Old Enough to Forget

Hot diggity, dog ziggity, boom—I found a nice copy (with the odd pop here and there, but I pretend it's the crackling of a fire) of Home for the Holidays in "stereo orthophonic" high fidelity as part of my pre-Christmas haul. My first impressions of Perry Como came courtesy of SCTV in the early 1980s when they parodied Mr. Como as being so laid back he would wear his trademark cardigan and sing lying flat on the stage. It was so funny it stuck with me. I then went through my dad's limited but eclectic collection of strange religious albums, mixed with some Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, and Perry Como. It was weird to juxtapose my steady diet of Styx, Prism, and Larry Norman with the oldies I found in my parents' record cabinet, but it all went into the mix and helped me deepen my appreciation of music. Over the years, of course, I'd have literally dozens of Christmas anthologies, and inevitably there would be a Perry Como song or two. This collec...

Johnny Nash is probably best known for his 1972 hit "I Can See Clearly Now," a song I once thought my Uncle Lloyd had written because he used to sing it when I was a kid. When I finally heard Johnny Nash's version on the radio, I was pretty excited. "My uncle wrote that!" Sigh ... the innocence of youth. But before his big breakthrough, he recorded on his own JAD Records label, which was named after himself, producer Arthur Jenkins, and manager Danny Sims. They recorded in Kingston, Jamaica, which was a pretty tropical place to record a holiday album. It kind of explains why songs like "Baby It's Cold Outside," "Winter Wonderland," and "White Christmas" are absent - but record a Christmas album he did, and in 1969 The Prince of Peace was released. I'd never heard any of these songs before, which gave me a moment's pause, but the album looked really cool with the 3D image of Johnny on the cover. As an added bonus, it was...

This version of Belafonte's Christmas was released in 1976 by RCA Records Canada. Many of the recordings apparently date back to 1958, and this collection is the same as the 1962 reissue that added "Mary's Boy Child" to the song order. I did see the earlier version in the bin, but it was in really poor condition and, other than reversing the side order, appeared to be the same. Besides, the cover on the one I picked up looked brand new. The vinyl, while not quite as pristine, was really nice. Listening to this now, I think re-sequencing the song order to start with "Mary's Boy Child" was the right call. It's a great song, and a great way to start the album. It's too bad they didn't close the album with "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." Then again, that would likely have meant remastering the album, and it was cheaper to relabel the sides and put the hit first. Harry Belafonte is one of those singers who can captivate you with hi...

There's no telling what you can find if you spend enough time riffling through the dollar bins. I originally picked this one up, then put it back. Then I found another copy, so I went back and compared the two and figured it was a sign. Into the pile it went. It cleaned up nice, and I could hardly wait to see what kind of cheese I was in for. As a kid I thought Herb Alpert's trumpet playing was the coolest of the cool, and "Spanish Flea" would crack me up every time I heard it. As I got older I picked up on the subtext and thought it was funnier than ever. Their style of articulated trumpet soloing would go on to provide the thematic fodder for game show theme composers for years to come. I'm somewhat conflicted, as there are truly great heaping dollops of pure whipped cheese throughout the album, especially the trumpet parts on "Jingle Bells," but there are a couple of really nice renditions as well, which actually make this more enjoyable than I expect...

White Christmas was a pretty hard album to date. There doesn't seem to be a lot of good information on it, but the nearest I can figure is Capitol licensed this out to Pickwick, who packaged it up and released it in 1970. It's a compilation taken from some of Jackie Gleason's prior holiday releases, with seven songs pulled from 1956's Merry Christmas and two from 1967's ' Tis the Season . From what I've read about budget reissues, less is more - but most of the time, it's just less. This was one of the many Christmas albums I snapped up from the dollar bin, and this cleaned up amazingly well. It's nearly perfect. What a score. Here we have The Great One (who was the great one long before old 99 laced 'em up) pulling out all of his lush strings and easy listening magic and applying his touch to nine holiday classics. I'll admit, this was never my favourite style of music, but there is a certain nostalgic charm to this stuff - in small doses....

It's a strange thing to think that his original 1957 album, considered the best-selling Christmas album of all time, had at one time gone out of print. The geniuses at RCA must have figured if they ditched the hymns and added two new songs, "If Every Day Was Like Christmas" and "Mama Liked The Roses," they'd be able to replicate the success of the original release. So they put it out on their budget label Camden and released it in mono (I'm guessing the original recordings were in mono, so no harm no foul). Considering I'd never seen it before, I'm guessing the classic red album is still the preferred version. Nostalgia is a strange thing. While I never had the original on vinyl, I did get the CD thirty years ago and that's the version I'm most familiar with - hymns and all. Still, for a buck finding this was pretty cool. I have to admit there were several copies in the bin, some in truly horrific shape. I kinda split the middle and swapp...

I only bought this because of the cover. Thinking this would be so horrid I'd have to replace my needle and bleach my ears after playing it, I eagerly paid my dollar and gave it a good cleaning. The first thing to note is that despite a cover Yosh and Stan Schmenge would drool over, this was played straight and reminds me of my treasured Jim Gregrash records (if you know, you know). I can imagine The Mom and Dads killing it at a barn dance. Make no mistake, this was dance music, just not the dance music of my generation. This is fun, old-timey Christmas music, and frankly, considering three of the members were born before 1920 and the youngest was born in the early 1930s, they were older than most artists who were starting their careers. They'd only released their debut in 1970 a couple of years earlier. Late bloomers, I suppose. I honestly wasn't sure what to expect when I started looking up the band, but I wasn't expecting to see a bunch of gold and platinum CRIA cert...

Christmas with Glen Campbell and The Hollywood Pops Orchestra with The Voices of Christmas  - there's a mouthful.  This is a new-to-me record, so I'll have to take a listen through to get myself oriented to what's going on. Another of my Christmas bin treasures. This was in reasonable shape, but has a couple of ticks, mainly on the first side. Nothing skips, and that's really all that matters. I'm finding with a lot of these older Christmas albums that there is no date on the jacket or the record. So it's off to the internet to try to date this "timeless" release. According to the pretty reliable Discogs.com, this was released in 1971, and that makes sense. The production with the strings is pure shrill cheese, and I wonder if this was a contractual obligation album, as there's very little out there on this one. Ah, I've just gone through the first side and I think I get the long title now. There are five songs here by Glen Campbell, and a few ...

Merry Christmas is probably one of the best Christmas albums ever. This is a weird one to date, but the version I found in the bin is DECCA DL-8128 and is a mono recording, likely released in 1955. Christmas and Bing are pretty intertwined at my house. Invariably I'll make the family watch Holiday Inn or White Christmas, often both. Then we'll make a point of pulling out the Father Chuck O'Malley movies. As a kid I remember watching the TV special where old Bing and young Mister Bowie sang their "Little Drummer Boy" duet. I remember distinctly plugging my ears when it was on. I thought it was horrible. It would take decades for this opinion to soften - which it did, and now it is a favourite. The vinyl may be labelled Microgroove unbreakable, but it wasn't immune to the ravages of time and poor care. It cleaned up reasonably well, but there's enough crackle here and there to pretend there's a nice fire in the hearth making the room feel cozy and warm...

To prepare for this holiday season I went to my go-to store and decided to take advantage of their Black Friday sale and pillage their dollar bin to see what was there. I ended up finding an even dozen albums and, with the discount (yeah, I'm so cheap I was looking for a deal on albums in the dollar bins), I was out of there for less than ten bucks. Here we are December 1, and we're (the Royal "We") going into the Christmas pile and starting off with Andy Williams' classic from 1963. You never know what you're going to end up with, but I wound up with a very nice copy, and as a plus, the jacket still had its original shrinkwrap. I still find it odd when I find a record thusly wrapped. I had friends who told me never, ever, ever leave that shit on - it'll warp your records. Anyway, I've always loved Andy Williams. As a young kid, I have a handful of memories. From The Andy Williams Show I remember Cookie Bear. Don't ask me why. The other was making ...