Skip to main content

The 12 Days of Christmas

12 Days of Christmas
Another of the Pickwick releases I seem to keep finding. There is no date, which is pretty standard, but it's a pretty safe bet this collection of songs goes back to the '50s and probably early '60s. Pickwick seemed to delight in packaging budget collections and here on The 12 Days of Christmas it's a pretty standard collection of the the big classics.

As I've come to expect with these records, they are short. Woefully short. The majority of the songs clock in at just over two minutes, and a couple are under the two minute mark. Although the Jimmie Rodgers version of "The 12 Days of Christmas" is a second shy of the three minute mark - at least according to the back of the jacket. Bonnie Guitar pulls of the longest song with her arrangement of "O Holy Night" that was really nice. I actually thought it was going to be a guitar piece played by a Scotsman - Bonnie Guitar, get it? It wasn't. 

The songs run the gamut, but are all very much of an earlier time. If you're looking for a more contemporary collection of carols, in that the music is what those pesky kids are listening to nowadays, this is not the album for you.

I'd mentioned Jimmie Rodgers version of the "12 Days of Christmas" and it's a very serviceable arrangement and is enjoyable, it lacks the fun that Burl Ives brought to the table. It's also a song that is best heard when you're a kid, as it ages terribly as you get older. Billy Vaughn does an instrumental arrangement of "Joy to the World" that had organ and bells. It's Eddie Fisher who pulls of a really nice treatment of "Ava Maria" that segues into Liberace's piano tinkling on "What Child is This" complete with accompanying orchestra. My mum would love this one. Side one closes out with The Mills Brothers performing "Silent Night" with the Hammond organ providing the music. It's actually a really cozy version, and for me reminded me of the church services of my childhood. Man, that organ. You either love it, or it just grates ... I'm sort of in the middle, but it does tend to stale date some wonderful music. I'm thinking specifically of Mahalia Jackson's Christmas album. 

Side two opens with one of the more current Christmas classics with Pat Boone doing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." It's Pat Boone, while he was no Elvis, he was for crying out loud Pat Boone. It's a nice version. Compared to many of the songs on the first side, this is a decidedly upbeat selection. Heck, I am a sucker for a whistling solo. George Wright follows with his take on "The Little Drummer Boy" a song that is done on a pipe organ, although there is a drum chorus as well as what sounds like a glockenspiel. It's more fun than it should be, mainly because in my head I imagine a little old man in a black coat and top hat sitting at the organ pumping the pedals and pulling stoppers. Bonnie Guitar is up next, and her version of "O Holy Night" was likely pulled from her 1966 Christmas album. By all accounts she was also a heck of a guitar player too, so her stage name was more than just a gimmick. Lawrence Welk brings out his champagne bubble machine "The First Noel" and it's another instrumental, that just hearkens back to another time. Jimmy Wakely closes out the album with "Winter Wonderland" that brings it all home.

back cover

There is something about these old collections that takes me back to a time I was never really part of. It makes me nostalgic for a time that never existed outside of a romanticized versions captured in old back and white movies.

Things are only ever as good as you make them.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Garfield - Strange Streets

I'd seen this before in the bin, but kept flipping through the stacks. I'd see it a few more times, each time stopping to look at it a little more. There was something kind of cool about the cover where the stylized Celtic knot had the dotted yellow line - it was a strange street for sure.  I pulled the record out of the jacket and I was struck by the centre image. There was the familiar Mercury label, the same one I'd seen a thousand times on BTOs Head On album. Well, I'd bought things based on odd associations before - like when I had to buy anything that Solid Rock Records released (this was generally a good thing) who knows maybe this was a hidden gem. There weren't any real scratches or rash, just a lot of dirt and dust - it seemed to clean up okay, but we'll see how it goes. The album opens with the title track, and this wasn't straight ahead pop, or rock. It was leaning to the progressive, but with a pop bent. Oddly enough the vocals reminded me of Mi...

Hoodoo Gurus - Mars Needs Guitars!

The first time I got this album it was a gift from my old roommate Otto. For a goofy little nebbish he would occasionally surprise me with some left of field musical treasures. Although, I still think he was reaching a little when he brought home the new "Led Zeppelin" album by Kingdom Come and forced me to listen to "Get it On" over and over again.  I'd not listened to Mars Needs Guitars in a long, long, long time. The first thing that I jumped out at me was how David Faulkner's vocals reminded me of his fellow countryman Peter Garrett from Midnight Oil. I think the reason this never occurred to me was at the time I didn't have any Midnight Oil until Diesel and Dust in 1987. I'm not saying it was all the time, but there were a couple of songs where it stood out. Not a bad thing, just a thing. Even at the time this felt slightly out of step with what was going on in 1985. It seemed like everyone was using drum machines and synthesizers and having t...

Saturday Night Fever - The Original Movie Soundtrack

It was going to happen sooner or later. Nostalgia is a cruel Mistress...she can dull the sharpest edges and over time can even soften the hardest of opinions. I found this in the dollar bin, and frankly at a dollar I was worried about what this would cost me. Not only from a monetary perspective, but my time, and more important my credibility. Fourteen year old me was screaming "Don't you dare. DON'T DO IT! Put it down. Walk away!" Then there was grey bearded me holding it and looking at it, thinking, "How bad could it be? I actually kind of like "Staying Alive" and me buying this record won't bring disco back, and no one will have to know I bought this." I pulled the album out of the bin, and carefully took out the records. They'd seen better days, and there were a couple of decent scratches that would no doubt make their presence known later. The jacket was in decent condition, and both of the albums had the original sleeves. I dusted the...