Robert Maxwell & His Harp - 40 All-Time Christmas Favorites


This was a from a lot of Christmas records I purchased from a Canadian dealer off eBay earlier this year.

Robert Maxwell was a songwriter (he wrote "Ebb Tide") and harpist innovator. This was a man who wired his harp into a light display back in the late 1950s for club appearances and was considered in the same light as Ferrante & Teicher in the way he produced sound from the harp.

Maxwell composed a number of songs and instrumental pieces, including the exotica standard, "Ebb Tide," and "Shangri-La," which gave him a Top 40 hit in 1964 after Jackie Gleason began using it on his variety show - a mere 18 years after Maxwell first composed it!

Another of Maxwell's pseudonyms is familiar to any fans of "The Ernie Kovacs Show": The Nairobi Trio. Maxwell wrote "Solfeggio: The Song of the Nairobi Trio," which played along with the recurring bit about the trio of mechanical monkey musicians.



I had been looking for a Christmas album by Maxwell and just about gave up hope when this 1958 Canada-only album came along. 40 Christmas tunes on one album? WOW!

Eight medleys (four on each side). One solo harp. It sound deadly but Maxwell's playing draws you into the web and you're hooked. It's a stimulating album.


Robert Maxwell & His Harp - 40 All-Time Christmas Favorites


Happy listening...


Capt

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hello,

I tried to download this, Dec 5,2011, but it was no longer there.
Any chance that I could get you to re-post or perhaps e mail me another link for this Robert Maxwell Lp ?
Thanks,
billdcat_99@yahoo.com
12/06/2011 04:57:00 PM
Ernie said…
Hey Cap'n! I thought for sure I commented on this back in the day, but if I did, it's gone now. This is a really cool record, and I'm proud to say I was finally able to add a copy to my own collection recently. I wouldn't have known it existed if you hadn't shared it out back in the day.
8/22/2012 07:09:00 PM
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 ...
Read more