Sunday, July 01, 2018

Christmas In July 2018-Day 01

Twelve years I've been doing this, so I'm assuming you need no introduction.  Welcome to Christmas in July 2018!  I just finished recording the 200th track to share this month, so I'm hoping it will be a good one.  Maybe not as good as last year, which was absolutely awesome, but still pretty good.  I've got a huge stack of records here for you, some good, some meh, but all worth a listen.  So let me jump right in.

1. Christmas In July by Wendy Bagwell (And The Sunlighters, though I don't think they're here on this spoken word track) from the album Plain Georgia Gospel (Canaan (Word) CAS-9810, Stereo, 1977).  What better place to start than a track featuring the name of the holiday we're celebrating?

2. Bring A Torch, Jeanette, Isabella by The Placentia Presbyterian Chancel Choir-Ruth White Miller, Director, from Christmas Chimes 'N Other Times (Monarch Records DBP-226, Stereo, 1977). I was able to record 200 tracks already because I concentrated on albums with multiple tracks on them.  This is one of those albums that had a handful of tracks.  I wanted to make sure I was able to spread those throughout the month so they didn't become too monotonous.  They probably still will, but I can only do so much...

3. Ave Maria (Gounod) by Bob Beck At The Outdoor Organ from The Grotto Organs In Reverie (Adon, Oregon Ltd. V8844, Mono).  Sometime last month, I stumbled into a brand new Goodwill, and they had a huge pile of organ records.  So I have many, many, many Christmas songs from organ records to share with you this year.  You'll be so sick of it before the month is out that you'll beg me to stop posting them.  But I've got to get them all out there!

4. [Herald Square Street Sounds At Christmastime] Manhattan [East Side Street Traffic And Fire Engines], a track by Ralph Burns And His Orchestra And Chorus from New York's A Song (Decca DL 79068, Sounds by Joan Franklin, Stereo, 1960).  The song isn't so much Christmas, but the sound effects recorded on the ground in NYC are key.  This is something I recorded years ago, then promptly forgot about...

5. St. Louis Blues by Joe Carroll With The Ray Bryant Quintet from his self-titled LP Joe Carroll (Epic LN 3272, Mono, 1956).  If memory serves, I threw this in because they break into a little bit of Jingle Bells at one point in the song.  This was a great album, I ripped the whole thing.

And now to some boring bits.  I've got dozens of versions of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, some complete, some just a track here or there, and I've been agonizing over how to share them.  Last year I would share a complete version here and there, so I don't want to do that this year.  I'm going to try to share a few tracks each day, maybe a whole set here and there, but with each track by a different artist.  That should mix things up a little bit for you.  By the end of the month, you'll have more versions than you can shake a stick at, but they'll be complete.  So here goes...

6. Arab Dance (Theme Based On The Nutcracker Suite Of Tchaikovsky) by Claude Thornhill And His Orchestra from The Thornhill Sound (Harmony (Columbia) HL 7088, Mono, 1958).  Nice swinging version here, just found and recorded it today.  Though the LP I pulled it from came out in 1958, I believe the recording dates back to 1946.

7. Chinese Dance by Warwick Symphony Orchestra from the LP Nutcracker Suite/Carnival Of The Animals (Camden (RCA) CAL-100, Mono, 1954).  I think this was the very first LP released on RCA Victor's budget subsidiary, Camden.  Cool!

8. Trepak by The Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra Conducted By Felix Slatkin from Nutcracker Suite/A Midsummer Night's Dream (Capitol SP8404, Stereo, 1957). A rerun many times over around here, but a great version of this classic.

9. Dance Of The Flutes by Peter Ustinov, a spoken bit from Nutcracker Suite-Between Birthdays-Verses By Ogden Nash (Columbia Masterworks ML 5664, Mono, 1961). This one alternates instrumental bits performed by Andre Kostelanetz with Peter Ustinov reading the verses written by the great Ogden Nash.  Good Stuff!

10. Waltz Of The Flowers by Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Conducted By Sir Adrian Boult from the album Sir Adrian Boult Conducts Suites From Tchaikovsky's Ballets The Nutcracker And Sleeping Beauty (Capitol SP 8690, Stereo, 1967). I think I misspelled Tchaikovsky in the download, so you'll want to go in and correct that as soon as you've downloaded it.  Don't want to have a typo in your Christmas library.

And that's it, ten tracks you can download and listen to to get your Christmas in July holiday party started.  Come back every day for more goodies!

Zippyshare

20 comments:

  1. gee, july (or, as i think of it, advent) is busting out all over.

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  2. Yay! Ernie's back! I was a bit concerned you might skip it this year. Thank goodness there are still some things (and people) you can count on in this crazy ol' world.

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  3. Great news to see you back at it again, with the usual potpourri of strange and wonderful sides!

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  4. Thank you all, it's good to be back! I just hope I can live up to your expectations. :) And I'm not getting notifications of the comments, is Blogger broken? :(

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  5. Blogger stopped sending notifications to the blog owner about a month ago, for no particular reason that I can discern.

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  6. I had to go into Blogger under Settings, then Email, remove the old email, and add it back again. Then they send out a notice asking if you want to subscribe, and allow it. They must have changed it and not told anyone. :( I got your comment after I'd done all that.

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  7. I did the same and received no notice. Tried it twice so far. Can't get my contact email to display. Are they trying to drive us toward a paid version or something?

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  8. Lee, Did you try taking the email out completely, saving, then putting it back in? I changed things up a couple times with different email addresses to get it to work. I wondered why my comments weren't showing up on your posts. :)

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  9. Glad to hear it! Took me a while to find it, and Buster helped a bit, too.

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  10. I'm so glad you are back!

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  11. It's good to see you back Ernie, and I'm sorry I forgot to send out a HAPPY BIRTHDAY last Monday.

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  12. Ernie, good to have you back for another July Christmas. Merry Christmas!

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  13. When I saw that Stubby had posted a Christmas in July treat, I was like "whoa--I should have checked Ernie's site a week ago"! Happy to have you back at it!

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  14. Oh man, I am so late to the show. Much love to you, Ernie for providing this music for us. I'm sure you touch more lives of those who love these classics than you will ever know.

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  15. Better late than never. That first July post contains one of the best versions of "Manhattan" I have ever heard. Is there any off-season possibility that you could, as a special favor to the world's many Ralph Burns' fans, post the entire 1960 Decca album, "New York's a Song"? It has never, to my knowledge, been reissued on vinyl or CD. Indeed, if not for you, I would never have heard of it. Thanks for the discovery.

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  16. Ralph Burns, with no artwork. Interesting stuff, but very dated with the street noises.

    https://mega.nz/#!sJcwiAYZ!uJPWvfJL5lQUyQylxjgzz_M5-2qSDvXzngMHMRhElZY

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  17. Thank you for such a prompt response to my request. I don't mind the street noises all that much. Once Burns takes front stage, he is wonderful. But I'll let you know after I hear the album in its entirety, for which I again I thank you.

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