DOWNLOAD: More Christmas 78s

Chester W. Smith's 1901 cornet solo version of The Holy City (still a popular Christmas concert number) was a fun find (from way back), though the 1901 fidelity is very... 1901.  My copy had a lot of plays, but I was still able to coax the piano and cornet out of the grooves.  Oddly enough, the Online Discographical Project credits the cornet to one W.S. Mygrant.  Don't ask me.

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 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!

Lee

I received a request for this apparently rare single, recorded in 1958 on the Ft. Wayne, Indiana label Emerald, which has four entire singles listed here.  45 RPM Records is a wonderful resource--one I turn to often, especially with all the indie gospel labels I feature.  (It has LP info, too.)

I had posted this in 2017, but I must have taken it down after the Zippylink had expired.  Zippylink was convenient and not convenient, all at the same time.  Anyway, I'd forgotten that my copy has some distortion--either the pressing wasn't good, or a bad needle made contact with the grooves (I suspect the latter).  Years of experience have taught me that increasing the VTF is the solution for a worn record (my wider needle didn't work), and so I increased the tracking force--and everything sounded worse.  Then I used my best stylus at 1.5 grams, and I got more than acceptable results.  The files have some mild spots of distortion, but sound pretty good.  Apparently, having the needle ride higher in the grooves was the trick.  Above the damage, in other words.

The person requesting the file said he heard it in a Netflix movie, and I hope to find out which one.  (UPDATE: 2014'sChristmas, Again.  Thanks, Ernie.  I don't know how I missed that in my Google search.)  There's always the possibility my own file was "borrowed," as happens routinely.  But I can't assume this is the case, even as often as my stuff is swiped anymore.  Copies other than mine do exist, and I don't have a right to accuse without cause.

Enjoy this very obscure side.  My area of musical blindness, so to speak, is identifying vocal ranges.  I have relative pitch, I can map chord progressions by ear, I'm an excellent sight-reader, but I sometimes can't tell tenor from baritone.  Anyway, Fran--a very good singer--sounds like a contralto slightly out of her comfortable range.  And some of the key changes in Christmas Everywhere sound like wobbly, badly spliced repitchings, but who knows?  In several spots, the melody of this song anticipates the 1963 The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, which is cool.*  This is an ambitious no-budget production, and I really like it.  And the flip, One Star, is the type of thing that's nearly always corny and overdone, but, surprise--it's a nice, fairly touching Advent ditty.  I have no idea who composer "Leblanc" is--he or she wrote both sides.

I have a Shell Wonderful World of Music holiday LP (Longines Symphonette) ready to go.  Anyone want to hear it?  Maybe someone can identify the Johnny Mann Singers-sounding group featured on it.

*By which I mean the melody and chord changes.  The two songs have different meters (duple vs. triple).

DOWNLOAD: Fran Alexandre, 1958

Christmas Everywhere (Leblanc)--Fran Alexandre, 1958

One Star (Leblanc)--Same.

Lee

The Discogs entry for this set is unusually well detailed (the cover and labels are filled with errors), but... alas, no identification of the singers.  (Unless my eyes skipped that data.)  And I have no idea who the vocalists are, either, though they are on a professional par with Johnny Mann's and Ray Charles'.  I.e., the Ray Charles who is also known as "not THE Ray Charles."  Forgive the short essay--I've got some kind of intestinal bug that has a respiratory component, but my body seems to be fighting it off with no problem.  Still, winter weather is here, and this room is pretty cold as I speak/type.  I need some insulation strips for the windows.  As snugly as they shut, I still suspect outside is sneaking in.

This room dates back to 1850 or so.  This house was originally a two-story farmhouse, with the upstairs accessible by an opening in the ceiling and a ladder.  Bev maintained that this room (my Media Room, with a sloped ceiling that limits my storage space!) and the downstairs were the first rooms built, but our house painter, an expert on such things, studied the foundation and determined that the living room and the room above it were the first.  That makes more sense, since they face the road.  Two barns stood on this property long ago.  One was still standing when John and Bev moved here in 1971 (the year of today's offering!), and they had to have it torn down, as people were holding parties in it, and they were afraid of a fire there.  They were less concerned about the trespassing aspect, I guess.

None of which relates to this LP.  All of the good ol' holiday favorites, and beautifully recorded and performed.  Enjoy!  And I'll attempt to feel less flu-ish.  I figure this bug will hang around for a few more days.  I hope it realizes that it's doomed.

DOWNLOAD: Shell's Wonderful World of Music, Vol. 2 (1971)

Lee

I almost forgot what day this is.  Good grief.  So, here's a great song--one directly related to Dec. 7, 1941--in a brilliant, utterly perfect arrangement.  Kay Kyser's band, as far as I know, leaned toward corniness, but clearly his musicians were top-flight.  I took this from the Internet Archive--it's one of the George Blood rips, which are the cream of the IC crop, 78-wise.  I hope they cleaned this side before playing it!  As you can see in the pic, the surface isn't exactly spotless.

This was the best-sounding of four different postings of this particular side.  Kay Kyser's recording was a No. 1 hit in 1943, and it more than deserved that honor.  I find the mournful introduction profoundly moving--and the precision of the playing downright astounding.  This is the record that had me going, "Hey, this band was good!"  And Loesser's song is genius.  That helps.

We can never forget the meaning of this day.

DOWNLOAD: Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition--Kay Kyser and His Orch., 1942.

Lee

After a little searching, I found the entry for this LP at Discogs, where the A and B sides are flipped.  The entry uses "T 72 468 K" as the catalog number, though in every place except the back jacket, the main number is "642 212."  None of which matters, but I thought I'd mention it.  Discogs gives no date, but Side A appears to have been recorded in 1959, and Side B in 1957.  The years are given along with the recording locations ("aufnahmeort").

I hope I did a decent German-to-English job.  "Münster" wouldn't come up as anything at any of the translation sites I visited (one even referred me to the TV show!), but Amazon came to the rescue--"cathedral" is what it means, apparently.  I'm going with that translation, anyway.  "Munster" is also an area in Germany, but the jacket credits appear to be referring to organs located in specific churches.  I somehow forgot I had this gem--I bought it from eBay several years back, and I rediscovered it last night while searching through my 10-inchers.  These are Christmas organ chorales by Samuel Scheidt and J.S. Bach, based on melodies like In Dulci Jubilo and Martin Luther's Vom Himmel hoch (the only two I recognize!).  In church, I've used both Scheidt settings (he did several using Vom Himmel hoch), and I'm happy to find that my tempo choice for In Dulci Jubilo was close to the correct one, going by this LP.  The "rules" for four-part harmony were still evolving when Scheidt, who lived about a century before J.S. Bach, wrote the two collections from which his Christmas chorales were taken--the Görlitzer Tabulaturbuch of 1650 (handy source for short offertories) and the Tabulatura nova (1624).  

The second Scheidt track, Magnificat (Mary's song of praise) comes from the 1624 book, and it's in the "5th tone"--i.e., the fifth psalm tone (a recitation melody for the singing of a complete Psalm), of which there are eight, and which correspond to the eight Gregorian modes.  Since I'm mostly unfamiliar with how chant melodies work, that's all I can tell you.  Well, except that the fifth Gregorian/church mode is Lydian mode, which is basically a major scale with the fourth raised a semitone.  This creates a tritone between the first and fourth notes, and I'm guessing that, back in the day, there would have been a general desire to change the augmented fourth to a perfect fourth, whereupon you have the modern Major scale (Ionian mode).  The cantus firmus (fancy name for the main melody) in Schedit's Magnificat sounds Major-scale, so I suspect we're hearing altered Lydian.  (Great name for a rock band, if no one's used it yet.)  The liner notes talk about "the radical changes that harmony has undergone" since Scheidt's time, but I find that most folks don't hear anything too weird in his chorale chords.  At the start of the Scheidt side, things initially sounded like Erik Satie's Messe des pauvres, but I quickly adjusted to Scheidt's way with SATB harmony.  For anyone trained to expect "proper" progressions, there are incorrect chords here and there, but that's part of what makes Schedit so fun.  That, plus his major-league genius.  I discovered Scheidt around 1990, when I was looking for fairly simple but high-quality short chorales to use for offertories--things I could play on the manuals, since I'm what they call a "Sunday organist" (a pianist at the organ), and Scheidt's chorales were a gift from above.  I recognized right away that he was a major figure.  It shows up in every note.

Bach's Christmas selections are, of course, flawless.  Perfect.  Everything by Bach is flawless and perfect.  Faultless, even.  I recognize only Vom Himmel hoch on the Bach side, and in case you don't know that Luther tune, here it is.  Yes, its ending does sound like Luther's other big hit, A Mighty Fortress...  

Anyway, what Christmas is complete without Weihnachtliche Orgel-Chorale?  I wish this had been an all-Scheidt affair, but I'm just glad to have selections from his Görlitzer Tabulaturbuch on an LP.

DOWNLOAD: Christmas Organ Chorales by Samuel Schedit and J.S. Bach (1959, 1957)

Lee

I previously featured this in 2017--in a Zippyfile upload that long ago expired.  This is a much more careful rip, and I think it's a fun listen, even if the selections are the usual holiday standards.  The ultra-standards, you might say.  If nothing else, it's fascinating to hear Chinese singers performing these numbers in such a Western style--some of the singers sound Western, in fact, though I'm sure they're not.  You have to wonder precisely what market this was aimed at.  

A couple of the titles are off in a strange and amusing way--Glory for A Child Is Born (Joy to the World), and Christmas Card (It Came Upon the Midnight Clear).  I wonder how that became Christmas Card?  Something to ponder late at night.  The best of the bunch is Jingle Bells, but that's just about my favorite Christmas song of all, so naturally I'd pick that one.  There's interesting instrumentation at times (with a Baroque edge), and Glory For a Child Is Born has a cool piped-in recording of church bells to open and close the number.  And the cover really appeals to me.  Simple but effective.  Love the giant candle, the array of stars, and the tiny shepherds and... their sheep?  Kind of abstract, the longer one looks at it.  An A for effort.

DOWNLOAD: Christmas Songs (In Chinese) (Tower TWK-6)

Jingle Bells
Holy Night
Hark!  The Herald Angels Sing!
Glory for a Child Is Born
The First Noel
O Come, All Ye Faithful
Christmas Card
Christmas Tree

Christmas Songs (Tower TWK-6; 10" LP)

Lee

DOWNLOAD: Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle (Recorded in Italy)

(Please see Roberto's comment, in which he provides much background on this record.)

Another repost of track that expired long ago at Zippyfile.  "Homage of Antoniani Orphans of Desenzano del Garda To Their Benefactors" is the translation of the top line on the reverse, according to the sites I visited.  "Antonian male orphanage of the Rogationist fathers" reads the second, and Desenzano del Garda is a resort town in northern Italy.

"A quattro voci dispari" would seem to mean four-part harmony for mixed voices, but I'm assuming this is an all-male choir.  "Dispari" could refer to the age differences within the group.

Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle (You Come Down From the Stars) is a 1732 Christmas carol featuring words and music by Saint Alphonsus Liguori of (you'll never guess) Italy.  I've heard a number of other renditions of this carol, but none match this one, which I find totally gorgeous and quite moving, even though the words are all, well, Italian to me.  I have a treble-and-bass-clef version I played in church, but it just doesn't have the feel of this lovely setting.

Here's Pavarotti singing it in 1999: Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle.  Terrific, of course, but I still prefer the version on this semi-flexi disc.  I call it a semi-flexi disc because it's not floppy, like your typical flexi disc/soundsheet, but neither is it as solid as vinyl.  It may, in fact, be atypically thin vinyl.  I have no way to test its composition.

You'll hear about two minutes of a young boy speaking in Italian, followed by the indescribably lovely choral section.  I found this gem in a box of 45s at the local St. Vincent de Paul thrift.  I believe it was protected in a plastic sleeve--I hate to think of how it would have fared, condition-wise, minus the covering.  The photo label sort of catches the eye, no?

More singles on the way.

Lee

Dick Byron's Jingle Bells, backed with Deck the Halls/Up on the Housetop, is one of the first Christmas sides I ever featured--maybe all the way back in 2005.  I recall that getting a good rip was a challenge with my 2005 set-up, which included a Dual 1229 turntable, but the only challenge this time was splicing out the clicks from the big crosscut on Side B.  I really love this rendition of Bells--I'd put it in my Top Five.  And it can't be pointed out often enough that Deck the Halls is actually Deck the Hall (singular).  Get with it, people.  

Then we get the Music City Chorale, courtesy of Holiday Hits, a Hit Records sub-label, with Hit Label's own Bob (Little Green Apples) Russell leading the group on (oh, no--not again) Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.  I did a label scan, but only then did I realize how awful the labels look--something slipped during the printing process, I guess.  (That, or my glasses need to be switched out.)  

Then, who but the Meijer Choral Group, with A Michigan Christmas Card?  Who, I ask you?  The K-Mart Choraliers?  (Hm.  Actually, it's Kmart.  Sorry.)  Now, we do hear something like a choral group on the A side, but the B side is an instrumental--yet the Choral Group is credited there, also.  Double royalties?  Very well-produced side (from 1985), and pretty pleasant.  I was expecting something painful, so I was very relieved.  The sleeve is classic, as you can see (in the top row).  And it has a sing-along reverse sleeve:

 

I do not know who the Robinettes were, besides Robin Hood Records' default "house" singers, or whatever they're called--they're good, and the record really swings.  It has a genuine big band sound--nothing "neo" about it.  The best file I've ever gotten from this seven-inch vinyl 78.  Probably had a pic sleeve, though my disc came by itself.  Linn Sheldon ("Barnaby," left) was a famous TV children's host in Cleveland, who my sister remembers tuning in--I never caught him on the tube, but you can just tell he had just the exact right touch.  Both of his 1958 sides--Boofo Goes Where Santa Goes and Rabbits Have a Christmas--are delightful and beautifully done.  Novelties for all ages.

From 1951, Lawrence Joy gives us a square dance rendition of Jingle Bells, something that, if we're honest with ourselves, we all need.  Toymakers Song, which may or may not be from 1960 (someone wrote "1960" all over the label, which is why I'm thinking 1960), is a terrific novelty polka number (is "novelty polka" redundant?), while 1980's Where Is Captivity? (Bring Them Home for Christmas) is... ummm... yeah.  It's about the Iran hostage crisis, of course, and it's what I would term "campus folk" Christian music, though there must be a more elegant term.  Sorry for the surface noise--this is an old rip.  I don't know what to say about the lyrics-- maybe I would, if I could decipher more of them.  The chorus certainly (and unfortunately) comes through loud and clear: "Won't you bring them home?  All the world sings, 'Bring them home.'  50 stars are in our tree.  Stockings full of wishes; Bring them home for Christmas."  Be the only person on your block who has this 1980 file.

Discogs has this to say about Frank and Jack, the guys behind the 1956 'Twas the Night Beore Christmas (Breaking Through the Sound Barrier) and its flip:      .  That's right--absolutely nothing, which is the perfect review for these two "break-in" sides.  I imagine they're of interest to fans of interpolated sound effects (or of vintage tape-splicing), but they're simply not remotely funny.  Feel free to disagree, but I find them aggressively dumb.  And not funny-dumb, like Dickie Goodman.  I hope Santa isn't a Frank and Jack fan, or I might get a bag of coal on the 25th.

The two 1950 Art Mooney sides--The Christmas Choo Choo Train and The Candy Land Parade--are making a return appearance here, after a number of years, I believe.  Both sound like budget kiddie numbers--if the budget labels had had MGM's resources.  Story of a Christmas Tree is no Memoirs--just your typical pre-A Charlie Brown Christmas story of the misfit tree that makes good.  An old theme in children's stories--often, the tree is little (as in the Scultz cartoon) but wins the day, anyway.  An obvious metaphor for the worth of children.  Randi the Handi Elf is a harmless country novelty whose title is sure to amuse middle schoolers.

Merry Christmas (To All the Little Children) is a charming and energetic ditty by Samuel Wright, assisted by the Little Jingle Singers.  Here's Samuel's Discogs bio.  Produced by Phil Medley, even!

DOWNLOAD: More Christmas Singles 2020

Lee

For once, I didn't have to do the rips!  Brad, the King of Jingaling, donated three ripped-and-scanned LPs to my blog, all by the outstanding Shawnee Choir (of the Shawnee Press, Inc.).  He asked if I would like to feature them, and I said "Sure."  I had posted a Shawnee Choir LP last year, and I had declared it superb, so I figured I'd be nuts to turn down the offer.  This is not to suggest that, by any rule of logic, that I'm necessarily sane because I accepted the offer (or as a result of accepting it), but... right.

And don't miss Brad's Line Material catalog scans at Falalalala.com--they're terrific.  So far, Brad has featured images from the 1956 and 1958 LM brochures, along with my LM record rips from those years. The images are charming, wonderfully "period," and--best of all--downloadable.  By the way, if anyone has the 1957 catalog, I'm sure Brad would love to hear from you.  

I just finished listening to the present offering--Shawnee's Tidings of Joy, from 1975--and it's first-rate in every regard.  I love hearing choral arrangements done right, and of course Shawnee would have wanted the best singers in town when it came to plugging its arrangements--and so it got them.  (I assume "reference recording" means "demo.")  One problem with this sort of record, though, is the chance that a group of amateurs might listen to performances on this level, and (not realizing their limitations), say, "Hey, we can sound like that!"  Then again, if it sells choir arrangements...

A delightful and stirring group of selections, and I think I'd better upload the zip (I knew I'd forgotten something).  Uploading helps immeasurably with the downloading part, I've found.

Two more Shawnee LPs to come, and thanks again to Brad.

DOWNLOAD: Tidings of Joy-The Shawnee Choir (1975)

lee

It was inevitable--a chimes LP, here at MY(P)WHAE.  Every Christmas blogger ends up in this spot.  It is fate.  It is preordained, I think the word is.  But this thrift gift from Diane has an awesome cover, it has an Ohio connection--Cincinnati, in the general area from which my foster father hailed--and bell chimes are actually pretty interesting, even if they're perhaps not all-day-playlist material.  Most of us associate the sound of these bells with the holiday, so there's instant holiday ambiance.  We had a Catholic school half a block from our Toledo home, so I grew up hearing timed chimes.  ("Timed Chimes" sounds like the name of a modern rock band.)

I should also note that, when John's family resided in New Concord, Ohio, their plumber was none other than John Glenn's father.  True.

Chimes.  Well, let's start with Britannica's handy definition of "bell chime":

"Set of stationary bells tuned in a musical series, traditionally in diatonic sequence (seven-note scale) plus a few accidentals (sharps and flats)."

The Union Central Life Insurance Company of Cincinnati, Ohio must have had one impressive collection of bells, given the variety of keys (or scales) heard on this LP, and given the fact that the opening track, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, begins with no fewer than four half steps.  I wonder how the bells are arrayed?  I Google-searched, but found no images of the tower interior.

Chimes have a strike tone, which is the melody note we hear.  Then there are a bunch of overtones, which I can't make out so well on a 1961 mono recording, as opposed to hearing bells in person--in which case, I was trained to hear overtones (3rds, 5ths, octave, etc.).  What I can hear is a lower, parallel Major 6th.  The effect is kind of spooky, since constant parallel intervals sound weird in music.  A Major 6th is a pleasant-sounding interval, but there's a problem--the lower "shadow" melody is, ostensibly at least, in B Major, and there are points at which non-diatonic notes happen--C, D and G natural, for example.  Our ears are hearing B Major, with a number of wrong notes tossed in.  I hope that explanation made sense.  I'm not sure it did.

The bells sound gorgeous, and they're beautifully tuned, and if your ears aren't as distracted as mine by the weird-sounding tone happening under the strike tone, this should be an enjoyable listen.  I read that bells can be programmed, essentially, in a piano-roll fashion, which would eliminate the need for a live performer at a keyboard or at wooden levers to operate each bell.  It would help with timing the chimes, too.  Anyway, some of the tracks have an organ added, which seems to be the common Christmas thing--organ and bells.  But at times it seems more like bells vs. organ, as the bells plow ahead of the organ in tempo--so I wonder if a live organist was playing along with programmed melodies.  It's also possible there were two live performers, each unable to hear the other, since the organist would have had to be isolated in a booth or another room--things had to be separately miked, since the bells would have obliterated the organ sound.  I wish the LP notes would have gone into some detail.  A simpler solution, of course, would have been double-tracking, with the organist playing along with the prerecorded chimes in a studio.

I learned a lot about bell towers in the quick studying I had to do for this post.  Fascinating stuff.  Ignore the non-diatonic lower tone (if you don't detect it, don't worry about it!), and put this on for maximum holiday atmosphere.  I'd love to hear these in person, because these clearly are (or were) superbly fashioned bells, and because the full overtone experience is always cool.  And "full overtone experience" (in quotes) brings up two matches on Google.  I just added a third (once Google catches it).

And, again--that cover is just too cool.  Thanks, Diane!

Note: Side 1, track 4 is a label typo--it's actually God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, a carol typically punctuated incorrectly as God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.

DOWNLOAD: Union Central Chimes--The Sound of Christmas (1961)

Lee

A cool and unusual cover, and I submit that it's impossible to admire the cool Santa sextet (as it rotates the oblong title section, tooting away) AND notice the song-title typos at the same time.  But I seem primed to find mistakes on album covers, and so I immediately noticed that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is incorrectly listed as Rudolf the Red-Nose Reindeer.  I also noticed the misplaced comma in God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, which the Benida label calls God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.  Nope--sorry.  To reference the Oxford English Dictionary via Wikipedia, "the phrase 'God rest you merry' means 'may God grant you peace and happiness.'"  In short, God is not instructing a group of merry gentlemen to get to sleep because Santa's on the way.

The cover does get Adeste Fideles right, I should note.  It's often misspelled Adeste Fidelis.

With those vitally important issues out of the way, let me predict that you'll be a regular Macy's customer after hearing this talented and energetic semi-amateur choir.  Though no one would mistake these singers for the Robert Shaw Chorale, they do themselves and their company proud.  I got this 10-inch LP on eBay three years or so ago, and I only paid a buck.  I think the $1 price was because of condition, which is not so good in spots.  The most needle-dug track is Rudolph, which almost gives up the ghost halfway through--I made things much better by re-recording the second half with my 1.2 mil needle, then combining the two track sections (in my usual seamless fashion).  Result: acceptable sound quality. 

The mono sound (apart from the condition issues) is terrific, and maybe I'll find a VG/VG+ copy some day.  Or maybe not--this doesn't seem to be an item that shows up very often.  Just delightful arrangements all the way through, courtesy of Jimmy Leyden, a name we see on the Bell label's fake-hit sides, and at Decca and RCA.  The choir is directed by Dick (Harlem Nocturne) Rogers, so we can be sure that Macy's did a Line Material here.  By which I mean, they laid out a good amount of dough to produce an excellent company Christmas give-away (assuming it was, in fact, a give-away).

"This is the first industrial choral group to be signed to a major label for international distribution," according to the notes, though I'm not sure Benida was a major label.  Discog's multiple listings for Benida have me dizzy--I wish I could understand why there wouldn't be a single Benida Records entry, but... anyway, it doesn't look like the outfit put out a ton of stuff.  Some interesting-looking jazz singles, and some other stuff, but it appears Benida didn't make a huge showing in the vinyl market.

The Macy Singers are "the new Miracle on 34th street," say the notes.  Clever, clever.  A delightful LP, making its second appearance (the first file has gone to the Great Expired Zippyfile Section in the Sky), and in a higher bitrate!  Enjoy.

DOWNLOAD: The Macy Singers--Songs of Christmas (Benida LP 1021; 1954)

The First Noel
Silent Night
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Adeste Fideles
Rudloph, the Red-Nose (sic) Reindeer (Johnny Marks)
White Christmas (Bing Crosby--er, Irving Berlin)
Jingle Bells
Reprise--White Christmas

Songs of Christmas--The Macy Singers, Directed by Dick Rogers (Benida LP 1021; 1954)

Lee

Eight tracks by a Japanese children's choir.  I can't read Kanji, so I have no idea what they're called.  I bought this while stationed in Japan from (let's see) 1982-1985.  600 yen--about the price of a fast-food meal.  I remember the small record shop I found it in--it was on the third story of a tall shopping center/mall.  Lots of buildings were built high in Japan, because of the general shortage of usable land.  Lots of rocky surface in Nippon.

This is a 33 and 1/3 seven-incher, and I can identify all of the songs except the last two.  They're all Western Christmas hymns and pop songs.  When I was in Japan, there was a trend of placing American words on clothing--words whose only requirement was to be American.  There were phrases that didn't make sense, plus words that seemed to have nothing to do with the apparel they were sewn onto.  Speaking of American (or British) phrases, you'll notice that, in this version of Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, "Melly Christmas" is inserted prior to each "Santa Claus weez comink to tahn."  Looking up the lyrics, I see no "Merry Christmas," so we can conclude that some liberties were being taken.  Which is fine with me.  I'm sure they were taken tastefully and in the proper Christmas spirit.  And I shouldn't be making fun of the accents (which you have to admit are cute), since I can't begin to speak Japanese.  I suspect my attempts would be pretty hilarious.

If anyone can identify the numbers titled "?," please let me know.  Enjoy...

DOWNLOAD: Japanense children's choir, Christmas carols

Jingle Bells
Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
Silent Night
Joy to the World
?
?

(Victor KVC-213)

Lee

Read all about Carl Weismann's Singing Dogs here.  The Danish Weismann was an ornithologist who made field recordings of birds--recordings that were often ruined by the sounds of barking dogs.  It's not completely clear whether Carl, in league with producer Don Charles, accomplished his singing-dog tracks by using the stray barks (so to speak) on his bird-song tapes or if he and Charles specifically recruited four dogs (all of whom barked in a different pitch) and recorded them in a studio.  I'm guessing it was the latter scenario, because the dogs all had names--Pearl, Dolly, King, Caesar, and (later) Pussy.  A dog named Pussy--that's correct.  It's possible Carl and Don had wanted to name the dog Cat, but he or she objected, and they compromised with "Pussy."

Anyway, since the dogs all had names, and because they all barked in the correct pitches for creating tunes, I'm guessing they had to be studio dogs.  With contracts, royalties, doggy treats, etc.  I consider this arf-fully likely.

We'll be hearing a DJ edition of The Singing Dogs' first single--the one from which the famous barking Jingle Bells hails (did I just type, "from which the famous barking Jingle Bells hails??), and which also includes equally brief bark-athons of Pat-a-Cake, Three Blind Mice, and Oh! Susanna (the last title, in fast and slow versions).  And, while these are all familiar tunes to us humans, imagine how fresh and exciting they must have sounded to the performers.

As a bonus, we'll hear a Singing Dogs 78 I had to search like crazy to find in my rows and stacks.  At one point, almost all searched-out, I checked the Internet Archive--and found not a scent of it.  So I resumed searching, and up it sat--er, up it turned: 1956's Hot Dog Boogie (credited to dogs Dolly and Caesar) and Hot Dog Rock and Roll (credited to dogs Pearl and King).  No mention of Pussy--I suppose it's possible he or she had a paw in the writing process, but was unable to fetch any of the credit. (Cha-dunk, crash!)

I wish I owned those pic labels.  I don't--I swiped the images from Discogs.  And I just recalled that the regular, non-DJ release of the first single (with Jingles Bells, etc.) included a circus-style opening, with either Carl or Don introducing the dogs over a drumroll: "Lades and gentlemen..."  (I forget the rest.)  There was also circus-style music spliced in at the end of each selection.  That lead-out music was removed for this DJ issue--hence, the abrupt stops.

I should note--and I hope I don't offend any Dean Martin fans--that Spike Jones was inspired by the Singing Dogs when he did his all-barking take-off on Memories Are Made of This.  I believe I've seen a picture of Spike Jones pretending (?) to conduct a chorus of canines.  Also--and I had no idea this record existed--there was 1974 Singing Dogs LP on the Mr. Pickwick label, recorded by Carl Weismann!  This LP probably followed from the success of RCA's 1971 Jingle Bells re-release.  

Arf!

DOWNLOAD: The Singing Dogs, Directed by Carl Weismann, 1955-56

My only excuse is that two years is a long stretch when measured in blogger time.  An eternity, almost.

Wonderful comments this year, including tons of information on the Japense Christmas single I posted.  I had no idea there were three different children's choruses on that EP--all well known in Japan, too.  I plan to incorporate the comment into into my post--once I'm finished ripping and scanning here.  As always, I could use a staff.  (Not for walking--not yet, anyway.)  A big thanks to everyone who has commented this season, whether to share priceless info or just to say "Thank you."  The comments mean a lot, and... thanks!

The track listings are at the original posts...

LINKS

First sackful of singles  

Second sackful of singles

Lee

This post was a slightly long time in preparation, since these are all fresh rips, and because photo fixing-up takes a while.  And I seem to be moving more slowly this year.  Maybe I've become more reflective with time.  Perhaps I'm becoming wiser in my not-young age.  (That would be nice.)  Maybe I have iron-poor blood.  It could be a million different things.  Well, not a million--maybe 100,000.  No, not 100,000--maybe 10,000.  Maybe 5, 000.  Will you take 2,000 if I toss in my Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves comic book collection?  Lots of cool Steve Ditko art..

So, today's festive shellac covers the period 1908-?.  I have to use ?, since I don't know the year for Bob Gleason's side on the Another Broken Record label (seriously, that's the label name), and I'm almost sure that the two Eddie Unger songs are from 1951, but I'm not totally sure.  (Near-certainty is just another term for "I don't know.")  Unger's big number was Put Christ Back Into Christmas, and we'll be hearing what's probably the original 1951 version--the same song made famous by George Beverly Shea and Red Foley.  Privately produced, it would seem, as it's on the Unger Music label.  If the matrix is an RCA custom one, then the year is 1951, for sure.

But, back to the beginning, with the Columbia Mixed Quartette, from 1926, singing the still-popular Christmas concert piece The Holy City, written by Michael Maybrick under the nom de plume Stephen Adams.  Very nice version.  The Temple Carol Singers of England give us cool 1915 renditions of The First Noel and While Shepherds Watched, and then Thelma Gracen croons a very nice number called The Christmas Symphony with Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm Orchestra (1950).  My copy has some condition issues, but not on a scale that ruined anything.  Ambrose Haley is back with 1947's Old Timey Christmas (he was included in one of my sackfuls of singles, but this excellent Western Swing number deserves a second rip), Jack Allyn sings Eddie Unger's Put Christ Back Into Christmas--again, the version made famous by George Beverly Shea and Red Foley, though this predates their cuts by two years (Well, IF the matrix number is an RCA Custom number, which I strongly suspect it is).  The flip, Unger's I Want to See My Mom for Christmas certainly meant well, I'm sure, but it just hits me as a tad creepy...  It's almost like the potential plot for the old Thriller series, hosted by Boris Karloff.  R.H. Bowers' delightful The Kiddies Christmas Frolic of 1919 (I combined the two sides into one file) is beautifully played by the Columbia Orchestra, as led by the composer, R.H. Bowers.  And the title has me wondering about the possessive apostrophe, one of my punctuation stumbling blocks.  I'm always wanting to use it for things like "Children's Concert," but apparently it's often not necessary.  

And now's your chance to start the zip file download while reading on...

DOWNLOAD: Yet More Christmas 78s.

Then, from 1923, William Jennings Bryan reciting The Lord's Prayer on a Gennett 78 with a great holiday label.  Next, Sleigh Ride Polka (helpfully identified as a polka on the label), a superbly lively 1941 Columbia side.  This is followed by two 1908 German carols sung by a children's choir (Kinderchor)--Ihr Kinderlein Kommet (one of my favorite carols/hymns) and a very obscure holiday song called O Tannenbaum, which of course was popularized in 1965 by Vince Guaraldi.  (My idea of humor at this time in the morning.)  Then, Bob Grabeau very pleasantly croons Old New England Christmas and That Christmas Waltz on a label called Spartan.  1949, maybe?  Click on the link for a long tribute to Bob.  I already linked to the touching obituary for Bob Gleason, but here's the link again, and I have to say this is one of my favorite pop Christmas sides, and I think because it's done with so much feeling--so much warm, honest feeling.  And it's cool to have a number called Santa Claus Is Coming that doesn't end with "...To Town."  And the label title, Another Broken Record, has to be a pun, a "broken record" being both a new high score or, literally, a damaged disc.  (I have one of those, from a car accident about 20 years ago.)  Certainly not your everyday record label name.

I'm assuming the New Temple Quartette=The Temple Quartet, and I like the group's draggy, dead-serious style.  I wonder what Joy to the World would sound like, delivered by them in their slow fashion?  The two sides are U.S. and U.K. issues, and both appear to be from 1926, going by the matrix numbers.  I'm not positive, but nearly so.  We think (or I think) of carols as fast-tempo things, but it's cool how slowly numbers like Good Christian Men are taken on vintage discs.  No one was in any hurry, I guess.  We close with Leo Watson's 1946 bebop version of Jingle Bells on the Signature label.  My copy has had a lot of play, as you'll hear, but luckily the music is loud.  Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD: Yet More Christmas 78s, Part 2

Lee

When I spotted I Don't Believein Santa Claus on eBay, I knew it had to be one of two things: a cute-kid-singing-loudly-and-off-key number or a piece of garage band punk, circa-1967.  I was leaning toward the latter, since the title seems a bit subversive for the I Saw Mommy../Nuttin' for Christmas genre, but... sure enough, it's a cute-kid-singing-loudly-and-out-of-key Christmas number.  As in, very out of key, and very loudly.  Maybe the Staffords (featuring Mark) were trying to bring new life (and volume) to this type of tune, but the lyrics don't work.  The song goes from (spoiler alert!) Mark denying the existence of St. Nick and promising to be as bad as he can manage to be, only to take everything back and assure us that he does, he does, he does believe in Santa Claus.  You see, the first part was all a bad dream.  He was dreaming that he didn't believe in Santa Claus.  This isn't a case of a good concept gone wrong--it's more like a vague concept evaporating before the needle reaches the run-off portion.

Who, I wonder, was "Schoch" (second label)?  And was this the 177th 45 in his or her collection?  Note how the letters are written in ink over pencil.  Normally, I would have cloned out the writing, but "Schoch" seemed fitting.  I can't explain why.  Nor can I explain why my Epson decided this bright green label was something much closer to blue.

The flip (?), Teddy Bear, is not an Elvis cover, but a would-be heartwarmer about how the simplest things in life are the best ("Happiness is a big brown teddy bear").  Mark has all he wants or could ever want for Christmas--a teddy bear--but his two friends, both of whom got much fancier gifts, couldn't disagree more.  That is, until Mark belts out a tribute to his teddy bear, whereupon his friends join him (leaping ahead of the arrangement, it sounds like) for this classic chorus:

"Teddy bear, teddy bear, You are my friend, you are my friend, Through rain or shine, shine or rain, Through thick or thin, think or thick, You're a tried and true, real true blue, cuddly teddy bear..."

You know you want to hear this, just to make sure I didn't dream it.  Maybe I did...

DOWNLOAD: I Don't Believe in Santa Claus/Teddy Bear--The Staffords (G&S Records 111168)

Lee