Rare Christmas Songs and Christmas Music Oddities

[ka2xuk]

This is the flip side of my "Christmas Turkeys" thread. How many of you have ever heard these Christmas songs, which receive little or no airplay? Some of them are quite odd.

1. "Jingle Bells" by Spike Jones. We've all heard "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth", but Spike Jones does part of "Jingle Bells" in Pig Latin! Ingle-jay ells-bay, ingle-jay ells-bay, anyone?

2. "The Bell That Couldn't Jingle" by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Unlike most music by the instrumental TJB, this one is a cute little vocal. The recording itself is very rare, as the album featuring it went out of print around 1970.

3. "That's What Christmas Is" by the air staff of the long-defunct WNBC Radio in New York City. WNBC played this one Christmas Eve before broadcasting a production of "A Christmas Carol", using the station's air staff as the cast. Did any copies of this survive when WNBC was sold in 1987?

4. "Christmas Dream" by Perry Como. This perky little ditty actually came from the movie "The Odessa Files". A Christmas song...from a movie about Nazis? I heard it on two stations, WHOL in Allentown (long before they went Spanish) and WOGL in Philly.

5. "My Christmas Dream" by Ralph Flannagan and His Orchestra. This is totally unrelated to the song by Perry Como and is a classic big band tune by the successor to Glenn Miller. It is very rarely heard on the radio today.

Can any of you think of any others?

Phil G.

 

[L.A. Tarone]

Phil:
When I did The Sunday Night Hall of Fame on the now-defunct WKAB, all I played at Christmas time were oddballs. A few examples:

“Christmas Just Ain’t Christmas” – the Ebonys. It’s the same Gamble-Huff backing track as the O’Jays version. This one was done first. When it wasn’t a big hit, Kenny and Leon had the O’Jays dubs their voices over it.

“White Christmas” – The Ravens. Jimmy Ricks had one of the great baritones ever.

“Run Rudolph Run” -- Keith Richards. Keith is a big Chuck Berry fan so it wasn’t that far out of the expected he’d cover this. The B-side was his cover of Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come.”

“The Holly & the Ivory” – Martha Wright. She was a well-know quasi-operatic singer in the ‘50s. This song is a long-forgotten seasonal standard. Just gorgeous.

“Crazy Santa Clause” – Ollie McLolly. Swingin’ Big Band/R&B from 1949.

“This Christmas” – Donnie Hathaway. Neat early ‘70s tune.

“Deck the Halls” and “Jingle Bells” – The 1969 New York Giants. For some ungodly reason, the NFL had each of its teams cut a Christmas album in 1969 for promotion. I somehow got a-hold of the Giants LP, even though I’m a 49ers fan. Tucker Frederickson, Ernie Coy, Homer Jones, Fran Tarkenton, Pete Gogolak and the rest weren’t exactly the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But it’s a hoot.

“Listen To the Angels” – The Soul Stirrers. Later incarnation of the group from its Sam Cooke days. This, by the way, is the exactly same tune as Ernie K-Doe’s “Ti-Ta-Ti-Ta-Ti.”

“Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” -- The Cadillacs. I think this is my favorite version.

“It’s Christmastime” – The Qualities. Sun Ra when he was dabbling in the vocal group sound.

“Santa In the Phonograph” – Ernest Hare. Half of the Happiness Boys in a neat 1922 recording. It’s Santa speaking to kids from the turntable. I often wondered what kids’ reactions were to this when they first heard it.

“Gee Whiz It’s Christmas” – Carla Thomas. There’s very little resemblance to her big hit “Gee Whiz,” but it’s a neat tune with a Curtis Mayfield-ish “skip.”

“Twistin’ Bells” – Santo and Johnny. “Jingle Bells” done as slammin’ dueling guitars from the “Sleepwalk” duo.

“Presents for Christmas” – Solomon Burke. LOVE this record!!

“Jolly Good Time of the Year” – The Salsoul Orchestra. Nice, sort-of ‘modern standard’ from the disco era.

“Santa Boogie” – Sugar Chile Robinson. He was a “child star” of the R&B scene in the late ‘40s. His career burned out pretty fast, but he did some memorable records. This, I thought, was one of them.

“Merry Christmas Baby (I Don’t Want to Fight)” - The Ramones. Great, tension-filled slammer.

“Silent Night” – Tony Martin. Greatest singer who ever lived.

“Silent Night” – Haydn Quartet. 1905 recording with the original lyrics, “Silent night, hallowed night…”

“We Wish You the Merriest” – Les Brown & his Band of Renown. Neat, late Big Band-era.

“Gonna Tell Santa On You” – Faron Young. From his Capitol days. I’m a big Faron fan and looked for any reason to play him.

“We Wish You A Merry Christmas” – The Rolling Stones. WHAT??!! A Stones Christmas tune? Yeah, sort of. If you have the vinyl version of the “Satanic Majesties” LP, there’s an untitled track at the end of Side One. Play it at 45 speed and it becomes recognizable as this. It’s about 35 seconds long.

Also there were two local boys I used to play – Pat Godwin’s “Santa, Welcome To the Modern World,” and I usually pulled something from The Mad Drummer’s Christmas Special; I especially liked “Kinky Christmas.” Twig was/is a big Ray Davies fan.
And there were two cool versions of the old poem “Twas The Night Before Christmas.” One was by Art Carney. It’s just him and drummer in a hot jazz style. And, believe it or not, there’s a Rush Limbaugh version. It’s from his early days of syndication (1988, I think) and is pretty straight-forward and traditional.
And there were many, many others. Sometimes I really miss doing that show.

 

[mevansrock]

I heard "Merry Christmas Baby (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight" by the Ramones over the music system at WEGMAN'S the other day. Made my freakin' day!

 

[pdjames]

I never post here. Well hardly ever. But having committed radio atrocity a few times with all Christmas all the time (Once when we debuted The Buzz-going from Adeste Fideles to Tainted Love By Soft Cell-true story-can't make this stuff up) I thought I could give me my odd playlist for the yule time. Or at least a few.

Here Comes Fatty with his sack of ...Rudolph and the Gang

http://youtu.be/IDAgIWaHsMU

A Junkies Christmas - William S. Burroughs

I used to play the shorter version of this during Christmas Dinner with the In-Laws here at the Rising Ranch. It was low in volume on the living room system. We ate in the kitchen, and no one ever commented on it. This video version, which I just found, is flat out amazing. Francis Ford Coppola directed. Who knew? William S. Burroughs is so twisted, gotta love him.

http://youtu.be/fDR9zULPcFk

Do They Know It's Christmas? Bob Geldof

Bob “Humbug” Geldof told Australia’s <i>The Daily Telegraph</i> in a 2010 interview: “I am responsible for two of the worst songs in history. One is ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, the other one is ‘We Are The World’. Any day soon, I will go to the supermarket, head to the meat counter and it will be playing. Every f—ing Christmas.” Geldof added that he gets irritated when carol singers perform the charity hit in front of his home during the holidays. “They think ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ is as old as ‘Silent Night.’ Sometimes I think that’s wild because I wrote it. Or else I am thinking how much I want them to stop because they are doing it really “badly.”

Don’t care what Bob thinks. And this is my favorite version. Love how they screwed with Paul McCartney.

http://youtu.be/mOKwyNcVK2U

PDJames out

 

[electroboy73]

1). BOBBY VINTON - "Santa Must Be Polish" 
2). GAYLA PEEVY -  "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas"
3). BECK - "Santa Don't Cop Out On Dope"
4). LOU MONTE - "Dominick The Donkey"
5). SPICE GIRLS - "Sleigh Ride"
...I'm sure there's more but it's enough for now.  ;D