Saturday, November 28, 2020

04-Instrumental Christmas

 

Here's a really fun collection of instrumental Christmas music, again sourced from The Internet Archive. A couple of double-sided versions here, but most of it is stand-alone stuff. And I think there's one track in here that I first shared out with you as a secret bonus track found only in the comments of a post back during A Very Covid Christmas earlier in the year. That series never went very far, so most of those items are coming out here again, especially the bonus stuff that no one knew about. I also see some great jazz in here, some piano stuff that just may knock your socks off, and what may be the only 12" record in the whole season, though it still spins at a zippy 78 RPM.  And there's at least one track that was a favorite find several years during Christmas in July from an appearance on a random LP, but this is from the original 78 issue.  Enjoy!

MEGA

Update-4 Jan 2023-Added tracklist to allow searching.

1. David Rose And His Orchestra-A Christmas Medley-Part 1 (Deck The Hall With Holly; The First Noel; Joy To The World)
2. Joseph "Sonny" Walikis And His Accordion-Christmas Carols
3. Robert Rheims, Organ And Chimes-First Noel/Holy Night
4. Errol Garner, Piano Solo-Great Christmas-Part 1
5. Jan Savitt And His Orchestra-Parade Of The Wooden Soldiers
6. Joe Loco Quintet-Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer
7. London String Quartet-Silent Night (Christmas Hymn)
8. The Capitol Symphonic Band Conducted By Louis Castellucci-Sleigh Ride
9. Bonnemere And His Piano-White Christmas
10. Chet Baker Quartet-Winter Wonderland
11. David Rose And His Orchestra-A Christmas Medley-Part 2 (Toyland; Silent Night; Oh Come, All Ye Faithful)
12. Mantovani And His Orchestra-Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful)
13. Lionel Hampton And Orchestra-Gin For Christmas
14. Errol Garner, Piano Solo-Great Christmas-Part 2
15. Del Wood With Rhythm Accompaniment-Here Comes Santa Claus
16. Frank Petty Trio-Mike Di Napoli, Piano-Jingle Bells--Mambo
17. Leopold Stokowski And His Symphony Orchestra-Russian Christmas Music
















Friday, November 27, 2020

03-Spoken Word Christmas

 

I'll go ahead and get this small collection of spoken-word Christmas items out to you here at the beginning of the season, just to get it out of the way. It's a short collection, and several of the selections are spread out over both sides of a record. My favorite is the above item, a commercial for Rexall Drugs featuring the great Jimmy Durante and radio personality Garry Moore. It's stuff like this that always keeps the collection at The Internet Archive interesting. Enjoy!

MEGA

Update-4 Jan 2023-Added tracklist to allow searching.

1. Claude Rains With Hugo Peretti Orchestra And Chorus-A Christmas Carol-Pt. 1
2. Franklyn MacCormack With Herbert Foote At The Organ-I Like Christmas
3. Ireene Wicker, The Singing Lady, Accompanied By Milton Rettenberg With Special Sound Effects-The Legend Of The Christmas Rose (Part 1)
4. Charles Laughton-Music By Hanns Eisler-The Oldest Christmas Story (The Gospel According To St. Luke)
5. Edward Penney, Prayer Recited By Larry Forbes, With Vocal Chorus-What Is Christmas
6. Claude Rains With Hugo Peretti Orchestra And Chorus-A Christmas Carol-Pt. 2
7. Bill Cook-A Letter To Santa
8. Garry Moore & Jimmy Durante with Justin Dart, Joseph Galvin, Stanley Culver, Till Bond, Howard Petrie, Suzanne Ellers & Roy Bargy-Christmas Greetings 1946
9. Anthony Rivers-The Christmas Tree
10. Ireene Wicker, The Singing Lady, Accompanied By Milton Rettenberg With Special Sound Effects-The Legend Of The Christmas Rose (Part 2)
11. Milton Cross With RCA Victor Salon Orchestra-The Night Before Christmas (Recitation With Musical Background)











Thursday, November 26, 2020

02-Christmas Starts Now

 
OK, enough talking, let's get this show on the road! Here's the first set of Christmas records I've got to share with you this season. No rhyme or reason here, though most days will have a light theme to them, I hope. These I just chose at random after I had pulled out a bunch of different themed songs. Like most days, it's a mixed collection of old standards and songs I bet you haven't heard, all sourced from the Internet Archive, then lightly cleaned to get rid of the worst of the surface noise and years' worth of wear and clicks. Then converted to mono MP3, united with a label scan and posted here for your Christmas enjoyment. I hope there's some stuff for you here to enjoy, and I'll see you back tomorrow.

MEGA

Update-4 Jan 2023-Added tracklist to allow searching.

1. George Cates And His Orchestra-Vocal By The Heartbeats-(Look Out The Window, Look Out The Window) The Winter Song
2. Les Petits Chanteurs De Granby-Directeur: Frère Emmanuel, S.C.-Harmonisè Par Thèo. Dubois-Adeste Fideles
3. Tony Martin With Orchestra Under Direction Of David Rose-Christmas Candle
4. Vic Damone With Orchestra And Vocal Accompaniment-Christmas Morn
5. Enoch Light And His Orchestra Featuring Jack Brown-He'll Be Coming Down The Chimney
6. Ronnie Gaylord-Orchestra And Chorus Conducted By Hugo Peretti-Santo Natale
7. Al Hibbler With Orchestra And Chorus Directed By Jack Pleis-Silent Night
8. Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys-Vocal By Jack Lloyd-When It's Christmas On The Range
9. Bob Harvey And His Orchestra-Vocal By Art Juhlin-White Christmas
10. Ambrose And His Orchestra (At The Embassy Club, London) (With Vocal Chorus)-Winter Wonderland
11. Frankie Laine And Carl Fischer's Orchestra-You're All I Want For Christmas
12. Jimmy Boyd With Paul Weston & His Orchestra-A Kiss For Christmas
13. Arthur Godfrey With The Chordettes And The Cherry Sisters, Orchestra Under The Direction Of Archie Bleyer-A Marshmallow World
14. Igo Gutman, Tenor, With Accompaniment-Ave Maria
15. Eddie Davis-Christmas Madonna (Demo)
16. Frankie Masters And His Orchestra-Hello, Mister Kringle
17. Benny Strong And His Orchestra-Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)
18. Don Cornell With Chorus And Orchestra Directed By Norman Leyden-Let's Have An Old Fashioned Christmas
19. Dick Robertson And His Orchestra-That's What I Want For Christmas (From 20th Century-Fox Production "Stowaway")
20. Decca Chorus And Orchestra Under The Direction Of Alexander Smallens-Hail to Christmas (Opening Chorus Of Act II) (From Operetta "Babes In Toyland")




















Christmas 2020!!!


Good afternoon, and welcome to Christmas 2020! I know it's been a really rough year, but I hope that a month worth of Christmas spirit here at the end of the year will make it all better. I'm here to do my best at lifting your spirits via the music of the season, but I'm doing things a little different this year.  First, I haven't ripped a single record to share with you.  All of the rips are coming courtesy of The Internet Archive and their Great 78 Project. They've collected more than a quarter of a million old 78 RPM records and digitized them, then offered them up for free on the internet for digital listening. I've narrowed that vast collection down to some of the very best (and most obscure, naturally) Christmas music you can find anywhere, and I hope to share it with you here this month in daily drops. I've taken their original shares and tried to lightly clean them up by removing clicks and surface noise, fading in quickly at the beginning and slowly at the end to preserve as much of the sound as I could and present it to you in a nice listenable fashion. The quality they've created is just amazing, and I hope that the little work I've done here makes them that much more listenable. Some things here sound amazing, and some things are clearly a product of old technology ravaged by age. Enjoy it when you can and skip it when you can't. These records sound like Christmas morning at my Grandma's house, a big stack of dusty 78s on the console player, each one dropping, playing, then waiting it's turn for the next. There's lots of music here that even I've never heard, both songs lost to time, and artists that you've never heard doing familiar carols. There are things here that I've shared from both albums and singles before, but they're still most likely unfamiliar to all but the most voracious Christmas collectors. And after I've shared them all out, you'll become a big fan of some of this stuff that's just about disappeared from the airwaves these days. Pull up a comfy chair and sit a while, listen to the melodies and the words, they come from a time that seems simpler now, but had it's own challenges. They got through them with the help of this music, and hopefully it will help us get through our challenges today.  It helps that the prime era of great Christmas music happens to coincide with the heyday of the 78 RPM single. There is some really great stuff here, and artists & labels were churning this stuff out trying to find the next Bing Crosby and the next White Christmas. I just can't say it enough, there is some amazing stuff here, I'm so happy to be able to bring it out of the cabinets at The Internet Archive and share it with you. Once the season is over, I'm making a large donation of my old 78s to their cause, and if you have stuff that you can share with them, I urge you to donate as well. OK, I need to get off my soapbox and share some music with you. Stay tuned! And Merry Christmas!!!


PS-If you can't wait any longer, I will remind you that there are now three or four years worth of active Christmas downloads in the archive, including lots of reshares from even older years. You could spend from now until Christmas doing nothing but downloading old shares if you want to. Sometimes the active links are in the comments, so don't forget to check there. Don't say I never give you anything!

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

01.5-Bonus Thanksgiving

I knew as soon as I stumbled across a track this morning by The Viking Accordion Band that was appropriate for Thanksgiving that I was going to have to make a bonus post for today.  The stuff that showed up at noon today has been in the can for a long time, but this post was put together on the fly just today, and it features a few good Thanksgiving songs, some songs about Grandma, and a whole lot about food. I spent a couple hours making new searches at The Internet Archive, and this is what I came back with. All good stuff, I'm sure you'll agree, and I think it's a worthwhile addition. Still time to listen to it before you sit down to turkey and dressing tomorrow, but be sure you finish it before the coffee and the pumpkin pie in the evening, because that's when the Christmas music deluge begins.  Enjoy!

MEGA

Update-4 Jan 2023-Added tracklist to allow searching.

1. Richard Jones And His Jazz Wizards-Bring It On Home To Grandma
2. Ray Noble And His Orchestra-Vocal Chorus By Ray Noble And The Boys-Captain Custard (From "Road To Singapore")
3. Fats Waller And His Rhythm-Eep, Ipe, Wanna Piece Of Pie
4. Elizabeth Wheeler-Harry Macdonough-Gobble Duet
5. The Ramblers-Vocal: Susan Lee-Grandma
6. Buddy Johnson And His Orchestra-Hey, Sweet Potato
7. The Viking Accordion Band-Berg And Simonson, Directors-Mayflower
8. Johnny Vadnal And His Orchestra-Vocal: Frank Vadnal And The Vadnal Trio-Pie A La Mode
9. The Eddie Heywood Trio-Plymouth Rock
10. Ray Anthony And His Orchestra-Plymouth Rock
11. Benny Carter And His Orchestra-Plymouth Rock
12. Richard Hayman And His Orchestra-Plymouth Sound
13. The Elliott Brothers (LLoyd And Bill) And Their Orchestra-Plymouth Sound
14. Poison Gardner Trio-Vocal By Poison Gardner-Second Piece Of Pie
15. The Foursome (Marshall Smith, Del Porter, Ray Johnson, Dwight Snyder)-Sweet Potato Swing