A Long Time, Part 5
1. Silver Bells
2. O Little Town Of Bethlehem
3. We Three Kings Of Orient Are
4. Hark, The Herald Angels Sing
5. March Of The Toys
6. The First Noel
7. Joy To The World
8. Medley-The Holly And The Ivy; O Christmas Tree
9. I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day
10. O Come All Ye Faithful
11. Let's Have An Old Fashioned Christmas
12. I'll Be Home For Christmas
13. Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town
14. Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy
15. The Twelve Days Of Christmas
16. Toyland
17. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
18. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
19. The Little Drummer Boy
20. Good King Wenceslas
21. Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow
22. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
23. While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
24. Away In A Manger
25. Medley-We Wish You A Merry Christmas; I Saw Three Ships; Christmas Is Coming
26. Ave Maria
27. For Unto Us A Child Is Born
28. Winter Wonderland
29. O Come, O Come, Emanuel
30. Jolly Old St. Nicholas
31. Medley-Deck The Halls With Boughs Of Holly; Wassail, Song
32. It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
33. Mister Santa
34. Frosty The Snowman
35. An Old Fashioned Christmas
36. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
37. Silent Night
2. O Little Town Of Bethlehem
3. We Three Kings Of Orient Are
4. Hark, The Herald Angels Sing
5. March Of The Toys
6. The First Noel
7. Joy To The World
8. Medley-The Holly And The Ivy; O Christmas Tree
9. I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day
10. O Come All Ye Faithful
11. Let's Have An Old Fashioned Christmas
12. I'll Be Home For Christmas
13. Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town
14. Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy
15. The Twelve Days Of Christmas
16. Toyland
17. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
18. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
19. The Little Drummer Boy
20. Good King Wenceslas
21. Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow
22. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
23. While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
24. Away In A Manger
25. Medley-We Wish You A Merry Christmas; I Saw Three Ships; Christmas Is Coming
26. Ave Maria
27. For Unto Us A Child Is Born
28. Winter Wonderland
29. O Come, O Come, Emanuel
30. Jolly Old St. Nicholas
31. Medley-Deck The Halls With Boughs Of Holly; Wassail, Song
32. It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
33. Mister Santa
34. Frosty The Snowman
35. An Old Fashioned Christmas
36. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
37. Silent Night
Their records are always good quality - it's just hard to get a handle on the performers and figure out what material is new and what is reissued. This one is perhaps SQ quad encoded (at least the disc numbering is prefaced by SQ), so it would suggest this is new material.
ReplyDeleteI feel like many of the tracks on here were on the other albums, but they were not the same versions. I didn't look close enough to see if they were edits, I just saw the times were vastly different in some cases. Dunno about the quad though. I got the sense that there was supposed to be an insert of some sort, but it was missing.
DeleteI played this album with all the rest I have. This Album is all reissued... sorry.
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprised. This many records with this much music rarely gets made and issued all at once.
DeleteHi Ernie,
ReplyDeleteI have this as a mp3 in my Longines Christmas folder. It is credited as,
1974 - Sounds of Christmas - Wittnauer Choraliers.
Longines-Wittnauer had a long association together, both as watch companies and recordings.
My brother was born in 1974...
DeleteWell your brother beat me by at least 2 years, as I was born 12, 28, 1976. I beat my schedule birth date by 11 days. I was scheduled to be born on 01, 07, 1977.
DeleteSo, not only was I a bicentennial baby, I was a leap year one too.
Because of this, my parents always treated my birthday as something extra special.
You're just a young'un. And now we're celebrating our 250 anniversary this year. Semisesqunitennial, or something like that, I can't remember then name. Semiquincentennial, that looks right, though spell check doesn't recognize it.
DeleteI also have 1974 as the release date. Longines SQ-95836 was officially 1974 (The King Family’s "Home for Christmas"), and this catalog # is SQ-95834.
ReplyDeleteI looked closely at that King Family record set but ultimately didn't do anything with it. Isn't that the one that's half Christmas, half religious?
DeleteCorrect, it doesn't contain anything new in terms of King Family Xmas tracks.
DeleteHowever, that 1968 Fleetwood LP "A King Family Christmas," which you shared so long ago, contains 3 tracks that are (to this day) unique:
(1) "Caroling, Caroling/Come Dear Children/Deck the Halls/Jingle Bells" (2:43) — the 1965 album version is 2:05 and omits “Deck the Halls” and “Jingle Bells,” and the 1974 2-LP set contains the 1965 album version.
(2) "The Christmas Waltz" (1967 TV special, pre-broadcast stereo) — does NOT appear on 1974 2-LP set & the track on the 2009 CD is mono broadcast.
(3) "Not A Creature Was Stirring" (1967 TV special, pre-broadcast stereo) — does NOT appear on 1974 2-LP set & the track on the 2009 CD is mono broadcast.
Ooh, that's good info, thanks!
DeleteAs other has said many reissues from Longines, interesting story as to the who and why of the "society" over at Discogs - states that most of these are the work of Robert Farnon who was rather good at this "light" music eh? 1964-1970 although I would say this last batch seems later.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I do thank you for putting all this in one place to plow through and find the unique ones - really rounded out my collection and for that and all that you do, I thank you for many hours of great listening.
Is it Robert Farnon? I feel like I've put a couple tracks from his RCA days into a Christmas in July collection around here somewhere. Surprising where people end up sometimes. Les Baxter ended up with 101 Strings near the end of his career. Shame, really.
DeleteIt seems there were three Longines Xmas box sets with original material (listed below). All other LSS Xmas sets recycled this material in various combinations.
ReplyDelete"Christmas at the Fireside" (4-LP set) 1964.
"The Family Christmas Treasury" (4-LP set) 1969. (This one got recycled the least, probably because it's mostly lame renditions played on the Thomas Organ -- sounds like the same organ that collected dust in your great aunt's den.)
"Christmas with the Choraliers" (5-LP set) 1972.
I'm leaning towards that first one. I don't remember a lot of organ tracks here, and not a whole lot of vocals, but maybe.
DeleteSo, I was wrong about the 1972 5-LP set "Christmas with the Choraliers" -- it seems to be mostly recycled tracks from the 1964 (Fireside) set and the 1969 (Treasury) set. (I haven't compared every track yet, it's a lot of work!)
DeleteI'm hoping that your recent Longines shares will contain all or at least most track from that 1964 set, which is overall quite good -- I own the LP box, but it's the mono version.
It's a mess. I think some of my shares were mono, weren't they? Not sure if they'll be an improvement over what you have or not, but maybe. I'm probably too lazy to ever tackle those four LP sets though, that's a lot of work for a single share around here. But you never know...
DeleteMaybe we can hope for Shell Vol. 1 and Shell Vol. 3 next season? :)
DeleteIf I come across them, but I suspect they're just going to be duplicates of these I already shared.
DeleteWell, I was wrong again. But I've completed listening comparisons, and here are the Longines Xmas sets with original material.
Delete"Christmas at the Fireside" (4-LP set) 1964. The original, the best (my opinion), and the one that got recycled heavily.
"The Sweet Voices of Christmas" (single LP) 1966. Choirs of Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral. This LP's tracks got recycled the least.
"The Family Christmas Treasury" (4-LP set) 1969. Holiday Choraliers and the Longines Symphonette, featuring the "world-famed" (?!) Thomas Organ. Incredibly uninteresting and un-festive organ doodles.
"Silver Bells" (single LP) 1969. This was a free bonus LP that came with the above 1969 4-LP box, and the music is the same style.
"Christmas with the Choraliers" (5-LP set) 1972. Holiday Choraliers and the Longines Symphonette. This is about 75-80% new recordings, also organ-heavy but much more lively and spirited, and with vocals. It's not all-new, though: it does recycle some 1964 tracks and 1969 tracks, but not 1966 LP tracks.
All other Longines Xmas LPs recycle tracks from the above 1964, 1966, 1969 & 1972 sets.
Huh. Not sure if I have any of those original issues, though that Silver Bells LP sounds familiar.
DeleteOne last thing. Discogs claims that the "Sweet Voices" LP (mono version) was 1964, a free bonus disc when you ordered the Fireside LP box. And they list the stereo version as 1966. This is doubtful. I also know that Life magazine had a big ad for the Fireside box (reissue) in 1966, and that may have been when "Sweet Voices" was offered as a bonus. I'm sticking with 1966.
DeleteAnd yet "Sweet Voices" is LWS 155 and the 1964 Fireside box is LWS 151-154, so 1964 for "SV" does indeed make sense.
DeleteUgh, I give up.
Without looking it up on my own, is 'Sweet Voices' the one with the diamond-shaped picture of all the kids singing on the cover, but if you look closely it's just the same four kids repeated over and over again? It's really creepy once you notice that...
DeleteThis set is probably the last Christmas one the Longines Symphonette ever put out (they would be history by '75), so I would probably put the copyright date on this set as 1974, being that it has the label it used on their Ray Charles and Four Seasons boxed sets.
ReplyDeleteThat seems reasonable. The typeface is very Seventies and everything is much more modern looking than any of the others.
Delete