Forgotten Christmas Classics

It seems like people are always interested in long-forgotten Christmas favorites, so this Christmas I'm stretching the boundaries a little and including some records from the 1950's and 1960's. 

I hope everyone enjoys these jazzy, bluesy, and downright silly songs.

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Bandleader Lionel Hampton gives us our first tune, a jazzy rendition of "Boogie Woogie Santa Claus" with a vocal by blues shouter Sonny Parker.  The Brian Setzer orchestra re-recorded this tune recently, and at least one other blogger has also posted an MP3 of this tune.  But here it is again for your dancing pleasure:

Download Lionel Hampton - Boogie Woogie Santa Claus.mp3

Next, R&B legend Roy Milton steps up to the plate to deliver the appropriately-named "Christmas Time Blues."  Milton was a popular and well-traveled R&B performer with roots in Tulsa, OK.  But with the advent of 'rock and roll,' Milton's R&B music, with its roots in the Swing Era, did not provide enough of a platform to catapult him to the kind of super-stardom enjoyed by Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, and other contemporaries.

Download Roy Milton and his Solid Senders - Christmas Time Blues.mp3

Prolific King Records artist Bill Doggett provides our next tune, one of two versions of "Winter Wonderland" that I'll be posting today.  Doggett was a pianist and Hammond B3 organ player who started out as a big band sideman and accompanist for singers like Ella Fitzgerald.  Doggett's biggest hit was the early rock tune "Honky Tonk."  Unfortunately, Doggett's time in the pop music spotlight was short, and he lost favor with jazz audiences because of his efforts to make more hit rock records.  He finally re-established himself with jazz listeners in the 1970's and remained active until his death in 1996. 

Download Bill Doggett - Winter Wonderland.mp3

Sanguine pop singer Eileen Barton is best remembered for her 1949 hit, "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked A Cake."  But in 1952, she recorded "The Night Before Christmas Song," adapted from the famous Clement Moore poem by Johnny Marks.

Download Eileen Barton - The Night Before Christmas Song.mp3

The early 1950's treated (?) us to a glut of grating child singers warbling silly Christmas songs -- "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas," "Where Did My Snowman Go," "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," "Nuttin for Christmas," etc.  Here is yet another one, 9 year old child star Little Rita Faye singing "I Fell Out of a Christmas Tree," which is what happens when evergreens fail to practice proper birth control.

Download Little Rita Faye - I Fell Out Of A Christmas Tree.mp3

The late 1950's brought us The Chipmunks and yet another glut of annoying records featuring benzedrine-addled "animals" singing silly Christmas songs.  For your amusement, here are Dasher, Prancer, and Nervous singing "The Happy Reindeer Song."

Download Dancer, Prancer, and Nervous - The Happy Reindeer Song.mp3

Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes had just released their first top 20 R&B, hit "My Hero," when their version of "Winter Wonderland" was recorded in 1960.  Although it post-dates the 78rpm era by just a few years, the classic do-wop harmonies and relaxed 'cha-cha' feel of their performance merits its inclusion in this post.  This group would go on to super-stardom in the 1970's thanks to new lead singer Teddy Pendergrass and their monster 1972 hit "If You Don't Know Me By Now." 

Download Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes - Winter Wonderland.mp3

1960 was also the year that the King label paired two genuine old-school 1940's R&B kings together on what would be the last hit record for either of them: Charles Brown's "Please Come Home For Christmas," and Amos Milburn's "Christmas Comes But Once A Year."  Charles Brown's smooth singing and piano playing made him very popular on the West Coast in the wake of Nat 'King" Cole's stardom.  Amos Milburn made a name for himself playing in the roadhouses around Houston, TX, before rocketing to nationwide fame with "Chicken Shack Boogie."  But by 1960, both artists had faded into near-obscurity, having been eclipsed by rockabilly, jump blues, and rock and roll.

Download Charles Brown - Please Come Home for Christmas.mp3
Download Amos Milburn - Christmas Comes But Once A Year.mp3

Of course you can't talk about the 1960's without talking about rockets and spacemen, and our last record seems to have been inspired by the USA/USSR space race of that decade.  There is little information online about our last record, but it is a recitation of two short anti-war editorials, told from the point of view of an observer in space looking down on poor Planet Earth. 

Download Rob Townsend - Christmas Message From Space.mp3
Download Rob Townsend - The Night Before New Years.mp3

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Merry Christmas to everyone from the Virtual Victrola.  See you all next year!

Comments

[mtaotr]

Thank you very much for making these Christmas recordings available! I am a great fan of old time music and radio programs, and know a lot of work must go into producing these files in such great sound - Merry Christmas to you and yours!!
Mike

[Ola]

Thanks a lot for all the nice recordings you are presenting here!