Christmas In July 2009-Day The Nineteenth

What day is this? I'm loosing track of time... Seven versions of two songs tonight, The Bells Of St. Mary's and Parade Of The Wooden Soldiers. Not seven versions of each, though, just a total of seven. Five of one and two of the other, I think. Let's get started, shall we?

Track one is version one of The Bells Of St. Mary's. I'm not sure this is supposed to be a Christmas song, but it's about bells and a church, so it's sort of like a Christmas song. This one is by Gordon Macrae, Arranged And Conducted By Van Alexander, from his album Songs For An Evening At Home (Capitol T1251, 1959). Not a bad vocal take on this one.

Version two is by John Duffy at the organ from his LP John Duffy At The Mighty Columbia Square Wurlitzer (Liberty LRP 3004, 1955). I love the cover on this one, you should go search it down. I'm too lazy to scan it in for you, sorry.

Version three is Jesse Crawford from the same 10" LP I featured the other day, In A Monastery Garden (Decca 10" DLP 5058). Sorry about the scratchiness.

Version four is a bit odd. It's from an LP put out by the Wurlitzer company that gave you a sample of all the different songs in the sheet music that came with your new Wurlitzer organ. Well, I don't know if the sheet music came with it, or you had to buy it. For that matter, I'm not sure if they gave you this record or you had to purchase it. Either way, it's a short little version and I'm sure you'll find it at least interesting. Oh, the title of the record is Organ Melodies From The Hobby-Lesson Course For Wurlitzer Organs (The Wurlitzer Company, De Kalb, Illinois).

The fifth version of this song is my favorite, and for two reasons. Reason one is that it's got some good rockin' guitar in there, and the second reason is that the guy's name is Ernie. It's Ernie Maxwell and the LP is The Happy Guitar Of Ernie Maxwell (Canaan CAS-9670-LP). No Berts on this one, I assure you. This is a religious LP, or at least that's who it's targetted towards. Ernie and his family are all wearing matching purple suits on the cover. But the guitar rocks a bit more than you might expect.

The last two tracks are a couple of different versions of Parade Of The Wooden Soldiers. I thought the five versions of The Bells Of St. Mary's were a little skimpy, so maybe you can think of these two as bonus tracks. Version one is another organ song, this time by Ray Bohr from his album The Big Sound-Ray Bohr At The Pipe Organ (RCA Victor LPM-1306, 1956). Version two is by The Sandpipers And The Golden Orchestra, Music Director: Mitch Miller from Let's All Sing Like The Birdies Sing (Golden Records LP-83), a collection of songs from those little yellow records they had when your parents were kids. I see those a lot at the thrift stores but they always look like they were used as Frisbees instead of records.

So there you go, seven songs for the nineteenth day. Here's the download link, don't forget to come back almost every day!