Christmas In July 2026-Part 35

Just when you thought the season might be close to winding down, I had a good weekend at the thrift stores and brought home thirty more tracks to share for the celebration. That means we've got three more days worth of music in the pile now. However, a couple of those records had a lot of tracks on them, so I need to share more than one selection from each one for the next few days to get all the songs in. I don't like doing that, but I'm going to do it because I have to. I think it's a small price to pay for a longer Christmas in July. Let's see what's in the wheelbarrow today.

1. Jaime Mendoza-Nava And His Orchestra-Death In The Snow (The Savage Wild, 1970)

Soundtrack to a movie I've never heard of that takes place in Canada's snow-swept central plains, so there are a couple of snow songs to share from this one. This is the more somber one as you might imagine.

2. The Shawnee Choir-Earl Willhoite, Director-Mary's Baby (Christmas And Concert Songs For Mixed Chorus)

The first of two tracks from this release that I just grabbed this past weekend. Turns out that the vinyl was in horrible shape, likely from having gotten too hot at some point. It wasn't really warped but it was deformed out near the edges. I was only able to get the songs that were further in the radius, and even then I had to change needles and slow down the rotation to get it to track properly. Unfortunately, I then promptly forgot to turn the speed back to normal and recorded five instrumental tracks at the wrong speed. Had to go back and fix all of them once I realized my mistake. My life is hard.

3. Tougaloo College Choir-Ariel M. Lovelace, Conductor-Mary Had A Baby (To You-From Tougaloo, 1968)

And the award for best named college is Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. Nice little song from these folks, too, but I just love their name.

4. The Blue Ribbon Strings-Tchaikovsky's Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairies (Jewels Of The Classics aka Jewels From The Classics)

The Nutcracker piece for the day comes from this budget LP. It's so budget that the title changes from the front of the record to the label. And they've changed the number of fairies from one to many. Not sure how the song got so short with so many fairies dancing around in it.

5. Maynard Ferguson And His Orchestra-Humbug (A Message From Newport, 1958)

The lead-off LP cover hails from this record today. I put it up there so I could remember to tell the story about finding it. There were three copies in the pile at the Salvation Army. That happens sometimes, usually when a store dumps dead stock as a donation, so you'll find multiple copies of things that didn't sell, sometimes in alphabetical order for easy searching. Anyhow, there were two mono copies and a stereo version. I spotted one of the mono copies first, saw the Humbug title and put it in my pile. Then I saw the stereo copy and thought great, I'll grab that one instead. Instinct made me scan the tracklist again and I couldn't find the song I had keyed in on the first time. Turns out this track is only on the mono versions. This was 1958, stereo was new and the grooves were a little harder to fit in place. Sometimes they would omit a song on a longer side to fit the stereo version in. And this happened to be the sacrificial track here. Looks like it eventually came to CD and all the tracks are there. No idea if they're all in stereo though. And with all that, the song doesn't sound very humbug to me.

6. The Shawnee Choir-Earl Willhoite, Director-Beside Thy Cradle (Christmas And Concert Songs For Mixed Chorus)

Another track from this side-long collection of Christmas tunes. You'll be sick of this one before I'm done.

7. Unknown Artists-Song Of The Seasons (Songs For Kindergarten Children, 1970)

This is the first track from another record you'll see a lot of each day between now and the end. Maybe not so many as the others, but more than a little bit. I'm calling it an Unknown Artist, but there were actually lots of credits on the back of the LP. Problem is, they didn't tell you who played on what, so I didn't know which of the multiple groups and individual artists to credit where. So it's a bit of a mess, sorry.

8. Jenson Publications-O Holy Night (Sound Ideas For Concert Band Vol V, 1979)

First of two publisher's demo tracks today, both of which are from the same publishing house, though not the same LP. Thank heaven for small favors.

9. Jenson Publications And Purifoy Publishing-Sweet Baby Jesus (Choral Celebration Vol. VI, 1984)

And this is the other track from Jenson, five years after the last, and in association with another publishing house. Not sure if they'd merged or bought someone out or what, but it's a bit of a change.

10. Unknown Artists-The Friendly Beasts (Songs For Kindergarten Children, 1970)

And here is the other track from the kindergarten music record. There was some connection on the back of this one to the Mennonites, but I don't remember what it was. 

That's all I've got for today, more of the same tomorrow, literally in some cases. Enjoy! 

MEGA