Christmas In July 2011-Day 11

Special treat for you today on Christmas In July, no music from junior high bands or choruses!  Yes, I know, hold your applause.  I'm sure we'll get back into those tomorrow, but we're going to take at least one day off from them.  However, you're going to have to put up with some reruns from years prior in order for me to pull it off.  Let's see what I've got for a tracklist tonight...

1. Baby It's Cold Outside in a nice smooth rendition from Warren Covington And His Orchestra.  Note that this is him with his own orchestra, and not the guys from Tommy Dorsey's band.  I found this on an album I bought while I was waiting for traffic to clear in Titusville on Friday, Dancing Trombones (Decca DL 4352, Mono, 1963).  (Whoops, looked like I shared this on the very first day of Christmas in July last year, and in stereo.  I really need to research these things beforehand...)

2. The Drunken Penguin by Bent Fabric.  I've always associated penguins with Christmas, even though they are from the opposite end of the Earth from Santa.  Just humor me on this one...  This is found on his LP The Drunken Penguin (Atco 33-173, Mono, 1965).

3. White Christmas by Steve Lawrence With The Don Costa Orchestra, the first of our reruns tonight.  Ever since I fist shared this out, I've been looking for a stereo version, but to no avail.  You'll have to make do with this slightly nicer mono version from Steve And Eydie Sing The Golden Hits (ABC-Paramount ABC-311, Mono, 1960).

4.  Be A Santa, another rerun, this time in stereo by Sydney Chaplin & Chorus from the original Broadway soundtrack to Subways Are For Sleeping (Columbia Masterworks KOS2130, Stereo, 1961).  I guess there was a ballet in the musical to this song, there's a picture of some dancing Santa's on the sleeve.

5. March Of The Toys, rerun number three, by Frederick Fennell And His Orchestra from Frederick Fennell Conducts Victor Herbert (Mercury Perfect Presence Sound Series PPS6007, Stereo, 1961).  I almost grabbed this from a mono copy, but I discovered the error of my ways before it was too late.  This is one of my favorite versions of this song.

6.  My Favorite Things, rerun number four (and probably the fifth or sixth version of this song this season), from Rodgers And Hammerstein's The Sound Of Music (Mercury SR 60177, Stereo, 1959) by Richard Hayman And His Orchestra.  If you aren't familiar with Richard Hayman, you should know that his primary instrument is a harmonica.

7. Sun Valley Jump performed by Billy May in the style of Glenn Miller.  This one may require some explanation.  Time-Life had Billy go back into the studio in the 80's and perform versions of several big-band hits in the style of their original artists, but using the full fidelity of the studio at that time.  Then they put out a few box sets containing these remakes.  You had to look close at the sleeves to tell they were remakes, but they didn't really sound the same.  You may remember that I'm a big fan of Billy May, so I was excited to find this and realize what it was.  I guess this isn't really a Christmas song, but I always associate it with It Happened In Sun Valley.  Anyhow, this is from The Swing Era-One More Time (Time-Life 3xLP STL-353, Stereo, 1986).

8. That Man Over There, rerun number five, by The Merrill Staton Voices from their version of the soundtrack to Meredith Willson's Here's Love (Columbia Special Archive Series CSRP 8899, Stereo, 1963).  This was Meredith Willson's follow-up to The Music Man, but I don't think it did nearly as well.

9. Thredbo Suite: I. Sleigh Ride To Thredbo, II. Air From The High Mountain, a seasonal sounding song by James Galway.  I grabbed this from a promo sampler of his work, A James Galway Sampler (RCA DJL1-4532, Stereo, 1982), so I don't know the story behind the original album or the track, but it sounded good to me.

10. Winter Sky, the second track from Judy Collins I've got for you this year, pulled from her LP The Judy Collins Concert (Elektra EKS-7280, Stereo, 1964).  This one isn't as Christmassy as the previous one I shared, but it's still nice, I think you'll dig it.

And that's it, 10 great tracks tonight, the most I've shared in one night so far this season.  Still doing pretty good on the recording end and there are still plenty of records in the stack, so I'll try to keep up the big shares for as long as I can.  Here's the download link, have at it and see you tomorrow.