Monday, December 26, 2016

Detective Ernie

First, Happy Boxing Day to you!  Second, I meant to get this out during the season, but I forgot about it, and probably wouldn't have had time to do it anyway, so here it is today, the second day of Christmas.  Perhaps I'll be inspired to go all the way to day 12, perhaps not.  I guess we'll have to wait and see.  Anyhow, I have a little bit of a treat and something extra for you today.  The album you see above is the original issue of Larry Welk's second Christmas album from 1957.  Put away any prejudice you may have against Lawrence Welk and his champagne music you may have from watching his TV show with your grandparents back in the 70's, this ain't that.  This is the sound of Christmas in the fifties!  Fun stuff!  When this album first came out, it had the tracklisting you see below and detailed out on the back cover.  But at some point it changed, and they never changed the back cover!  The only way to tell the difference other than listening to the vinyl was to look at the label.  And while I still don't know why they made the change, I think I know when!  This album was re-released in fake stereo not too long after it's initial release. and I think that's when they made the change.  The original cover featured the catalog number in the upper left corner, but the reissued cover features it in the lower left.  It was moved to allow the Stereo banner to go across the top on the stereo copies without having the mono catalog number displayed.  I've put a detail of the second mono cover down at the bottom, and you can make out where they had to airbrush out the original number since I guess they couldn't find the original photo.  So that's the when, but why?  I have no idea.  Pretty much every copy I've ever seen in the second version, even a budget retitled reissue on Pickwick.  Seems like history just forgot about it, but not me!  For your listening pleasure tonight, I present the original record, with the original, instrumental track 4 medley, and as a bonus, I'm throwing in the later track 4 vocal medley, sourced from a nice mono copy without all the echo that got added later.  Aren't you excited?  I wish I could remember where I first heard about this replaced track, but it's escaped me.  Credit where credit is due, I believe.  So if you're still with me after all that, this is Lawrence Welk And His Champagne Music-Jingle Bells (Coral CRL 57186, Mono, 1957), with bonus track!  Dig it!

1. Jingle Bells
2. Let's Have An Old-Fashioned Christmas
3. The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You)
4. Christmas Carols: Deck The Halls; Good King Wenceslas; The First Noel; God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen; Come All Ye Faithful; Hark! The Herald Angels Sing; It Came Upon The Midnight Clear; Joy To The World; Oh, Little Town Of Bethlehem; Silent Night
5. Santa Claus Is Here Again
6. Sleigh Ride
7. The Christmas Waltz
8. Santa From Santa Fe
9. Silver Bells
10. Ring Those Christmas Bells
11. Merry Christmas From Our House To Your House

And the replacement medley:

4. Christmas Carols (Come All Ye Faithful-Deck The Halls-Good King Wenceslas-God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen-The First Noel-Hark! The Herald Angels Sing-It Came Upon A Midnight Clear-Joy To The World-Little Town Of Bethlehem-Silent Night)

Zippyshare

17 comments:

  1. There's no quit in you, is there? Hope you had a nice holiday!

    I can probably tell you why there is a residue of the old catalog number on the reissues - it was cheaper to do it that way. They could use the old printing plates with just some scratching out on the black plate. No need to go back to the original, prepare new color separations, etc.

    Thanks for taking care with these minor variations - I love this sort of thing, although I can live without Larry Welk and his minions.

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  2. Very interesting, and confusing. I have the original cover with the catalog number left hand corner and the second side 1 label with the vocal track number 4. Thanks for pointing it out that there is an instrumental version of side 1 track 4.

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  3. Upper left or lower left? Maybe I'm wrong about when they swapped out the track. I have a suspicion that the vocal track was a single at one point, broken up onto two sides. Then it showed up on this collection:

    https://www.discogs.com/Various-Merry-Christmas-From-Coral-Records/release/9045413

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  4. Yep, there was a single. Coral EP 81179. I see various dates, 1953, 1957, 1959, not sure what's correct. Now, why did they go back and put it on the LP?

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  5. Thanks. I think this is all neato keen. And so are you Ernie!

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  6. Sorry about that. Mine is on the upper left corner. I am not sure which one came out first. The vocal or the instrumental. I do have the Merry Christmas From Coral Records lp with the same medley but broken into 2 tracks. this one is a head scratcher. We could compare the numbers on the run off wax but that still wouldn't tell us much without knowing what the numbers really mean. Soooooo......

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  7. Thanks. This looks great, and I love the cover.

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  8. Thanks to you for this one, and the replacement track 4. I like it both ways. Happy 364 days till next Christmas!

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  9. I certainly hope you will be inspired to keep posting Christmas music well into the new year!

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  10. Thanks for this posting. I am downloading now and can't wait to listen. I only had 60s Lawrence Welk Christmas stuff.

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  11. Many thanks, Ernie! Another great selection. Hope your holiday brought you the joy & peace we all seek at such times. I particularly love the liner notes on this selection, as they do as fine a job describing the pleasures of seasonal music as one could ask for — as true today as they were when they described the "pop" music of the day ... in 1957!

    Merry Ho HO, and all the best,

    Chris

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  12. here's another "thank you" for this one...the hunt for the 4-lp vinyl box set "Merry Christmas From Lawrence Welk & His Champagne Music" continues, however...!!

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  13. Those are pretty common at the thrift stores around here. $1 for the whole box. They probably throw away most of them...

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  14. I have the 4 LP Lawrence Welk set if Annette Murphy is interested, but there are several available on ebay as well at the moment.

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  15. look at the cover. these people are all in nightgowns and bathrobes. it could be christmas eve just before bedtime or perhaps early in the morning with the kiddies having woken everyone up. fine. either way, can anyone tell me why, underneath his bathrobe, the older gent is WEARING A TIE ??? i understand how ward cleaver could wear a tie at the dinner table. but presumably, this guy wears a tie to bed !!! his wife with the pearls and earrings doesn't bother me as much... rather like june cleaver vacuuming. but jeez... you can't make this stuff up.

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