The New Christmas Songs for 1952

In 1952, Coral Records wrapped up Christmas themed singles from some of its leading pop acts, put a red bow around them, and sent them to record stores in a 10-inch album. These were the "NEW Christmas Songs," as the cover helpfully points out, and were Coral's attempt to generate some holiday cheer (and sales).

Not sure how much success they had, and the only song on here that has had much shelf life has been the adaptation of "The Night Before Christmas" by Johnny Marks, who produced several Christmas hits, starting with "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

But it's a good record nonetheless. I enjoy pop tunes with a holiday theme that haven't been heard over and over, and this is a good collection of them. The artists include some of Coral's finest, including the Ames Brothers, Don Cornell, Eileen Barton and Johnny Desmond.

One reason why record companies like Christmas albums is that they can bring them back on a yearly basis to generate new sales. Coral did that with this record in 1953, just with a slight modification of the cover. You can see the results over at Ernie (Not Bert), one of the web's leading purveyors of Christmas music.

Note (December 2023): this record has now been remastered in ambient stereo and has complete scans.

LINK