A Christmas Yuleblog

Merry Christmas! Here it is - my last share of the 2009 downloading season. I look forward to this one just as much as some of you! While I'm searching for albums throughout the year, I'm looking through 45s and 78s to locate those lost Christmas singles that might have fallen through the cracks. When I find a certain record, I purchase it and place it on the " TBD sampler" pile. Although my vinyl search and rescue missions this year didn't yield as much as I would have liked, I did manage to locate several vintage jewels. With the care of a gemologist, I carefully transferred them over to digital and packaged them in one nifty package. Your 2009 Christmas Yuleblog Sampler: Track 1 - Miss Frances - 'Twas The Night Before Christmas (Part I) RCA Victor - WBY 28 (F2CW-5193)- 195? Long before "Sesame Street", "Mr. Rogers", and even "Captain Kangaroo", there was "Ding Dong School" with Miss France...

I received a phone call this morning from my father-in-law, a hearty fellow with a dry sense of humor. If you happened to see "The FPT Christmas Revue", you might remember a character from Act II - a retiree who was spending his first Christmas in an assisted living facility. That character was loosely based on my father-in-law (you gotta write what you know about). Ed called here early this morning as I was waking up: "I wanna thank you for scaring all the mice out of our house..." Huh? I'm not sure what he was getting at... "They printed your interview in the morning paper... Front page too!" he stated plainly. Then I really woke up. A few weeks back, I was interviewed by Frank Gray, a gent who works for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, for a piece I had hoped would run before the run of the revue ended. As it turned out, they pushed it back to run today (of all days). If this seems familiar, this was the same newspaper that ran a C...

Here's is my final UPDATED list of what I have shared - click on a link to explore: 1983 Air Force Public Service Spots - Disc V The Alcoa Singers - An Olde-Fashioned Christmas Marian Anderson - Christmas Carols Anonymous - Two Christmas Songs Around The Christmas Tree - A Special Christmas Day Program Jan August - Christmas Favorites The Banjo Barons - Selections from "Play Music For Happy Times" Ben Best - Happy Christmas Party Bielefelder Kinderchor - Christmas In Germany Pat Boone - White Christmas Bowen & Csehy - Christmas Steepletime Owen Bradley & His Quintet - Joyous Bells Of Christmas The Bravo Singers & Instrumentalists - Christmas Sing-Along Bobby Breen - Songs At Yuletide Anita Bryant - The Miracle Of Christmas Al Caiola & Riz Ortolani - The Sound Of Christmas The Canterbury Choir - Christmas Hymns And Carols Sung By Capitol Production Music The Chicago Swedish Glee Club - Songs At Christmas Christmas 19...

Okay... you're probably saying to yourself "Self, that cover looks awfully familiar. Have I seen that somewhere before or have I just drank too much eggnog???" Before you dial up the EggNog Anonymous hotline, this identical cover was used as an alternate of The Murk Family's Christmas album. It later appeared as an alternate cover for Mickey Rooney's Christmas album (but if you saw the other cover, you'd understand why this one was used... you've been warned!). When I saw this album at a thrift store in Chicago, I was half tempted to pass it up - who needs yet another Christmas organ album and I don't need a THIRD album with the same cover in my collection. Or did I? I read the back and kept asking myself "Why does the name Frank Pellico ring a bell?" I added the album to the pile and continued on my merry way (you can never beat 25 cents for an LP). Only after I left the city limits of my former hometown and got back to my curr...

Several hours ago, the curtain came down on the run of "The FPT Christmas Revue". It was a project that I was closely involved with since the beginning of this year; a journey full of challenges, frustrations, joy, and remarkable achievements while bringing a totally new work to the stage. I must thank Thom Hofrichter and Joel D. Scribner for this amazing opportunity. These two gentlemen gave me a chance to showcase my perspective on Christmas and they were supportive of the whole process. I owe them a lot and I look forward to working with them on other shows at First Presbyterian Theater. Over 1000 people came out to see the show over its run and saw a plethora of talent. We had 30+ people in the cast, ages ranging from five to 70-something. We had members of five different families within the cast, a wide range of Christmas songs to sing, and each member of the cast gave it their all every night on the boards. To my fellow cast members, thank you so much. I go...

FINAL PERFORMANCE TODAY! If you live in the NE Indiana / NW Ohio area and want to see a Christmas revue like no other you've ever seen, then this is your LAST chance! Come on out! Call the number on the poster to reserve your tickets! If you've seen the show, leave us a comment and tell us what you thought about it! See you on the stage! Rob aka Capt

In yesterday's post , I gave props to Buster over at Big 10-Inch Record for posting some darn good shares this downloading season. Late last month, I posted an entry that mentioned that two albums I originally had planned on sharing out were already posted to Buster's blog. One of those two albums was this gem of a Christmas album. I was ready to file it away for the winter and move on to other shares when our friend Ernie (not Bert) pointed out in a comment that Buster had posted a high-fidelity copy of the album whilst mine read STEREO! It's commonplace here for me to miss small things like that. Maybe it's the early stages of Alzheimer's... Thanks for bringing that to my attention Ern! Backstory: Marjorie Chandler was born in 1926 in Windsor, Ontario, Canada - just across the river from Detroit, Michigan. She developed a love for music and began singing on radio stations on BOTH sides of the river in her teens. It was also during this time she ado...

"My mother is in pictures, You've seen her on the screen. She gave chicken pox to Alan Ladd And mumps to Bobby Breen." Excerpt from " Ode from a Germ's Eye Viewpoint " by Percy Dovetonsils (aka Ernie Kovacs) I first encountered the genius of Ernie Kovacs on my local PBS station in 1977. In those days, my brothers and I would place a tape recorder next to the speakers of the TV, record the audio, and listen to it repeated in lieu of a VCR. I quoted this poem frequently, placing the same emphasis on "Bobby BREEN" they way Percy Dovetonsils did. That was the first time I became aware of someone named Bobby Breen. Curiosity got the the better of me and I went to my local library to consult its newest collection of World Book Encyclopedias. Breen was born in Canada and made his way to Hollywood as a youngster. His first big break was several appearances singing on Eddie Cantor's radio show in the late 30s. His natural soprano voice s...

To modify an anonymous quote that has become famous: "Never judge an album by its cover". Earlier this year, I was surfing through the holiday album listings at eBay when I discovered this album. I was shocked two different ways - the first being that I was able to track this album down at a reasonable price, the second was that stupefying cover. Let's start at the beginning to fully understand this. George Mitchell had come from a musical family - his grandfather was a well-known Scottish choir master and both of his parents were singers as well. He learned piano at an early age and during World War II, he organized military choirs and made a name for himself throughout the armed forces. After the war, Mitchell went to work for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and organized radio choirs and shows utilizing his own handpicked glee club entitled "The George Mitchell Choir". As television began its ascent in popularity over radio, Mitchell be...

Here's is an UPDATED complete list of what I have shared here - click on a link to explore: 1983 Air Force Public Service Spots - Disc V The Alcoa Singers - An Olde-Fashioned Christmas Marian Anderson - Christmas Carols Anonymous - Two Christmas Songs Around The Christmas Tree - A Special Christmas Day Program Jan August - Christmas Favorites The Banjo Barons - Selections from "Play Music For Happy Times" Ben Best - Happy Christmas Party Bielefelder Kinderchor - Christmas In Germany Pat Boone - White Christmas Bowen & Csehy - Christmas Steepletime Owen Bradley & His Quintet - Joyous Bells Of Christmas The Bravo Singers & Instrumentalists - Christmas Sing-Along Anita Bryant - The Miracle Of Christmas Al Caiola & Riz Ortolani - The Sound Of Christmas The Canterbury Choir - Christmas Hymns And Carols Sung By Capitol Production Music The Chicago Swedish Glee Club - Songs At Christmas Christmas 1953 Veteran's Administr...