The Ballad Of Loose William

OK this is going to be a long one, and there are multiple shares here, so stick with me, pay attention and you shall be rewarded. I'm starting out with this somewhat rare album on the Capitol label. I've got a couple of copies in the archive, but it's not something you see every day. Earlier this year I pulled it down off the shelf and decided to record it since it was something on a major label that I wasn't familiar with and it didn't seem to have been reissued. Turns out that it's pretty good stuff, I'm sure you'll enjoy it and will wonder why it's not any better known. This is The Hollywood Pops Orchestra, Conducted By William Loose-Great Instrumental Christmas Music (Capitol ST 2980, Stereo, 1968).

1. Deck The Hall; Silent Night; We Wish You A Merry Christmas
2. The Christmas Song
3. The Holly And The Ivy
4. Away In A Manger; Silent Night
5. Caroling, Caroling
6. Toyland; March Of The Toys
7. Jingle Bells; Up On The Housetop; Jolly Old St. Nicholas
8. Mary's Little Boy Child
9. Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring
10. Ave Maria
11. We Three Kings; We Wish You A Merry Christmas

MEGA

As I was researching the first album up top, I was surprised that I couldn't find out anything about the group. It didn't seem to exist anywhere outside of this album. I figured it must be some sort of studio group put together for just this one release and decided to research the director, William Loose.  There were a few things mentioned under his name, including this next Christmas album, credited to a group with a very similar name to the first album. (Discogs also claims that this album has also been released as a production record for radio which makes me think that world may be where William Loose is based and again Discogs backs that up. Perhaps Capitol just hired him to make a Christmas album for the 1968 Christmas season, then didn't use him again and later lost the rights to the music. That would explain why it never got reissued.) Anyhow, I hunted around for a while in my collection to find this other Christmas record, but when I finally came across it, the wrong record was in the sleeve. So I started haunting the usual thrift stores and dollar bins at the record stores and finally came home with a copy a couple of months later. It may look like a budget release (and it is), but it sounds pretty good to me and I'm sure you'll enjoy this one just as much as the first. This is The Hollywood Symphonette-Arranged And Conducted By William Loose-The Musical Magic Of Christmas (Oreco Records OCP-2002, Stereo, 1978). This album has also been released under the title Christmas With The Lush Strings Of The Hollywood Symphonette, but it's all the same music. I've got scans of that sleeve in the download, too.

1. Deck The Hall; The Holly And The Ivy
2. Angels We Have Heard On High
3. What Child Is This?
4. Ave Maria
5. Adeste Fideles
6. Dance Of The Reed Flutes (The Nutcracker Suite)
7. The Joys Of Christmas
8. Sugar Plum Fantasy (The Nutcracker Suite)
9. Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring
10. Silent Night; O Holy Night
11. We Three Kings
12. The Twelve Days Of Christmas
13. We Wish You A Merry Christmas

MEGA

While doing all this research on William Loose and The Hollywood Pops Orchestra, I started to notice both names on various Capitol compilations of the early Seventies. And the closer I looked, the weirder it got. I always assumed that most of those comps were comprised of tracks pulled from albums released earlier, but I saw some titles that didn't appear to be on the album from 1968. Also, some of the tracks credited to The Hollywood Pops Orchestra listed someone else as the conductor. Sometimes, the name William Loose was tied to different groups with names that clearly identified them as generic studio groups like The Voices Of Christmas or The New Sounds Of Christmas. So a plan started coming together in my head and I began to pull all these tracks together. I recorded almost 30 of these various artists Capitol comps from the time period, trying to find every single track that seemed to be related to The Hollywood Pops Orchestra and/or William Loose. Many of them turned out to be album cuts, but I came up with quite a few that were unique, and so I'm giving you this new album. Nineteen tracks of Christmas goodness that you're unlikely to hear unless you dig up those old Capitol compilations yourself. Unlike the first album, this one features plenty of vocals (that's why it's called an instrumental album with voices). I really had quite the time pulling this together, but I think you'll agree that it was worth all the work involved. Again, this is not a real album, it's just a collection of stuff I put together. This is Great Instrumental Christmas Music, Volume 2 (With Voices) (Ernie (Not Bert), Stereo, 2023).

1. The Hollywood Pops Orchestra-Arranged & Conducted By William Loose-Christmas In Vermont
2. The Hollywood Pops Orchestra-Arranged & Conducted By Sid Feller With The Mitchell Singing Boys-Christmas-America, Part One: Introduction; We Three Kings; Everywhere, Everywhere, Christmas Night; It Came Upon A Midnight Clear; O Little Town Of Bethlehem; America The Beautiful
3. The Hollywood Pops Orchestra-Arranged & Conducted By Ralph Carmichael-The Wonderful World Of Christmas: Carol Of The Bells; Here We Come A-Caroling; Brahms Lullabye; March & Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy From "The Nutcracker"; God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen; Deck The Hall
4. The Hollywood Pops Orchestra-Arranged & Conducted By Sid Feller-The Silver Trees
5. The Hollywood Pops Orchestra-Arranged & Conducted By Sid Feller With The Mitchell Singing Boys-Christmas-America, Part Two: America The Beautiful; Go Tell It On The Mountain; America (My Country, 'Tis Of Thee); Angels We Have Heard On High; Here We Come A-Caroling; Finale
6. The Hollywood Pops Orchestra-Arranged & Conducted By Ralph Carmichael-The Messiah: For Unto Us A Child Is Born; I Know That My Redeemer Liveth; Hallelujah
7. The Hollywood Pops Orchestra With The Mitchell Singing Boys-Arranged & Conducted By Sid Feller-Over The River (And Through The Woods)
8. The Hollywood Pops Orchestra & Choir-Arranged & Conducted By Sid Feller-Choir Director, John Wright-A Hymn To Christmas: O Come All Ye Faithful; We Gather Together; Ave Maria; Amazing Grace; Adoration And Praise (Ode To Joy)
9. The Hollywood Pops Orchestra-Adeste Fideles
10. The Hollywood Pops Orchestra & Choir-Arranged & Conducted By Sid Feller-Choir Director, John Wright-Christmas America-Suite No. 1: Introduction; Merry Christmas; Everywhere, Everywhere, Christmas Tonight; I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day; America The Beautiful; Silent Night; The First Noel; Our Land Oh Lord; Sing We Now Of Christmas
11. The Hollywood Pops Orchestra-Arranged & Conducted By William Loose-Silent Night
12. The Hollywood Pops Orchestra-Arranged & Conducted By Ralph Carmichael-The Inspirational World Of Christmas: Silent Night; Adeste Fideles; Panis Angelicus; O Holy Night; Ode To Joy
13. The Hollywood Pops Orchestra-The Holly And The Ivy
14. The Hollywood Pops Orchestra & Choir-Arranged & Conducted By Sid Feller-Choir Director, John White-Christmas America-Suite No. 2: Deck The Hall; God Bless Our Native Land; My Country 'Tis Of Thee; Star Spangled Banner; Battle Hymn Of The Republic; Auld Lang Syne; Merry Christmas (Reprise); Finale
15. The Voices Of Christmas-The First Noel
16. The Voices Of Christmas-Winter Wonderland
17. The Voices Of Christmas-I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day
18. The New Sounds Of Christmas-We Three Kings
19. Nat King Cole/The Hollywood Pops Orchestra-Arranged & Conducted By William Loose-God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen/We Wish You A Merry Christmas

MEGA

A few notes if you've made it this far and are still interested. Many of these tracks first featured on a series of LPs called Christmas In America that I believe were sold at Firestone stores. There are three records with that title, but you can get all the relevant tracks from just two of them. That goes a long ways towards explaining the odd medleys of Christmas music and American patriotic music.  There's one original song here, Christmas In Vermont, that was so good I decided to lead off the collection with it. I also really like the rarely heard song, The Silver Tree, which I first heard as an instrumental conducted by Frank Sinatra. Many more tracks came from a collection that featured Glen Campbell on the cover, meant to make you think it was a full studio album by him. But it wasn't, fully half of the tracks were Hollywood Pops Orchestra tracks or unknown vocal groups conducted by William Loose. You might notice a little overlap with the first album, but they are different versions or appear in a long medley of tracks. I tried to compare everything multiple times to make sure I was giving you something all new. Hopefully I got it right. And lastly there's a weird creation at the end where they mashed up Nat King Cole with a short Hollywood Pops Orchestra track from that first album. I kept it because I thought it was funny and reminded me of those medleys they included much later on the Ultra-Lounge collections, coincidentally also on the Capitol label. Perhaps this was an inspiration for those?  Who knows... Anyhow, I've included full scans of the albums I pulled tracks from in the download, and the comments for each track tell you exactly where it came from. I hope you all enjoy this one!  Merry Christmas!