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.
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.
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