This is one of my favorite Christmas albums. There is joy and optimism in the Weavers' presentation of these songs, and their approach manages to sound both plain-spoken and sophisticated at once. All these songs (with the possible exception of the inescapable and seemingly endless Twelve Days of Christmas) have a freshness that is rare in the genre.
This 1951 LP was issued towards the end of the Weavers' first period of popularity, which ended in the McCarthy era due to their leftist politics. They were perhaps the first folk group to achieve broad appeal, one of a number of blues and folk acts who began appearing in New York clubs in the 1940s. We have already encountered Josh White on this blog; Leadbelly was another. The Weavers were brought to Decca by Gordon Jenkins (who has made several appearances here himself). Completing the circle, the Weavers' biggest hit was Leadbelly's Goodnight Irene, with backing by Jenkins - a song that has since been recorded by everyone from Mitch Miller to the Meat Puppets.
My copy of the original Weavers LP has some damage. The title song is unplayable, so I have patched in a reissue of that item. As is common these days, the reissue was both heavily compressed and re-equalized to have a strong upper mid-range emphasis. I corrected the latter, but the former can't be changed. It results in the singers sounding distinctly closer to the microphone on that tune than on the other songs. There also is a bit of damage on the second song, and a little noise elsewhere. But the basic sound is quite good.
At the time of the group's Decca recordings, its members were Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, Fred Hellerman and Lee Hays. I plan to feature one of Seeger's Folkways LPs here in the future; perhaps also a Ronnie Gilbert album.
