A Christmas Yuleblog

Here's another forgotten vinyl Christmas album, rescued from the Goodwill bin of obscurity by Pastor McPurvis and the good folks at Vinyl Orphanage . To quote Pastor McPurvis: "Up today are the happy holiday sounds of Roy Meyer and his group of Singing Swingers. Hailing from the great state of New Jersey, Mr. Meyer founded this community group as a non-profit agency dedicated to providing music scholarshops to high school students, as well as promoting vocal group singing throughout the New York Metro area. "Mr. Meyer penned some ambitious arrangements for the group, and though the singers may falter a bit on the more complicated harmonies, they more than make up for it with their enthusiasm and sincere delivery." Pastor McPurvis hits the nail on the head... At first glance, this album looks like a church group recording but the arrangements more than make up for it. It seems Roy Meyer is alive and well and still swinging in New Jersey. And if you got voca...

Last December, I was so busy downloading stuff left and right that I never got a chance to listen to it all. During the last two weeks, I finally burned the last 40+ albums I downloaded to CD and have finally just begun to listen to the music. Smack in the middle of full albums by Hugo Winterhalter and Menudo (watch for those reviews soon) was this little Internet gem of a find from a band whose existence is largely due to the Internet itself. Arcade Fire hails from Montreal and formed in early 2004. Utilizing a massive amount of instruments (including harp, viola, cello, xylophone, even accordian!), they recorded an EP that they sold at their first live gigs (known to fans of Arcade Fire as the "Us Kids Know" EP). They went on to record their first album Funeral around this time and got a small label to distribute the album. Music critics praised the band, word of mouth amongst their fans was aided by the Internet, and David Bowie was so impressed he asked to recor...

If you are a Christmas music collector like me, you probably know that most Christmas CD comps are hit or miss - each containing one or two songs that standout in your memory. Every once in a while, you'll find a Christmas compilation that just breaks new ground - every track a hidden treasure. You are looking at such a CD. While doing a simple search for another Christmas CD at my local library, I came across this CD from the good folks at Dust-to-Digital in Atlanta, GA. Lance Ledbetter took over a Georgia State university roots music radio show in the late 1990s and began absorbing all types of roots music. He began corresponding with other 78 collectors, music authorities, and playing all this on his radio show. By the time Ledbetter left Georgia State, he was a bonafide roots music authority. He proved it in October 2003 when Dust-to-Digital released the mother of all box sets: Goodbye, Babylon . A six CD box set full of 135 Southern country gospel music songs from the...

Rhino Records - how do I love thee? Let me count the ways... Richard Foos started his own record shop in 1973 called Rhino Records. His enterprising store manager, Harold Bronson, convinced Foos to start their own music label and in 1978, Rhino began releasing music. Since most of the big record companies passed on distribution deals with Rhino, most of their first ten years in business was done out of their shop and by mail-order catalog. However, their eclectic mix of music and strange video (soon to become a specialty for Rhino) kept building a loyal fan base. In 1986, they finally got a six-year distribution deal with Capitol Records and Rhino was on the map for good. Two years later, I discovered Rhino Records after purchasing some Dr. Demento cassette tapes. I sent my $2.00 to Rhino for a catalog and they sent me their 10 year anniversary catalog - an artifact I treasured until the Toledo apartment fire of 1996 claimed its life. They had great compilations of surf music, a...

In a previous post , I mentioned that Christmas carillon music was beginning to become a subgenre in my Christmas collection. I also mentioned in the same post about the origins of this album: "Last December, I've began searching my local Goodwill, Salvation Army, antique stores, vinyl resale shops, and garage sales for unique Christmas music that I can digitally transfer over. "I found a RCA Victor "Living Stereo" album cover entitled 'A Christmas Sound Spectacular' by John Klein at a local Goodwill (no record enclosed unfortunately) that piqued my interest. Thankfully, I found a site that sells this very CD and ordered up a copy." The site mentioned above is Schulmerich Bells of Sellersville, PA. Not only was this album recorded at their factory back in 1959, they used the 1,453-bell Carillon Americana, the largest carillon in the world at the time, for the recording with two manual keyboards on the carillon and a pedal clavier controlling ...

If you think I was exaggerating, here's actual proof! All these CDs will be reviewed and posted here at the ol' yuleblog... look for the first review later today! And yes, if you look closely at the stack, there is a lot of alternating black & white slim jewel cases... all of those are from the Ernie (Not Bert) collection of Christmas LPs that Ernie offered late last year... I finally burned them off the hard drive and onto CD! I'll be busy for sure! Capt

Dear Christmas music lovers everywhere... About three months ago, I decided that it would be good for me to break the wintertime blues and audition for a play for a local theater group in Fort Wayne. The play is called "Lend Me A Tenor" and I got cast as the world famous Italian tenor Tito Merelli, known to his fans as "Il Stupendo". As March turned into April, I had to buckle down and learn a bunch of lines and master deliberate and delicate movements on the stage in order to get the role properly. I also was the only member of the cast who had free time to help build sets, paint floors & walls, etc., etc.. Needless to say, this took up much of my free time (thereby robbing me of the time I used to devote to this blog). When April turned into May (quite the operation she had), everything came together. Each cast member trusted their lines and movements, the light and sound cues were on the money. I added one final touch to my physical transformation ...