If you were paying close attention, you noticed the record I just
shared with you a couple of hours ago, and you may recall that there was a second volume. Well, here's that second volume for you, and it comes with a little bit of a story. If you listen to the album, you'll see that side one is not all that Christmassy, like maybe they took old recordings and retitled them to fit in with the season. Maybe they added some jingle bells here or there, but not much. At least side one sounds a bit like Tijuana music is meant to. When you get to side two, you'll immediately notice that something is wrong. It's Christmas music, but it's got no Tijuana flavor at all. It's just an orchestra with singers. The fine print on the back of the jacket even admits as much, but I'm sure very few buyers noticed that before they brought home the record. Some digging and comparing reveals that side two is in fact tracks by
Wally Stott, His Orchestra And Chorus from their 1959 Warner Bros.
Christmas album Happy Holiday-Christmas In Stereo! I guess the power of licensing is strong with this one. Or maybe they just stole it and hoped no one would notice. I've had this share in the queue for a while, but I was reminded of it last night when Lee over at
Music You Won't threw up a
share from the same label that seems to have employed the same trick, only with the whole album. His record appears to be a track from Walter Brennan, and then the rest of the LP is Dorothy Collins from her rare Christmas record on Everest. You just never know what you're going to find when you're dealing with budget vinyl. This is
The George Garabedian Players-
Tijuana Christmas Volume 2 (Mark 56 556, Stereo, 1968).
1. Tijuana Taxi
2. Christmas In Paris
3. The Star
4. March Of The Reindeer
5. Mexican Pine Cones
6. Mrs. Claus Says Ole'
7. Happy Holiday
8. Christmas Waltz
9. Snowfall
10. Good King Wenceslas
11. Silent Night
12. Christmas Sleigh Bells
MEGA
i used to think that you can never have too much tijuana christmas music.
ReplyDeletelooks like i'm wrong again.
i hope the cover artist got paid.
Hah! I was just listening to the Christmas Sleigh Bells track, wondered if it was the first time I'd heard it outside of your Wally Stott shares, and came back to read what you had to say about the album. A fun read and listen.
ReplyDeleteOne or both of these show up constantly in the thrifts here, and I knew you'd posted them at one point, so I leave them there. When I found the non-Tijuana Phillips 66 LP, I thought it would make an amusing post.
ReplyDeleteThese both are actually pretty good, I like volume two better and the happy holiday song the best - caused me to look up george garabedian on the internet - interesting stuff for sure. Thanks for all that you do for us Ernie
ReplyDeleteI've grabbed both this and the 'Volume One'. I will say one thing about Garabedian and Mark 56 Records, whoever did their artwork was good.
ReplyDeleteAs to what I think of the music, that will have to wait until after Christmas...
I'm sure most purchasers we're intrigued by the cover before they heard the music. Some record labels don't get that, but a good cover will sell a bad record, at least in the short term.
ReplyDeleteI know from discogs they used the same artist for their other 'Tijuana Taxi' LPs, the ones released for Union Oil, Culligan, Taco Bell, Pizza Inn, Pepsi, Global Van Lines & Tastee-Freez. They might be worth hunting down, I dare say that some of the tracks on those might be identical to the Tijuana tracks on this LP.
ReplyDeleteAt least the managers understood the value of good artwork, some of these budget label covers are awful.