Friday, December 15, 2023

Book Of Lists 4

Another list! While I'm thinking about it, does anyone remember those books that were actually titled The Book Of Lists? It was a series I remember liking when I was a young kid in grade school. They were just what the title says, a book filled with lists of things that may or may not be interesting. Could be the largest lakes in the world, the continents ranked by size or population or total coastline, that sort of thing. They certainly wouldn't all be geographical in nature, those were just a couple examples that popped into my head. I think it was grouped into subject chapters, so geography would probably have been a chapter. Entertainment might have been another with the top movies of the '60s, or longest running TV shows, or American sitcoms ripped off from British sitcoms. I loved those books when I was a kid and would read them voraciously. Probably didn't learn a whole lot, but I was pretty good at Trivial Pursuit after it was invented. Anyhow, back to the Discogs list. This time it's a collection of all the songs issued in support of Christmas Seals. They've been doing those for a long time though I don't think they continued much past the seventies. The stamps themselves are still around though. This list is just for the annual songs, not the promotional records that they've put out with radio shows, celebrity greetings and whatnot, that would be a much longer list. I've been slowly trying to amass all the recordings here for a collection, but it's hard. Many of the records feature introductions by the artist and collectors snap those things up in a heartbeat. Some of them have never been reissued and seem to be in some sort of legal limbo (I'm looking at you, Sammy Davis, Jr.!). Anyhow, have a look, see if you have heard them all.

The List!

7 comments:

  1. Great list! I think you might be missing the 1952 song, which I posted this year (courtesy of Internet Archive!):

    https://bustersss.blogspot.com/2023/11/perry-comos-1950-52-christmas-songs-and.html

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    1. D'oh! Forgot about that one, and it doesn't seem to be at Discogs in the Christmas Seals form. I added a note and a link to IA. Thanks for reminding me. Are there earlier ones that you know of? My list started in 1953, so Perry is now the oldest.

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    2. Like you, I thought the 53 was the earliest until I stumbled upon the Como record. I searched IA and didn't find anything, but that's no guarantee because who knows how well they tag things.

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    3. Just looked again, and found no records. I did find a great photo of Mrs. Craig Thorn, 1947 Christmas Seals Chairman, who appears to have a dust mop on her head.

      https://archive.org/details/cvicl_003293

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  2. It's interesting how they started off writing new songs for each year but then mostly adopted recordings for the campaign.

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    1. I'm sure it's a lot more work and a big investment for a new song. Pulling a track from an artist's catalog is quicker and easier. Many of them have custom greetings though, that's what's most interesting to me.

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