Perry Como ‎– Home For The Holidays

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 collection includes a lot of pretty great tunes, and also features a number of cuts with Hugo & Luigi's Children's Choir. Where the intrusion of other artists on a Christmas album can feel intrusive - yeah, I'm thinking particularly of Christmas with Glen Campbell, where it felt like they were shoehorned in to take up space - the few songs here fit nicely and don't detract from the experience.

I have to admit the children's choir version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" was enjoyable. Not as good as Bob and Doug, but a close second.

This "special collector's edition" was likely a cobbled-together collection for a specialty market, which makes it kind of fun to have. It came out around the same time as The Perry Como Christmas Album, but the children's choir selections were from several years earlier - which means those little kids weren't so little when this was reissued.

I started by poking fun at Perry Como and his ribbing at the hands of Eugene Levy and the gang at SCTV, but it never felt malicious. Even the notes on the back cover by Gene Lees allude to Mr. Como's ability to deliver without seeming to exert himself:

"His legendary relaxation - the result, really, of not only professional skill and assurance, but the painstaking care he takes in the preparation of a song - is always in evidence."

I'd agree with that. He made it seem easy and effortless.

Listening to Perry's golden baritone sing "Ave Maria," I sat just mesmerized by his voice. Of course, this was followed immediately by "Joy to the World" with the cheesy trumpet fanfare, and it still worked. The album closes out with "Silent Night," complete with an angelic choir - it's beautiful.

This is a wonderfully nostalgic album, and the songs here are classics. I know this is very much of a bygone era, but to me this is what Christmas music is all about. Reverence and revelry, all delivered with Perry's relaxing dulcet tones. Does it get any better?

I know we're about to close out the year, but Christmas continues past the actual day and will remain a constant in the house until Epiphany, when the Wise Men show up with their gifts. Or, as we called it when we were kids, Ukrainian Christmas.

I know Perry didn't sing this, Elvis did (Red West wrote it), and we'll hold on a little longer before chipping the tree and putting away the lights.

"Oh why can't every day be like Christmas
Why can't that feeling go on endlessly
For if every day could be just like Christmas
What a wonderful world this would be"

Styx - Paradise Theater

Styx was hands down one of my favourite bands as a kid. They were a strange band, even back then. They were a hard rock band, almost progressive at times, who had a penchant for sucky ballads. I know there's a tendency for people to zero in on "Babe" as the song that killed the band's credibility. The roots go way back to almost the beginning when Styx released "Lady" on their second album. It showed a side to the band that needed to be kept in check, and for the most part the band kept things on a pretty tight leash. The band had been setting a gruelling pace, releasing an album a year (two in 1972) and by the time they released Paradise Theater (if I end up writing theatre later it's because that's how we spell it here) in 1981 they'd dropped ten albums in less than a decade. I snapped this up as soon as I saw it, and it became a fixture on my turntable. Like the band had announced on "Borrowed Time" from 1979's Cornerstone , ...

David Baerwald - Bedtime Stories

The little sticker on the shrinkwrap says, "You may remember David Baerwald from David & David's Boomtown ..." You bet, I remembered David Baerwald. Back in 1986 Boomtown was an album with moments of sheer brilliance. The whole album may not have been as top shelf as the first few tracks, but that didn't matter - it is an excellent album. I waited for a follow-up ... and waited, and then in 1990 it was a solo David, David Baerwald, who dropped Bedtime Stories . I snapped it up. "All For You," the opening cut, is still my favourite song on the album. It was mesmerizing. I'm not sure if the song got any airplay, it may have, but that may have been wishful thinking on my part as it was on a lot of mix tapes at the time and I heard it a lot in the car. The CD had a great booklet with all of the musician credits and lyrics. Oddly, when I found a sealed copy of the record (a great score), it just had a plain paper insert - the picture of David walking wit...

Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle

"Cars" was really the only song I knew by Gary Numan. I knew the name of the album the song came from. Over the years bits and pieces of trivia are accumulated, but in terms of his music it was still distilled down to one song ... It would be too easy to write Mr. Numan off as a one hit wonder, and I suppose in terms of actual chart hits this was his defining moment as a solo artist. Of course this really means nothing, as Gary Numan would drop an album a year pretty much through to the end of the '80s. He'd then slow down a little but continued to make music. While The Pleasure Principle was Gary Numan's debut solo release in '79, he actually cut his teeth on a couple of albums in a band called Tubeway Army, first with the band's self-titled release in 1978, and then on Replicas that came out in April of '79. By the end of Tubeway Army's run most of the band would follow Gary into his solo career. Paul Gardiner, who had been with Gary from the b...

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