Pat O'Brien - A Quiet Christmas

Who's Pat O'Brien? (For those who know, please feel free to skip ahead).

Pat O'Brien was an actor whose work for Warner Brothers back in the 1930s and 1940s is legendary. He appeared eight times together with Jimmy Cagney; most notably in "Angels With Dirty Faces" in 1938.

Two years later, he was forever immortalized in "Knute Rockne All-American" playing the lead role. Remember Ronald Reagan saying "win one for the Gipper?" This is it!



My personal favorite role of O'Brien's came many years later in 1959. He played the Chicago cop who tracked down George Raft (and Tony Curtis & Jack Lemmon to a degree) in "Some Like It Hot".

By the late 1950s, movie roles for O'Brien were scarce. He began appearing on television quite regularly in westerns, drama anthologies, and the like.

In 1964, O'Brien scored a television special entitled "Here Pat O'Brien" which featured him singing and reciting stories. Someone at Recording Industries Corporation (RIC) thought quickly and issued a soundtrack of that TV special. It apparently sold well enough to let O'Brien try his hand with a Christmas album.

This album contains eleven tracks. But the record labels shows seventeen stories and poems contained within the eleven tracks. Hmmm...

When I transferred this, I decided to offer two versions of this. The first is in its original LP format - all eleven tracks preserved the way it is. The second version is the separate tracks version with each story or poem all to itself - for those who want to skip directly to a certain poem or story within.

O'Brien does a masterful job reciting poetry and reading stories (O Henry's "The Gift Of The Magi" is presented in its entirety here). The singing? Well...

Do you remember a favorite grandfather or uncle who took part in the Christmas sing song at your homes on Christmas? Their faint voices adding to the mix? Sounding like they were half asleep or about to pass out due to lack of oxygen? Then this will bring back some memories.

Click two for the Gipper:


Pat O'Brien - A Quiet Christmas (Original LP version)

Pat O'Brien - A Quiet Christmas (Separate tracks version)



Happy listening...


Capt

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Santastic II - Clausome!

Image
Welcome to Mash-up Saturday! Today we look at four different Christmas online comps that feature the handy work of DJs and mixers from around the world to create brand new takes on your favorite Christmas music. For those not wise in the ways of the mash-up, this phenomenon may have gotten its start way back in the classical days. Composers used to rework other compositions and used the term "variations on a theme by..." Fast forward to the 1960s. Dickie Goodman was breaking new ground with his break-in records. A gent by the name of John Oswald began experimenting with fusing two pieces of music using tape and scissors. The BBC TV show " I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue " featured a segment entitled "One Song To The Tune Of Another" that featured crude forms of the mash-up. In the 1970s, Frank Zappa began picking out basslines and other samples from music into his own. Club and disco DJs began mastering the art of the mix board. A company named
Read more

2001 Playlist

The 2001 playlist: 1.) 2001 intro My usual intro with the Flat Duo Jets on "Jingle Bells" mixed together with " Also Sprach Zarathustra ". 2.) Monty Python - Christmas In Heaven I waited years to use this one... it fits perfectly leading off the CD. 3.) Wayne Newton - Jingle Bell Hustle At the time, I thought this was the worst Christmas disco song ever (see 2008 below). 4.) Casey Kasem - American Top 40 Christmas bumper (No. 3) Found on Napster (the pre-legal days) from one of Casey's old radio programs. 5.) Dale Monty & The 2x2's - The Lil' Endless Summer Boy Take a surf guitar version of "Little Drummer Boy" and "Wipeout". You get this track. 6.) The Surfaris - A Surfer's Christmas List The same group who originally did "Wipeout"! Great Christmas surf track. 7.) Sleepless in Seattle - Meg Ryan listening to Christmas radio "Coming up, 'Jingle Bells' backwards!"
Read more

A Christmas Yuleblog Sampler - 2011

Image
Merry Christmas! We've had quite a year here - digitizing all of our Christmas music, a radio show , and remastering yuleblog samplers past.  But I can't complain.   Taking the nine months to get every album and MP3 onto my hard drive (and an external hard drive for backup) was the best decision I may have made in my Christmas life.  To have every song at my fingertips saves me time and led to discoveries of songs I never knew I had.  I thought that what the CD was supposed to do but that only shows you how far in the past I was living. The radio show was very satisfying.  The folks at the radio station were very supportive and thrilled with the end results.  Will it happen again next year?  I'm hopeful but only time will tell.  Lots of things are in store at the station...  Okay... enough about you Capt...  where's the samplers? During a break in digitizing in June, I went back and remastered the Yuleblog Samplers from 2008 and 2009.  Every 45
Read more