A Christmas Yuleblog

Back in October, I reviewed "Warner Brothers Stars - We Wish You A Merry Christmas" - an album released on Warner Bros. Records from 1959 - the second year of WB Records existence (and available for download courtesy of our friend Ernie (Not Bert) .) Here's an album from 1958 - one of only two Christmas albums released on Warner Bros. Records that year (the other being Jimmy Joyce's " A Christmas To Remember " - Ernie again). What stars are on this album? Who's got the hot song? It's an entire album of Christmas music boxes accented with bells & chimes. This album might have been the first Christmas music box album ever - Rita Ford's legendary "Music Box Christmas" on Columbia wasn't released until 1961 and I've yet to see a Christmas music box album earlier than this. And guess what? Ernie did it again - he has this very same album in the STEREO format. Turns out I had the mono version after all with some nif...

Last December, I was receiving Christmas gifts from family members, cats, and friends. Yesterday's entry was devoted to The Living Christmas Tree and my friendship with my buddy Joel. Not to be outdone last year, his wife Samantha (with whom I once shared a bed with for a play while Joel directed - only in America) snagged a FULL stack of Christmas CDs for me from a friend who didn't want them any more. Most of the CDs in the stack I already owned but this CD and its simplistic cover caught my eye. The case was old, discolored and had medium sized cracks throughout. The weight of the case felt heavier than normal which made me wonder when this CD was made. A quick look of the back cover confirmed my curiosities - the CD was produced and issued in 1989! As more and more CDs are going the way of the 8-track, the scarcity of any CD manufactured before 1998 is indeed a prize - even more so for Christmas CDs. I originally thought "this is just another music box CD a l...

Earlier this year, I found this album in an antique store in the antique town of Pierceton , Indiana. At first glance, I nearly passed over it because of its non-Christmas title. However, the songs were and I added this to my pile of albums that I was preparing for the upcoming holiday season. Then in July, our friend Bongolong at Bongolong Land offered this album as part of his "Christmas In July" celebration. Earlier this month, Bongolong decided to create a new Christmas ONLY blog entitled Bongobells and is currently offering this album to download. In his first three weeks, Bongo has offered 31 different albums with such diverse titles as: "Ren & Stimpy's Crock O'Christmas" "Mae West - Wild Christmas" "Christmas In The Stars: The Star Wars Christmas Album" "Guitars Inc. - Guitars At Christmas" "Jackie Gleason - Merry Christmas" This music box album is one of the TWELVE albums I've downloaded...