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 so laid back he would wear his trademarked 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 a weird to juxtapose my steady diet of Styx, Prism, Larry Norman with the oldies I found in my parent's 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 featuring 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 it was shoehorned in to take up space -the few songs here at fitted in 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 a 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, as at around the same time as The Perry Como Christmas Album, and the children's choir selections were from several years earlier - which means that those little kids weren't so little when this was re-issued.

I started by poking fun at Perry Como and his ribbing at the hand of Eugene Levy and the gang at SCTV, but it never felt malicious. Even the notes on the back cover by Gene Lees alludes 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

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