'Snowflakes and Sweethearts' from LeRoy Holmes

Now that Christmas and New Year's are but a pleasant memory, this might be a good time to post an LP that pays homage to the season - Snowflakes and Sweethearts from the LeRoy Holmes Singers.

I wouldn't say this is an unusual outing for Holmes - he made other vocal recordings - but he is better known for the instrumental and film music discs he produced for the M-G-M and United Artists labels in the 1950s-70s. He also provided the backing for many singers through the years.

LeRoy Holmes

Snowflakes and Sweethearts is very much of its time - 1966, when pop choral music tended toward the frothy. This is an entirely pleasant listen, but is something of the aural equivalent of marzipan.

The album had its genesis in a single that Holmes recorded coupling two songs from the elaborate but ill-fated musical Anya, which only lasted for 16 performances on Broadway in late 1965. Anya was based on the play Anastasia, the story of a supposedly murdered daughter of Emperor Nicholas II, who (Anya that is), pops up in an insane asylum where she is discovered by a taxi driver who is a former Czarist general. Complications ensue.

Anya was one in a line of musicals by Robert Wright and George Forest based on melodies by classical composers. These shows were produced for the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera and the most promising moved on to Broadway. This resulted in a couple of hits - Song of Norway (with Grieg melodies) and in particular Kismet (from Borodin's music). For Anya, Wright and Forest chose Sergei Rachmaninoff. 

United Artists had a vested interest in the musical, having the rights for the original cast recording. So it assigned Holmes the task of producing pop versions of two songs from the score - "Snowflakes and Sweethearts (The Snowbird Song)" and "Homeward." 

Per the Anya cast album, the former is taken from several Rachmaninoff works - the Polka de W. R.; the Valse from the Suite for Two Pianos, Op. 17, No. 2; and ‘‘Thou, My Beloved Harvest Field," Op. 4, No. 5. (The Polka de W.R. - W.R. being Rachmaninoff's father Wassily - was an arrangement of Franz Behr's "Lachtäubchen (Scherzpolka)," a favorite of the elder Rachmaninoff.)

From Anya - Constance Towers (right foreground) and ensemble

As a song, "Snowflakes and Sweethearts" is entirely delightful, here given an infectious reading by the LeRoy Holmes Singers, who were a choral ensemble led and probably arranged by Will Bronson. The song was introduced on Broadway by Constance Towers, who played Anya. 

Irra Petrina and ensemble in Anya

"Homeward" is certainly a contrast - this is a longing-for-home piece presented by Irra Petrina as the cafe proprietor Katrina. The strong voiced Petrina was a feature of several Wright-Forest productions. She also had the misfortune of appearing in a number of ill-fated musicals, leading author Ken Mandelbaum to dub her the "queen of the floperettas." "Homeward" is based on Rachmaninoff's Prelude Op. 23, No. 5.

I've included the original cast recordings of "Snowflakes and Sweethearts" and "Homeward" in the download.

The two songs discussed above are far and away the best recorded on the Holmes LP. The other 10 songs must have been rushed through production. Although the performances are fine, the sound was such that the female voices were crowded way off to the left and the males way off to the right. I've rebalanced matters so that they are in a more natural perspective, although they remain in a different, more reverberant space than the instruments. The backing is limited to guitar and vibes, with an occasional appearance by a trombone choir.

Beyond the Anya songs, the program is entirely enjoyable - if you enjoy such fluff, which I do - mixing familiar songs like "Moonlight in Vermont" and "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" with lesser known items. The latter include:

• "Be Mine Tonight," from a 1930s melody by Maria Teresa Lara. With the addition of Sunny Skylar's English lyrics, it was on the charts in 1951 via recordings by the Ames Brothers and others.

• "The Worst Darn Winter in Years," a pleasant piece by Holmes and Al Stillman.

• "In Our Hideaway," one of the songs from Irving Berlin's Mr. President - not one of his best remembered shows, although it ran for nine months in 1962-63.

• "Made for Each Other," a 1947 melody by René Touzet with English lyrics by Ervin Drake and Jimmy Shirl.

• "The Sweetheart Tree" by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer, written for the 1965 film The Great Race. This folkish song was fairly popular at the time, but has faded, despite its memorable melody.

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