A Christmas Yuleblog

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...

The 2009 Christmas downloading season is under way. I'm saddened to learn that my friend Ernie (Not Bert) had a computer hard drive crash and burn (I feel your pain - same thing happened to me five years ago.) Don't fret - his collection is so huge that anything he posts is worth a first or second look. In my case, it's the 203rd look. Two days in and there are new releases all over the place. If you haven't bookmarked it yet, Santas Working Overtime does just that - finding all these new releases and highlighting them faster than any RSS feed can ever hope to do. During these same two days, I discovered that two albums I was preparing to share... were already shared out! The first is this amazing chestnut: Recorded in 1954, this 10" was the first full-length Christmas album for Messrs. Ferrante and Teicher. All of the eight songs on this album were later re-released on their " Adventures In Carols " album from 1956 (available to download...