A Christmas Yuleblog

Earlier this year, I reviewed an excellent 1995 compilation of the collected Christmas works of Ruth Lyons. As I typed that review, I listened to the CD comp that used actual physical copies of the albums for the master sources (amazing but true). I quicked pulled my LP copies of "Ten Tunes Of Christmas" and found no new surprises. However, when I listened to "It's Christmas Time Again", I was delighted to discover three of the 1963 versions to be totally different and inexplicably left off the CD comp. To quote from my original review: 1.) "Let's Light the Christmas Tree" has a spoken intro (presumably by either Bob Braun or Peter Grant) and is a much simpler version of the song. Quite nice. 2.) "Hey Nonny Nonny" has different inflections in Ruth's singing voice - amazing but true! - and the arrangement is totally different from the original song presented on the CD. 3.) "Have a Merry, Merry, Merry, Merry Christma...

We're recovering here from a weekend in Cincinnati. For the past several years, my wife & kids, my brothers and their families, and my father & stepmother gather to watch baseball games between the hometown Reds and my beloved Chicago Cubs. We didn't get a chance to drive or walk down Ruth Lyons Lane downtown but maybe next road trip. Ruth Lyons was (and still is) an institution in Cincinnati. She had a four decade career in broadcasting, first in radio, then television and "accidentally" invented the daytime TV talk show. An estimated 7 million viewers in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and West Virginia tuned in (including some who credited her as an influence - Phil Donahue, Jane Pauley, and David Letterman). Back in 1939, a visit to Children's Hospital left her depressed over the thought of young children being hospitalized over Christmas. The Ruth Lyons Children's Christmas Fund has raised more than $21 million over the past six decades. Insu...