A Christmas Yuleblog

Last year, we shared out a great Christmas album (Jay Jay 1080) chock full of Polish Christmas songs and polkas by L'il Wally and his backing band The Harmony Boys. This album was discovered at Beverly Records in Chicago - one of the greatest vinyl stores left on the planet. Earlier this year, I raided Beverly Records' famed WALL of Christmas music and came up with another gem from Chicago's very own polka king! This album you're looking at was released a year or two earlier judging by the label numbers (Jay Jay 1026) and contains mostly Christmas standards with the full L'il Wally polka treatment. You've never lived until you've heard "Frosty", "Rudolph", and "Jingle Bells" with a polka beat! However, the tracks you really need to listen to are the original tunes. "Merry Christmas Mom And Dad", "How Lovely Is Christmas", and "Dance Around The Christmas Tree" all have that familiar polka...

This second share for the 2009 Christmas downloading season is special in many ways. Let me explain. The origin of the album is my original hometown of Chicago - home of my beloved Cubs, deep dish pizza, and multi-ethnic neighborhoods that blend together seamlessly into one giant melting pot by Lake Michigan. The fact this album was performed by Chicago Swedes should come as no surprise. Another reason this album is special is because it's Swedish. Over the past several years, I've become friends with a fellow blogger/Christmas obsessive named Anna-Lena Lodenius . Hailing from Stockholm, Anna-Lena has been posting amazing Swedish Christmas fare at her blog Jul Igen - Christmas Again - be sure to visit and say hello! Hope you like this one Anna! The final reason why this album is special is because it allowed me to re-establish an old acquaintance from my days as a used CD store manager. If you lived in the south suburbs of Chicago back in the day, you knew there w...

In March of 2007, I travelled to Chicago sans wife & kids to search through the bowels of Chicago thrift stores, flea markets, and rare record stores to search for Christmas LPs for my collection. This past weekend, I travelled again to Chicago sans wife & kids to do the exact same thing. Upon learning the news, the Chicago River turned green with envy (keep reading). My weekend trip began last Friday and I stopped at various flea markets and antique stores along the Lincoln Highway from Fort Wayne to Chicago. I walked away with two Christmas albums (both have been shared out by our friend Ernie (Not Bert) - keep reading). After getting to Illinois, I went to a thrift store location that two years ago had just opened, had one entire corner of their store reserved for LPs, and yielded a good portion of the titles I shared out last year. Upon my return this year, their selection was reduced to an eight ft. folding table with about 10 milk crates full of LPs. Sadly, I ...

Earlier this year, I travelled solo to Chicago and raided every thrift store, Salvation Army, Goodwill, and vinyl record store in search of new and exciting Christmas albums. The trip yielded quite a harvest and this little nugget was one of my finds. The Beverly neighborhood in the southwest corner of Chicago is a blue-collar, middle-class neighborhood that has flourished over the years. While other parts of Chicago look like Baghdad, this part of the city prides itself on its work ethic, family principles, and an urban sense of community that never went out of style back in the late 1960s like it did throughout the entire country. Back in 1967, John Dreznes decided to buy a record store on South Western Avenue for his wife Christine. Christine wanted a positive place for neighborhood kids to visit, get after-school jobs, and a place where "Mrs. Dee" could keep an eye on her friends' kids. Her choice of name for this place? Beverly Records. As the business to...