A Christmas Yuleblog

I wasn't going to share this album out because who needs another Christmas organ music LP? This album and I have a long history. I found it earlier this year when I located just the record alone at a local Goodwill store. The album cover turned up much later. The front cover was in great shape. The back was hideous. Watermarks, coffee mug rings, a small food stain... was it food? It took me forever to clean it up in Photoshop. Why all this for a Christmas organ album? When you see the name "Sy Mann" on the back cover, you tend to overlook little details like coffee and food stains! For those who don't know who Sy Mann is, let me quote from a review I did back in August of an album I got last Christmas from our friend Ernie at his incredible blog Ernie (not Bert) (which he just upgraded to STEREO ! WOW!): "But organ music in the hands of Sy Mann, then it becomes something that deserves special attention. If the name Sy Mann sounds familiar, that's ...

In a yuleblog entry yesterday , I mentioned that Christmas organ music was now the largest subgenre in my collection. As I thumbed through the remaining stack of albums that I downloaded at Ernie (not Bert)'s blog last year (a mere 12 remaining from a tower of 35+ CDs), yet another CD stared at me containing Christmas organ music. But organ music in the hands of Sy Mann, then it becomes something that deserves special attention. If the name Sy Mann sounds familiar, that's because he was one of the main forces behind " Switched On Santa " - one of the top five Christmas albums of all time. Mann's musical education began quite young - at the age of six to be exact. His sister would hit wrong notes on her cello as she practiced and Sy would correct her by playing the right notes on the family piano! Sy was studying music at New York University when World War II began. He quickly enlisted and spent most of his four year stint in the Army either composing, ar...