Seasons Greetings from Stoki

Back in the mid-50s, you could hang these season's greetings from Stoki on your tree, with a Christmas-themed EP inside. I'm not surprised this idea didn't spread to other conductors - can you imagine A Jolly Christmas with George Szell or Joy to the World from Fritz Reiner?

I hate to say it, but Stoki came to the party with stale goods - these items are excerpts from recordings that he made for RCA in the late 40s.

But the package is unique - I can't recall any other record sleeve that you can hang on a tree.

REUPLOAD - DECEMBER 2014

Digression No. 13

I really wasn't planning on posting so much Christmas music, but once you get rolling, it's hard to stop. There are many sites that specialize in this music; I've already mentioned Ernie of Ernie (Not Bert), who keeps up a frenetic pace throughout the month. Another is A Christmas Yuleblog, whether the Captain keeps coming with the tunes at a remarkable rate.

Two posts of 10-inch records over at the latter site have given me particular pleasure this season. One is Dragnet - The Christmas Story. (Jack Webb and Christmas? Who could argue with that?) The second is Christmas on the Range with Jimmy Wakely, the great western singer. The latter is a rare set that Wakely made for Capitol at about the same time that he cut the big hit Silver Bells with another fine singer, Margaret Whiting.

As a tribute to these indefatigable bloggers, here is a record that Wakely made circa the late 50s for his own company, Shasta. This exists in two different forms, one with the cover below, the other with a generic Christmas present cover that then could be customized with a sticker for corporate gift-giving.

NEW LINK

Ronnie Deauville, Part 2

I mentioned in the first post that singer Ronnie Deauville was in a serious traffic accident that left him paralyzed, then came down with polio. His story was told on the popular television program This Is Your Life, and this picture sleeve was designed to capitalize on that appearance. Amazingly, you can see the opening of the show via YouTube.

But the subject here should be Deauville's exceptional talent, which is shown in his outstanding performance of As Children Do, an obscure song that the singer makes his own. It is backed by the standard I Concentrate on You, in this Era records release from late 1957 or early 1958.

LINK

Christmas with Ferrante and Teicher

The piano team of Ferrante & Teicher has achieved a certain retro renown for the prepared piano hijinks (or hi-fivories, as they are called here) on their early albums.

This specimen is the first record they made for Westminster. Released in 1954, most of these items on this 10-inch LP were later recycled for a 12-inch record called Adventures in Carols, which has Santa riding a rocket on the cover. This version instead has reindeer assisting the duo-philanthropists by pouring sand into the piano and pulling out the strings so they could be plucked.

The pianists each laid down two tracks so there is much to hear. The musical results are interesting if a bit relentless, witty but also kind of tacky. Not really my thing, but the pianists and woodland creatures seem to be enjoying themselves. Perhaps you will, too.

LINK

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

A Record for Christmas, 1953

Let's say it's a December day 55 years ago, and you're walking past Record Rendezvous on Prospect Avenue in downtown Cleveland. You can't help but notice it - it's a big store and it's blasting Big Mama Thornton's version of Hound Dog at you. Compels attention.

Big Mama is not your style - and you are faintly annoyed by the store itself. After all, it sponsored Alan Freed, and he brought that raucous jive music to the Cleveland airwaves, and now all the kids are listening to it.

Let's go in anyway and see what we can find. Here's one that just came in today, the clerk tells you - Rosemary Clooney and her husband Jose Ferrer. Make a good present. OK, wrap it up - I can afford 79 cents.

The clerk pulls out a green Record Rendezvous bag, puts the 78 into it, adds some cardboard, and throws in some Capitol and RCA promo items. I like the looks of the Tawny promo. Better looking than Ferrer. What does Clooney see in him?

And what in hell does "you ain't nothin' but a hound dog" mean?

Well, that one's Christmas present down anyway.

LINK

[The file includes the Clooney-Ferrer single, scans of the promos - for Capitol's Background Music series, Jackie Gleason's Tawny, and Laugh and Learn children's series, and RCA Victor's newsletter, The Baton, for December 1953.]

Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick

If you were going to produce a film, would you contemplate using the title "Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick"? Not unless the movie was to feature adorable animated creatures, you wouldn't. But Paramount Pictures did use that title for a musical in 1952, and instead of animated leads, managed to get pop singer Dinah Shore and Metropolitan Opera baritone Robert Merrill to star in it. Met honcho Rudolf Bing was so annoyed with Merrill for taking part in this undignified endeavor that the singer left the company for a time.

The title role of the film was played by Alan Young, who seemed to have a thing for barnyard epics, going on to star with Mr. Ed the horse on television.

The above commentary, I know, is not much of a endorsement for the soundtrack record, which is the subject of this post. Nonetheless, this is a sought-after disk, perhaps because it's rare and has a funny name to boot. Or maybe because of the melodious score, which came from the prolific team of Livingston and Evans. Although the score doesn't contain any tremendous hits, Shore and Merrill sing the tunes quite nicely and Alan Young is more than tolerable.

As the cover states, the record features the original cast - but the songs aren't directly from the soundtrack. RCA seems to have remade the score in its studios using label stalwarts Henri Rene and Hugo Winterhalter for orchestral backing.