A Christmas Yuleblog

A few blog entries ago, I reviewed this album that I originally discovered at Ernie's blog last year. At that time, I announced I had found the STEREOPHONIC version of this album. I then posted a poll at FaLaLaLaLa.com asking one and all whether or not they would love to hear this version. Seven people voted. Five said yes. Two said no. It took me over two hours to get Blogger to post a photo this morning. They knew this album was on its way and did its best to stop it. This isn't exactly the way I wanted to end "Christmas In July" but a promise is a promise. Woody The Woodchuck - Christmas Sing Song (STEREO) Happy listening... Capt

I was originally planning to post a stereo version of " Woody The Woodchuck - Christmas Sing Song " today, ending my Christmas in July celebration. However, the album you are looking might be my vinyl find of the year. It carries much significance because it was much sought after (by me at least), involves our good friend Ernie (not Bert), and in ways crystalizes what our royal highness, the King Of Jingaling, wanted to do when he started FaLaLaLaLa.com . You might be scratching your head wondering what I'm talking about but go with me here... read on and all will be revealed. Ethel Smith was a graduate of Carnegie Tech who majored in music and language (she was fluent in French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and German) whose talents at the piano led her to movie houses, theaters, then vaudeville tours. Along the way, she worked at department stores demonstrating organs and became so proficient that she strictly played the organ from then on. Around WWII, she tour...

The stack of CDs that I acquired from Ernie's blog late last year is getting smaller and smaller. Here's another one that I'm just getting around to reviewing. From judging the comments related to Ernie's blog entry of this album, this was a well loved album by many in their youth. Back in my youth, there was a radio station in Chicago simply called "FM 100" that played "beautiful music". Remarkably, many of these "beautiful music" stations thrived across the USA throughout the 1960s and 1970s, stocking itself with lush compositions from Jackie Gleason, Ray Conniff, The Living Strings, Percy Faith, and one Hugo Winterhalter. Winterhalter was involved in the music industry for nearly 30 years and was a main purveyor of beautiful music during this time. He also helped several artists along the way: Eddie Fisher, The Ames Brothers, and Kay Starr. This album was released in 1958 and the Winterhalter formula was firmly in place. Or w...

Here's one of my last offerings for FaLaLaLaLa 's Christmas in July celebration. I was going to hold onto this one until Christmas but moved it up since it's so... well... funky! This album was released at Christmas, 1976 on Cotillion Records, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records. This label had an impressive roster of artists that included Jean Knight, The Fatback Band, Stacy Lattislaw, and even the Velvet Underground (before they imploded in the early 1970s). Two of its major finds were Sister Sledge (of "We Are Family" fame) and a three member group by the name of Luther. Take a real good look at who's sitting behind the piano... Yep, that Luther! Each artist listed on the cover above get two tracks each on this album and clearly the best cuts on the album ("May Christmas Bring You Happiness" and "At Christmas Time") are from Vandross and company. However, leave some room for the other artists. John Edwards shines, Willis Jackson ...

Guess where I found this album?  That's right... over at the blog of Ernie (Not Bert).  Please forward all e-mails and comments to Ernie, not ME!  But I digress... Long before 98 Degrees, the Backstreet Boys, N'SYNC. Take 5, and Boyzone... Long before Hanson, The Moffats, Boyz II Men, New Edition, and New Kids On The Block... there was a boy band named for a Mexican soup. Started in Puerto Rico in 1977, Menudo was the biggest selling act in Latin music throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Menudo has had more members than any other band (including the Grateful Dead and the Beach Boys) thanks to its policy of "you're out of the band when either you reach 16 years old or your voice changes". If you think you can handle the full history of this band, click on this Wikipedia link . We wish you luck. This album was released at Christmas, 1983 - six months before they recorded the title track to "Cannonball Run II" (a career highlight for sure) and o...

As FaLaLaLaLa's Christmas In July celebration slowly winds down, I'm offering this special Christmas promo 45 to all those people (like myself) who create annual Christmas compilations and search for those unique sound clips that you can use as a bridge between songs or use them as a stand alone track on the CD. In my opinion, the best year during the entire decade of the 1980s was 1983. "M*A*S*H*" finally went off the air, Stephen King wrote "Christine" and "Pet Sematary", and radio gave us Duran Duran, Michael Jackson, Culture Club, Prince, and a slew of memorable 80s one hit wonders. I'll stop now - I've been known to babble about why this year was the best. The US Government may very well be the largest distributor of Christmas promotional albums and singles of all time. Since WWII and the V-Discs, they have released almost on a yearly basis promos for each branch of the military, VA hospitals, US Savings Bonds, the Post Office, y...

"This is an album I downloaded from Ernie (Not Bert)'s blog last year..." "Here's an album that Ernie offered at his blog late last year..." "My friend Ernie had this album to share at his blog during the 2005 download season..." Pick one of those and let's get going... This is a very interesting album because 1.) where it came from and 2.) I can't find anything online about the artist. Lifted from the very blog entry via Ernie: "The original release is seen above (at Ernie's blog - it might be above or just to the right for my blog), as credited to The Ralph Hunter Choir. The second time around, RCA decided that old Ralph wasn't drawing enough attention so they called it 'Living Voices Sing Christmas Music'.  "And that release spawned a whole series of albums by any number of different groups as Living This or Living That. ... And, oddly enough, the record you see above (at Ernie's blog and, by now,...

There hasn't been a rush of children's Christmas albums this summer. So I decided to unveil this little pink gem. This is our second album that we're offering as part of FaLaLaLaLa 's Christmas In July celebration. This album comes from the good folks at Kid Stuff Records, a label that sprouted up back around 1982 and released strictly kiddie fare for a full two years then prompty disappeared. Strawberry Shortcake, The Care Bears, Masters Of The Universe, and the like weren't good enough for these hardy fellows. They soon began released kiddie records based on video games as well: Missle Command, Asteroids, Yars Revenge, and Pac-Man (whose Christmas album I did share late last year over at FaLaLaLaLa.com). Does anyone know more about Kid Stuff Records? Was it another name or separate branch for Peter Pan Records? How about that label that released all those Caroleer Singers albums back in the day? I don't particularly like kiddie Christmas albums. I ne...

This is another album from Ernie's blog from last year... get use to that statement folks because I have about another 20 albums or so to go that I downloaded from him and yet to review! At first glance, you might think this is a Haight-Ashbury poster and the music within would be classic guitar-driven rock or some trippy acid rock. Then you notice the Santa hat perched atop the title and realize it must be Christmas related and then really begin to wonder. You then listen to the album and hear a choir singing Christmas carols beautifully with no loud feedback or drug inspired songs or lyrics ("Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" is not about a drunk reindeer, thank you). I give you Thurlow Spurr & The Spurrlows. Thurlow Spurr is a deeply devoted Christian man who has been involved with gospel music since 1959 - the very year he formed the Spurrlows. Performing across the country, Spurr caught the eye of the Chrysler Corporation who needed a group to promote car ...

Here is the next review... Not only is this yet another album I downloaded from Ernie at his blog last year, but I have I been obsessively listening to this album for the past week. I'm hoping that this spasm of typing will get this album out of my system. I fear it won't. It will be like any other addiction - you go cold turkey, it gnaws at you, you crave the fix, and eventually you give in. Up front: This was one of my favorite albums downloaded last year. Now you may be asking to yourself "Who is Pete Fountain?". Others might be asking "Okay, is this a hypothetical question or just a segue into today's history lesson?" In any case, Pete Fountain is one of the premier clarinetists of this or any era. Born in 1930 in New Orleans, Fountain was surrounded by Dixieland from the cradle to his formative years. This was the era of Benny Goodman and Irving Fazola , a New Orleans clarinetist who greatly influenced the young Pete. Fountain quickly de...

An often told joke during the 1950s and 1960s amongst the music industry: First session musician: I'm doing an album next week with Ray Charles. Second session musician: Which one? The blind one or the deaf one?" He's actually the one in glasses on the cover of this album - one of two albums by the Ray Charles Singers that Ernie (not Bert) offered at his blog late last year. The other Ray Charles has had quite a full career. During the 50s and 60s, Ray and his singers put out dozens of albums in their own right while being the house orchestra and chorus for Perry Como - a job they held from 1950 to 1985! Ray also was the choral arranger on the TV version of "Your Hit Parade" from 1950 to 1957 and worked with many famous names on various TV specials such as Bing Crosby, Julie Andrews, Glen Campbell, Bob Hope, Gene Kelly, and Frank Sinatra. If you're still not impressed, here are three facts that prove the other Ray was hip: 1.) He wrote the song...

This is my first offering for FaLaLaLaLa 's Christmas In July - an album that I first learned of there, sought out, and discovered at a vinyl swap meet just last month. It's not the best Christmas album in the world, but there's a lot going on here that make it pretty unique. First, the cover. If you look very closely in the bottom left hand corner, you'll see the signature of Amos Sewell . Sewell was one of the legendary Saturday Evening Post cover illustrators during its heyday along side of J.C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell. If only real Christmas get togethers looked this good... Second, the musical director. Henri Rene was born in Germany and trained at Berlin's Royal Academy of Music. During the 1920s, he emigrated to the U.S. where he played in a number of orchestras before returning to Germany in the early 1930s. However, he fled again as the Nazis rose to power and became the head of RCA-Victor's international arm in 1936. After serving with th...

This may come as a shock... but here is an album that I DIDN'T get from Ernie at his blog! Take a moment - let it sink in and we'll proceed... Several weeks ago, I celebrated my 37th birthday and a few of my family members gave me various gift cards to purchase Christmas CDs. They gave up trying to purchase Christmas CDs for me years ago - wonders why... There were several Christmas CDs I wanted to choose... but there were several DVDs that I've had my eye on for quite some time. A good portion of the gift cards went for DVDs and what remained was used for two CDs. This is the first to arrive. About two years ago, I was searching for a specific song (more on the song later) which led me to a fellow Christmas music collector who had it. It turns out it was from this very album. We quickly set up a trade and presto! I had the CD! What I didn't have was the artwork - the trader didn't have a scanner. Luckily, I found a JPEG of the cover online and I had...

I still have a large stack of Christmas CDs next to my computer monitor that I downloaded from my friend Ernie over at his blog . The album you see before you was buried deep inside this stack but I moved it up because of two reasons. One reason I will reveal later. The other reason is our house stoop and back patio have become new homes for a family of chipmunks. They have dug themselves in quite nicely and we're either going to start charging rent or call a pest control guy to give us a quote. Do they make chipmunk traps? Background on this album: In 1958, Ross Bagdasarian was a struggling actor / songwriter /family man who was down to his last $200 - his entire life savings. He spent $190 on a state of the art tape recorder that played and recorded at half speed. Bagdasarian sat down and wrote a song that utilized a gibberish sound that he recorded: OO EE, OO AH AH, TING-TANG, WAL-LA WAL-LA BING BANG. "Witch Doctor" was released by Liberty Records and quickly w...

This album comes from the great download catch of 2005 from the blog of Ernie (Not Bert) . To quote from Ernie: Tonight's LP is from the well-known duo of Buddy And Bunny Burden. You say you've never heard of them? How can that be? Perhaps you didn't hang out in Gatlinburg in the sixties. "OK, so these two might not be a household name, but after you listen to their record, you might decide to spread their name a little further afield. I have yet to figure out exactly what Bunny brings to the table. "Sure, she looks nice there on the cover, but there's not a peep from her on this record. She's not even mentioned on the back cover. And did I mention I think Buddy is wearing the same tuxedo that my dad was married in? "Of course he didn't have the snazzy haircut. And if you know anything more about these two, please drop me a line. Thanks! I'm sorry to report that after much searching and Googling, I couldn't find anything about ...

Here's an album I won on eBay many, many, many moons ago but only recently transferred it from vinyl to digital. I have a guilty pleasure about Christmas disco in general (I own about 5 different Christmas disco CDs) so when I saw that the title of the album was "Christmas Disco", I knew I had to bid and win. Disco got its start in new clubs called discotheques in the larger cities of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles in the early 1970s. By 1973, many disco hits could be heard on AM radio stations across the country. I distinctly remember taking a family vacation as a five year old to St. Louis in 1974 and the number one hit in America, according to Casey Kasem and the "countdown", was "Rock The Boat" by the Hues Corporation. I believe this may have been the very first #1 disco hit in America (if I'm wrong, correct me please). By 1975, disco was taking over everything. Van McCoy's "The Hustle" was a number one smash, a girl nam...

Folks, it's been a busy time for me lately... My birthday was last Sunday and I'm mulling my options on what Christmas CDs to purchase (any ideas?). I'm also doing some side work for the theater group I'm involved with here in Fort Wayne. And I still have a stack of Christmas CDs I need to review here at the yuleblog and catalog into my collection. On top of all of this, I have been preparing for FaLaLaLaLa.com 's annual Christmas in July celebration by transferring deserving Christmas vinyl to digital files so I may share with you good brethren of the Christmas music faith... some real winners & losers in my LP stack... can't wait to share! More will be posted here soon... promise! Capt

The album you see before you is the second sampler that Ernie offered at his blog Ernie (Not Bert) during the 2005 Christmas download season. Coral Records was a subsidary of the mighty Decca Records. Back in their heyday, Coral released many jazz and swing band singles, then R&B singles, and made the transition to rock-n-roll by signing a young kid out of Lubbock, TX by the name of Buddy Holly. According to the liner notes of this extended play 45: "Here is a genuine novelty - a novelty which will be a standard for many years to come. Here are eight new Christmas songs sung by new (or comparatively new) artists who, like the songs, are definitely here to stay. All of the songs have a unifying theme - the perennial spirit of Yuletide - and all of them are new this year. They are true "firsts" in every sense: new titles, new words, new music, and interpretations which, while new, will never grow old." Using this info, I've estimated that this sampler...

Many years ago, I worked for the Musicland Group. Under this umbrella were music stores such as Musicland and Sam Goody. Media Play was a combo music/video/book store, and Suncoast Motion Picture Company, where I worked as a store manager, was videos, DVDs, and other movie related items. One of the only perks as a store manager were the wonderful items the record and video companies used to distribute at annual meetings as their way of appreciation for all the work we did selling their product. I picked up several Christmas samplers from various record companies (Rhino, Columbia, Capitol) during my time there and have sought out other promo compilations from other companies via eBay and other sources. Samplers usually contain some of the finest material anywhere or contain repackaged drudge that you really could have done without. Whenever I see the word "Sampler" on anything, I'm very wary. So when I saw this sampler album (one of two samplers) being offered by ...

When Ernie offered this very album at his blog many months ago, my heart nearly skipped a beat... in 3/4 time! To quote from Ernie's original post: "Once upon a time, everyone had a piano in their home. Later, people had organs in their homes. Nowadays, we have CD players and TVs and iPods and Sega. "But back to the organs for a sec. This LP was designed to help sell those organs. I don't know if this was given away to customers, or sold in the organ stores, or what, but the ultimate goal was to get you to buy an organ from Kimball so that you could play like the artists on this record." One of my uncles went out and did exactly that one year. He was lured into a local mall outlet where the salesmen, resplendent in their polyester slacks, sat behind desks and occasionally behind a keyboard to show you the ease of playing the organ. After selling you an organ, they ask "can you play?" If not, they would sell you "how to play the organ"...