coupled
with another band on a first-issue Bluebird.
Little
Lindsay Crosby’s THAT’S WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS is both horribly cloying
and
poignant. Poignant, because Lindsay sounds exactly like what he surely was: a
sad
little
boy being forced to do something to please his impossible-to-please father.
Lindsay
shot
himself to death in 1989, which was partly responsible for the suicide of his
brother
Dennis
two years later. Both suffered from
Dad-induced alcoholism and depression.
What
better to shake off the Crosby blues than Howdy Doody and the Fontane Sisters?
The
latter visit twice more with SILVER BELLS and a cover of the 1955 Art
Mooney/Barry
Gordon
hit NUTTIN’ FOR CHRISTMAS. This is the Fontanes’ third recording of SILVER
BELLS,
the first having been recorded for RCA and featuring hunky accordionist Dick
Contino. Strangely, RCA chose to re-record it just a
year later, minus Contino. I have no
idea
why this was done, unless it was related to the bad publicity surrounding
Contino’s
draft
status during the Korean conflict, which put the brakes on his career. RCA may
have
opted
to re-record a good seasonal seller rather than have it blackballed by the
patriotic
DJs
of America.
There
are some sleepers on this collection, the first being the DeCastro Sisters’
SNOWBOUND
FOR CHRISTMAS. This lovely track was the only one of the DeCastro’s
Abbott
Records’ sides not included on the Bear Family CD anthology – God only knows
why,
as it’s one of their best recordings of the
period.
Another
sleeper is Joni James’ NINA NON, the flipside of CHRISTMAS AND YOU. I’m not a
James
fan – she can be a bit whiny for my taste sometimes – but here she sounds very
sweet
and
sincere, and I can see why she still has a following some fifty years after
this single was
released.
No
Christmas collection would be complete without a visit from Perry Como,
represented here
by
the seldom-heard THERE”S NO CHRISTMAS LIKE A HOME CHRISTMAS. Some other
infrequently
heard sides are the MERRY CHRISTMAS WALTZ by Buddy Clark (its flipside
WINTER
WONDERLAND appears on the COMPLETE BUDDY CLARK ON COLUMBIA set)
and
both sides of Peggy Lee’s rare Decca Christmas single.
Ya
want yer 50’s kitsch? You can’t beat Arthur Godfrey “and all the Little
Godfreys” (as the
album
obnoxiously calls them) in that category. Ya want yer big Christmas production
number?
Walter
Schumann fills that bill with the title track from his CHRISTMAS IN THE AIR
album.
In
an international mood, we follow Haleloke with Jewish Tony Martin’s CHRISTMAS
IN RIO
and
our favorite Cuban-American sister act the DeCastros singing an olde English
ballade
CHRISTMAS
IS A-COMIN’ (also recorded by Der Bingle around the same time).
I
love the idea of sandwiching Sister Rosetta Tharpe between two of the whitest
people in the
world,
Patti Page and Roy “I never met a horse I didn’t stuff” Rogers. Patti’s WHERE
DID MY
SNOWMAN
GO? is a childhood favorite, upgraded here from the very worn 45 that I played
repeatedly
as a Baby Bumby. “Did he go to Iceland? NO, NO, NO!”. Sister Rosetta’s WHITE
CHRISTMAS
is my second-favorite version of this tune after the Drifters’ great doo-wop reading,
largely
because she pronounces many words just like Buckwheat of the old “Our Gang”
shorts.
Roy’s
CHRISTMAS ON THE PLAINS is another personal favorite. One of my early Salvation
Army
finds, it originally came in a cellophane sleeve embossed with berries in the shape of a
wreath;
since the record is pressed on green vinyl, record and sleeve together made
both a lovely
Christmas
ornament, and a sort of monument to Caucasian Christmas Campiness. The sleeve
unfortunately
has been lost to the ravages of time but it was fun having it before it first
shrank,
then
crumbled.
Finally
we face the New Year, with Billy Eckstine asking the leading if ungrammatical
musical
question,
WHAT ARE YOU DOING NEW YEAR’S EVE? A more appropriate question for Mae
West
would be, WHO are you doing New Year’s Eve, as her NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS
make
clear.
We
hope you will enjoy our perversely but lovingly assembled collection. We have
plenty more
saved
up for Christmas 2003!
Tom Bumbera, October 2002
