Snow Show

Here's a snow picture for you, just to prove I actually did see snow while here in Ohio. This was taken last Wednesday (if I remember correctly), down at Brandywine Falls, which I'm sure you remember from my adventures in Ohio last year. So far it's only snowed once during my visit, and it only stayed around for about 36 hours. Yesterday the high temperature was in the mid-50s, so it was all melted except in the most sheltered spots. (This is the 3rd warmest January ever on record here in Ohio. Go figure...) Chances are good for some snow this afternoon and overnight, though, so wish me luck!

On The Grid

Right before I left Florida a few days ago, I showed you a glorious sunrise that was somewhat marred by powerlines in the picture. Well, here in Ohio, I've seen one good sunrise, and what do you know, it's got more powerlines running across it! I've got to start planning ahead for these pictures.

I've got tons more pictures to show you from here in OH, but I haven't had time to get them up. Today might work out a little bit better, so stay tuned if you want to see some snow, and if you're lucky, me wiping out on the bunny slope!

This Week In January

Ever hear of a silk oak? Well, I hadn't either until I came to Bradenton. Turns out they are yet another invasive tree, but they put out these spectacular flowers for a few weeks a year. They sort of look like giant Christmas trees hung with golden ornaments when they are in full bloom. Quite a site to see.

Great Day In The Morning

Here's a little shot of sunrise this morning. I was at work, so I was pretty limited on what shots I could get. Had I known this sunrise was coming, I would have driven somewhere else. So try to look past the unsightly power lines in the foreground. This picture doesn't really do justice to the breathtaking panorama that spread out as the sun inched towards the horizon (yes, this occurred prior to the sun actually coming up). It probably went on for twenty minutes or more, which is forever for a sunrise this grand. I'm on my way to Ohio later this afternoon. I'll be there for a whole week on business, and I expect I won't be seeing this sort of thing up there this time of year. I suspect this sunrise was nature's way of saying hurry home...

Interspecies Romance

I was up in Lakeland today visiting the old homestead, when I heard the loud call of this sandhill crane. I had hoped to catch him in the air, but he seemed to have no plans to take off and fly. Instead, he was doing his crane dance next to this cow. I don't know exactly what was up with that, but then neither did the cow. As you can see, he was singularly unimpressed by the dancing crane.

The View From The Other Side

Here's a view of Sarasota from this evening for you. I shot this from the causeway between St. Armands Key and City Island. I had to go in there and remove a bunch of spots from the picture, though. I think my lens must be dirty. I'll have to work on that.

The Second Week Of The Year

Here's a real stunner of a shot from my trip to Ohio last year. Unfortunately, it's also a rerun, because I shared it with you back then. But I think you can still enjoy it. This is the Route 82 bridge over the Cuyahoga River. I had been over the bridge once or twice, and had no idea what it looked like down below. Someone had mentioned it was a nice spot, but no one had any idea how to get there. I finally figured it out, and was well rewarded. I later found out the scenic railroad that runs through the valley uses a similar shot on their brochures, only with the train in the shot. The railroad tracks are off to the left of this picture in the dark part.

A Good Day For Birds, Part 8

I think this was my last bird of the day. It's an immature night heron, but I don't know if it's the yellow or black kind. I think that bright orange eye should tell me, but I'm too lazy to look it up. You gotta love a day when you can go out and see all these different birds and get such great shots of them.

A Good Day For Birds, Part 7

This is the first bird shot from today that I've actually had to crop. This osprey is either the same one I showed you last week catching a fish, or it's mate. It was in the same area, and I also spotted the mate sitting in the same tree as last weekend. He didn't circle close enough for me to get a frame-filling shot, so this is as good as I got. It's not too bad, though.

A Good Day For Birds, Part 6

Here you have the great blue heron. I have yet to spot one of these guys that was actually blue. I tried really hard to get a shot of him in the air, but none of them came out. He was stalking prey in a small lagoon with a path along one side. Each time I'd walk to his side, he'd fly to the other side. Each time he landed, he'd let out a few loud croaks, telling me how upset he was at having to fly the ten feet across the pool. We went back and forth like that maybe six or seven times, but I couldn't get a decent picture from any of them.

A Good Day For Birds, Part 5

Just so you know, I can't always get great bird shots. So sometimes you have to take what you can get. This is a tri-colored heron, a bird known for having beautifully colored feathers. But all I could get was a back-lit reflection.

A Good Day For Birds, Part 4

Bird number four is a snowy egret. I'm not sure what the deal with the yellow foot is, but that's the way they are. And this guy does have two legs, he's just got the other one tucked up in his feathers trying to keep warm. I guess he didn't like me taking his picture, since he stuck his tongue out at me for several of them.

A Good Day For Birds, Part 3

The third bird of the day is a brown pelican. Nothing exciting about these guys, but I like to shoot them anyway. Hard to get a good picture of any bird in flight, really. The head is overexposed here, but you might not notice if I didn't tell you.

A Good Day For Birds, Part 2

When I left the house this morning, I had no idea that it was going to turn into bird day. The first bird I shot was this cormorant at the very north end of Anna Maria Island. Cool eye, don't ya think? I didn't have to crop this picture, by the way. I was able to use a long lens, and I got really close before this fellow flew away.

A Good Day For Birds, Part 1

I visited the Amazon basin today. No, wait, it was Anna Maria Island. But you couldn't tell it from all the parrots I spotted in the top of this tree. These guys aren't native to the area, but they have established colonies in the warmer areas of Florida. I'm normally not a fan of exotic species on the loose, but these guys might be a good exception. I believe these are called quaker parakeets. I was going to tell you they were Norwegian blues, but I don't think you would fall for that. Anyhow, look closely near the center of the green birds above, and you'll see a grey cockatiel. I don't know what he was doing in there. A few years ago, I got a bird feeder from my parents for Christmas. I always hoped it would look like the one below, but I couldn't be that lucky. I spotted a racoon on it once, but that was about it.

The First Month Of The Year

In addition to this being the first week of the year, it's also the first month of the year. So you get a monthly calendar page as well. This is from a series I put together of my best shots from my trip to Ohio last year. This particular shot is a detail of The Thinker by Rodin from the Cleveland Museum of Art. I knew the statue was somewhere in Cleveland, but I had forgotten I had wanted to look it up. Imagine my surprise when I walked up on it and saw it perched there on it's pedastal high above me. I was flabbergasted!

The New Weekly Calendar

If you were paying attention last week, you know I was working on a new weekly calendar series, and here is the first of those pictures. (Actually, this is the second picture since I started it with Dec 25th, but I didn't get that shot up here. Besides, I posted it sometime last year in a slightly different format.) This little racoon was hanging out at South Lido Beach on Lido Key here in FL. There are lots and lots of racoons out there, and they are pretty tame. I shot some this past weekend, in fact. But this is a better shot than the ones I got more recently.

The End Of Last Year

I know it's Tuesday already, but this is the first chance I've gotten to give you a weekly calendar page. This is the last page from last year's book, but it sorta rolled over into 2006. This was a pair of blossoms on a frangipani (or plumeria, if you prefer) I found somewhere. These are the flowers they use in Hawaii to make leis. I don't think anybody in Florida makes leis, but if they did, they'd probably use these, too.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everybody out there! I've been neglecting my posts for a couple of days, but today I got some shots that I knew I had to share. I was at the Quick Point Nature Preserve on Longboat Key here in Sarasota, when I spotted the osprey above perched on an Australian pine. He was bobbing his head up and down repeatedly, trying to get a fix on something in the water. All of a sudden he took off and dove into the water headfirst at full speed. A couple of seconds later he stuck his head back up out of the water, took a deep breath, then spread his wings and took off. And as you can see, he managed to grab a pretty large fish in the interim.


Once airborne, he flew around for a few minutes. I don't know if he was looking for a suitable perch, or if he was waiting for the fish to quit squirming. I caught a couple of shots where he was in just the right spot, illuminated by the setting sun.

Luckily, he decided to land not too far from where all this action started, so I just kept shooting. I'll spare you the gorier shots of the fish being made into dinner, but I will tell you that the osprey started with the eyes, and worked his way down. The fish didn't give up easily, though. The osprey kept having to flap his wings to keep his balance every time the fish started flopping.

Art Imitates Life

Here's another of the pictures that didn't quite make it into my year-end calendar project. Which really isn't as bad as it sounds, since this was one of the top finishers out of about 35,000 pictures I took last year. This heron sculpture was found in front of a house on Anna Maria Island. They're big on bird sculptures out there.

Christmas Catch-up

I thought I had something new to share with you tonight on the Christmas music front, but I was wrong. Turned out that what I thought was another LP from Thurlow Spurr and The Spurrlows was just a reissue of the same tracks in a different sleeve. So if you want to hear the tunes, you'll have to go to the original post and download them. But if you already did that, just download this picture and add it to your collection. This reissue is called The Spurrlows-'Tis The Season Let Us Sing (Word WST-8310-LP), and according to the back cover, it was a "Special Hamilton International Corporation Commemorative Edition". I guess the identical catalog number should have been my first clue.

Oodles Of Doodles CLXXII

A trio of instruments from the LP The Limeliters-Tonight: In Person (RCA Victor LPM-2272, 1961). Note that this same doodle appears on their homepage, right up front. Also, you get a tag from the front side, this time saying "Recorded Here And Now". I love these tags!

Leftovers

Whew! For the past three days, I've been sorting through 35,000 pictures taken over the last year. All this work is in order to put together a weekly calendar for my grandmother. You've been seeing the pictures from last year's project each week since I started this blog last March. And starting on New Year's, you'll be seeing the pictures from next year's calendar. But I've got a few shots that didn't make the cut, so I thought I'd share them with you over the next few days. Here is the first. These stilt houses are located in Biscayne Bay off the coast of Miami. They are really too far offshore to get a good picture, but I didn't think this one came out too badly. Stay tuned for more.

Oodles of Doodles CLXXI

Christmas is over, and that means I can try to get back to some of my pre-holiday habits, like doodles. This busy drawing, reminiscent of something in MAD Magazine, is from the flip side of Raoul Meynard And Orchestra-Continental Host (Warner Bros. WS1424, 1961). The doodle is signed Renfro down at the lower right, but that's not ringing any bells to me. There's a lot going on in this picture, so click the image to see the slightly bigger version. No hidden nudity that I can find, but there is at least one guy about to commit suicide at the roulette table.

The Last Week Of The Year

It's the last week of the year, and here's a beauty of a picture for you. This is the drawbridge between Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key here in Florida. I think this is one of my favorite places to go and shoot pictures. The shadows of the palm trees on the sand made this a great shot, and it's a great way to end the year. I'm hard at work this week on a new set of pictures, so stay tuned next year for more great shots.

A Christmas Snack

I wasn't going to post anything today, but here's a little quickie just for kicks. From the collection of kiddie records called Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer And Other Christmas Favorites (Wonderland WLP 148, 1982), this is 'Crackerjack Christmas' by The Sandpipers With Mitch Miller And Orchestra. I hope you have a Crackerjack Christmas, too.

Big shout out to all the folks over at FaLaLaLaLa, especially Brad the King. Enjoy your day!

Oodles of Doodles CLXX-Christmas 2005

Here's a final holiday doodle for you from the flipside of Living Voices Sing Christmas Music (RCA Camden CAS 725, 1962). They say that no two snowflakes are alike, but they seem to have not checked this LP before they said that. These five flakes are repeated four times on this record. So much for old sayings.

Hope you all have a Happy Christmas!

Surprises For Christmas

It's Christmas Eve, and I think I've saved the best for last. I think you'll really like this LP. RCA liked it so much they released it twice, under two different names. The orginal release is seen above, as credited to The Ralph Hunter Choir. The second time around, RCA decided old Ralph wasn't drawing enough attention, so they called it Living Voices Sing Christmas Music, as seen below. And that release spawned a whole series of albums by any number of different groups as Living This or Living That. Many of the other Living Voices albums were the work of Anita Kerr, but not this first one. Most of my tracks were actually ripped from the one below, but some came from the original above. I just grabbed whichever one I felt sounded better. Both of them had a nasty skip in there, so I wasn't able to get a single full dub from either record. And, oddly enough, the record you see above is an Australian pressing. It used to belong to a little girl who loved Rick Springfield by the name of Annette Haessher. I only mention this because I had to spend several hours getting her name and her love notes to Rick off of the cover via Photoshop. Thanks Annette, I didn't have anything better to do the week before Christmas, anyway. So please, download and give a listen to a great LP that wraps up the Christmas Sharity here at Ernie (Not Bert), Christmas Surprises From The Ralph Hunter Choir (RCA of Australia SL10911, 1959) aka Living Voices Sing Christmas Music (RCA Camden CAS 725, 1962).

I previously shared the doodles off the flip of the original LP back during Christmas in July. That's when a helpful reader pointed out that the two records held the same music. It's always nice when readers share their info.

From The Great White North, Eh

Some of you have been asking for this record since last year. Well, not exactly this record, but you've been asking for Gisele. I wanted to share her full-length LP, Christmas With Gisele, but I couldn't get a recording of it that didn't skip. However, I did find this EP that came out the previous year on the RCA susidiary, Vik. It's got 4 of the songs that showed up on her full length release the next year, so you're almost halfway there. Someday I'll get a better copy of the full album and share it with everybody, I pomise. In the meantime, please download and enjoy Gisele MacKenzie-Joyeux Noel (Vik EXA-271, Mono, 1957). The sound is a little rough on this one, but there is some good music if you listen through the noise. There'll be a quiz later, so please pay close attention to her French lessons.

Update: Looks like someone finally wised up about this record. It's now available for download on iTunes. So I can't share it anymore, but you can download a nice MP3 version of it. Actually, what they've got is the whole LP that this EP is pulled from, but you get the idea.

Sand (Not Snow)

One more for tonight, then I'm going to bed. I don't have the cover for this one, I'm afraid. I'm sure some happy child destroyed it years ago, but thankfully for me (and you!) the record survived. Some of this music that was designed for kids is better than the stuff that was recorded for adults. This EP is a great example. Just five songs long, but each one is a great version. And the fun track Mr. Snow was a hit on my Christmas CD. Please download and enjoy The Sandpipers With Mitch Miller And Orchestra-Frosty The Snowman (Golden Records 2092, 1966)

For The First Time

Happy Night Before the Night Before Christmas! To honor this special pre-night, here's a collection of 8 tracks, each allegedly recorded here for the first time, according to the liner notes. Many of them I'd never heard before, but I think you'll recognize a number that was to become pretty popular over the years, The Night Before Christmas Song. And that's far from the best track on this twin 7" set. There are actually two numbers on here that made it to my annual Christmas CD, which is pretty suprising. They were The Ames Brothers-Sing A Song Of Santa Claus and Don Cornell-I've Got The Christmas Spirit. The Ames Brothers track is a hit right out of the box, while the Don Cornell song sort of makes you think it's going to be a sleeper before he really opens up and starts to swing. And man does he swing! The other two artists on here are Johnny Desmond and Eileen Barton (who sings the Night Before Christmas song). So please download and give a listen to this perhaps historic recording, Merry Christmas From (Coral Records EC-82003). You'll catch the Christmas spirit in no time.

May All Your Christmases Be Bright

Here's a real hum-dinger of an album for you. I don't even remember buying this one, it just turned up in my collection one day. I didn't pay too much attention to it because it doesn't list an artist on the front cover. I sort of assumed it was a generic chorus LP or maybe a collection from a gas station. Boy, was I wrong. This LP features The Jimmy Joyce Singers, who I just mentioned in the previous post, with an orchestra conducted by the one and only Billy May! Yep, you read that right, Mr. Billy May. And more than one of these tracks are instrumentals, so that means they are all Billy. It's all good, but those tracks are the best. Please, if you don't believe me, download and listen to The Jimmy Joyce Singers With Orchestra Conducted By Billy May-A Christmas To Remember (Warner Bros W 1237, 1958). If you don't like it, I'll refund your money! (Anybody out there got this in stereo???)

Who's This Alfred S. Burt?

This blog is supposed to be about Ernie, not Bert. So why am I posting an album of carols written by Albert S. Burt? Well, just because, that's why! Actually, it's becuase of the involvment of the Jimmy Joyce Singers, or as they are called on this release, The Voices Of Jimmy Joyce. I don't know a whole lot about them, other than the fact that they backed up a whole slew of singers during their heyday, from the fifties through the early seventies. One of their bigger employers was Frank Sinatra! But Frank is nowhere to be found on this release. All you'll hear here are the voices of Jimmy Joyce. Please download and give a listen to The Voices Of Jimmy Joyce-This Is Christmas-A Complete Collection Of The Alfred S. Burt Carols (Warner Bros. W 1566, 1964). And who exactly is Alfred S. Burt? Well, he wrote a lot of Christmas carols before passing away in 1954, most of which aren't too well known these days. He gave these songs away to friends for Christmas presents, sort of like the mix CD of today. I've got another LP of his Christmas carols that I hope to share out someday, released on Columbia right after his death. Someday, but not this season. I do have another LP from Jimmy Joyce and a special guest coming up next, so stay tuned!

Whoops! Looks like this one is on CD, folks, so I've taken it down. Please follow the link above to a site where it's available for purchase.

Christmas Sharity Recap, Week Four

It's all down to the last few days now. Here's a little recap of all the Christmas goodies I've shared out since I started back on Thanksgiving. I'm pretty sure it's all still available from RapidShare.de, so if you missed something, go get it quick so you have time to enjoy it before the big day. (The numbers in parentheses indicate the number of times a selection has been downloaded so far.)

This Past Week:

Lynn Anderson-The Christmas Album (128)
Merry Christmas From Buck Owens & Susan Raye (109)
A Kimball Christmas (66)
Bob Coe At The Pipe Organ-White Christmas/Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town (56)
The Three Suns Present Your Christmas Favorites (110)
Woody The Woodchuck-Christmas Sing Song aka Christmas With Woody The Woodchuck (93)
A King Family Christmas (68)
Christmas With The King Family With The Alvino Rey Orchestra, Conducted By Ralph Carmichael, Vocal Direction By Jimmy Joyce (68)
Marilyn King-My Favorite Things (Bonus Track!) (42)
Les Djinnes Singers-60 French Girls With The Christmas Bell Ringers-Joyeaux Noel (75)
John Davidson-My Christmas Favorites (60)
The Pied Pipers Sing Favorite Christmas Carols (96)
The World's Greatest Jazzband Of Yank Lawson & Bob Haggart-Hark The Herald Angels Swing (57)
Christmas Greetings From The Town Pipers (43)
The Surfers-Christmas From Hawaii (7)

Two Weeks Ago:

A Christmas Sampler (90)
Christmas; Time For Song Featuring Thurlow Spurr And The Spurrlows Singing 12 Seasonal Favorites! (81)
Dennis Day Sings "Christmas Is For The Family" Featuring Lou Hollingsworth At The Wurlitzer Electronic Organ & The Vail Boys Choir With Full Orchestra (124)
Robert Way Orchestra And Chorus-New England Sleigh Ride Volume 1 (106)
Christmas With The Happy Crickets (90) (It's terrible! Don't bother downloading this one.)
The Voices Of Walter Schumann-The Voices Of Christmas (20 [Corrected Version] + 129 [bad version])
The Three Suns-The Sounds Of Christmas (174)
The Three Suns-Christmas Party (152)
Billy Crystal-The Christmas Song (121)
Lorne Greene-Must Be Santa (121)
Fred Waring And The Pennsylvanians-'Twas The Night Before Christmas (141)
Sing And Rejoice! Christmas Carols Played by Dick Leibert At the Organ of the Radio City Music Hall New York City (67)
Dick Leibert At The Console-The Happy Hits Of Christmas (Christmas Evergreens Played On The Radio City Music Hall Organ) (104)
Dick Leibert-The Sound Of Christmas On The Radio City Music Hall Organ (118)
George Wright At The Wurlitzer Pipe Organ-Merry Christmas (133)

Three Weeks Ago:

Eddie Dunstedter-The Bells Of Christmas (90 [corrected version]+66 [original bad version])
Eddie Dunstedter-The Bells Of Christmas Chime Again (137)
The Caroleer Singers And Orchestra-Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (133)
The Caroleers-'Twas The Night Before Christmas (152)
The Snap-On Male Chorus-Carols Of Christmas (112)
Menudo-Feliz Navidad (86)
Hugo Winterhalter-Christmas Magic (151)
Hugo Winterhalter-Sleigh Ride (Bonus Track!) (112)
Kathy Dunn-Santaville/In The Valley Of Santa Claus (105)
Paul Mauriat And His Orchestra-The Christmas Album (113)
Raymond LeFevre And His Orchestra-Merry Christmas (155)
Pete Fountain-Candy Clarinet (132)
Yogi Yorgesson-Yingle Bells (156)
The Ray Charles Singers-Winter Wonderland (144)
The Ray Charles Singers-Here We Come A-Caroling (143)

Four Weeks Ago:

George Feyer's Echoes Of Christmas (129)
Avon Goes On Record 1968 (109)
Sy Mann-Everybody's Christmas Favorites Organ & Chimes (129)
The Moog Machine-Christmas Becomes Electric (217)
101 Strings-Christmas Moods, aka The Glory of Christmas (113)
Cyril Stapleton And His Orchestra With Children's Chorus-Children's Christmas Album (94)
Muzak Christmas (129)
Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (206)
Charo-(Mamacita) ¿Donde Esta Santa Claus? (193)
Christmas With Big Tiny Little (185)
Buddy & Bunny Burden-Christmas Favorites (123)
The Rainbow Sound Of Bianco His Harp And Orchestra-Joy To The World (115)
Ruth Welcome-Christmas In Zitherland (133)

From Just Before Thanksgiving:

Spencer Ross-Thanksgiving Day Parade (66)

Christmas On A Smaller Island

While I'm celebrating Christmas in the 50th state, here's an LP I can't share with you, because it's in print. This is the cover for Christmas On Kauai by Larry Rivera (Coco Palms Records ST-723). This record has some great tunes on it that I haven't seen elsewhere, including a long spoken-word story about the Menehune Santa, then a song about him. There's even a good version of The Hawaiian Twelve Days of Christmas here. So click on over and get your own copy of this one. You won't be sorry!

From The Big Island

There are only a few good Hawaiian Christmas albums out there, and this is one of the great ones. Unfortunately, most folks have never heard of it. This LP was released on the same label and in the same year as the previously shared LP by The Town Pipers, but the two styles couldn't be much further apart. This LP was made in Hawaii by some native Hawaiians, and I think it shows through on the tracks. They aren't singing native Hawaiian songs, though, but the spirit of the islands is plainly evident, along with a healthy sense of humor. There are a couple of unique tracks here, along with a passle of your typical holiday hits. My favorite tune is Here Comes Santa In A Red Canoe, and I'm sure it will become your favorite, too. Please download and give a listen to The Surfers-Christmas From Hawaii (HiFi R410, 1959). This LP was recorded in the Kaiser Aluminum Dome, which I'm sure you are familiar with from the backside of all those Arthur Lyman LPs.

Update (13 Oct 08): This one is now available as a legal download! So go get it! Here's a link to Amazon, but it's also available elsewhere.

Music From Town

I've promised that the music would get better as Christmas gets closer, and this album may prove to be as good as it gets. Well, this one and the one later today (from the same label in the same year). I probably picked this album up, looked at it, and put it back down three times before I actually purchased it. And boy was I glad I did. This is some really great vocal work! Nice arrangements, too. My favorite track of the season is on here, but I won't tell you which one it is, since I don't want to prejudice you. (I thought it was an original, but I've since found a version by Sammy Kaye.) So please download and listen to Christmas Greetings From The Town Pipers (HiFi R418, 1959). I featured a doodle from the flip side of this LP back in July, if you'd like to have a look.

(Anybody got this one in stereo? I've got two copies now, and both are mono.)

Update (13 Oct 08): This one is now available for legal download. And that's a good thing, becuase it means that more of this old Christmas music that we all love is available to a wider audience. Here's the link to Amazon, and it's also available at other legal download sites. Now if I could just get them to look at the Three Suns catalog...

The Week Before Christmas

It's Tuesday, and I still haven't posted my weekly calendar page. You guys need to remind me to get these things done! This weeks picture is a close-up of some fungi growing on a rotting log. I think I shot this way up in Dunellon, FL, at my buddy's place on the Rainbow River.

For those of you who are just tuning in, these weekly pictures are part of a calendar I made for my Grandmother for Christmas last year from my photography. It's been an on-going project the past three years, and if I ever get to it, I intend to do it again this year. But Christmas is Sunday, and I haven't started the book this year. No chance, you say? Well, it just so happens that our family Christmas celebration has been pushed back a week this year, and I have a week off of work coming up. So I'm going to be a busy man that week!

World's Greatest, Honest

Here's a unique record I picked up a while ago, again because I liked the cover. Sometime later, a friend was showing me vacation pictures, and she had a shot of her family in the exact same spot, only during the summer. Turns out this is a popular picture spot in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I didn't recognize the names, so I figured it was a small one-off thing for friends or family, but I recently found a much earlier LP on Atlantic, I think, from the same group. A few minutes on Google and I realized these guys had quite a history. The music on this LP is pretty good, but nothing here is going to knock your socks off, like oh, say, the rest of the stuff I have scheduled for this week, but I think you'll enjoy it. Some of the tracks have a vocalist doing his best imitation of Satchmo, which is interesting, since Satchmo didn't record nearly enough Christmas music in his lifetime. Anyhow, please download and give a listen to The World's Greatest Jazzband Of Yank Lawson & Bob Haggart-Hark The Herald Angels Swing (World Jazz WJLP 5-2, 1972).

So Many Records, So Little Time

Well, I just found a pile of 10 or 15 records that I've been searching for in the archives since mid-November. I knew I had them, but I couldn't find them. (Surely that's a sign that I have too much stuff, but I'm going to ignore it for now. I had boxed them up in the other room when the Neilsen TV people came out, and forgot I'd done it.) Anyway, I don't have time to get them shared out between now and Christmas, so I wanted to float an idea past you. What if I kept sharing these LPs out past Christmas, say once a week, until I get tired of it? Would you keep coming around? Will you forget all about Christmas on Boxing Day and not think of it again until Wal-Mart puts out the Christmas trees next August? Leave me a note and tell me what you think. There's no way I can keep up the two-a-day pace, but maybe one a week is sustainable for the near future. Thanks for your input!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat!

How's that for a cute album cover? This was another case of buying the record for the cover, only to find something special inside. You wouldn't know it from the sleeve, but this is actually a various artists collection, tied together by the presence of George Mather playing the organ on each track. What's really special is Thurl Ravenscroft performing Joy To The World on here. Thurl passed away this year, and the world will be sadder for that loss. He was the voice of Tony The Tiger, and could be heard on numerous Disney records, as well as on rides at several Disney parks. So please download and give a listen to The Pied Pipers Sing Favorite Christmas Carols (Tops L 1650, 1958). I've got another cover from Craftsmen Records that seems to sport the same tracks, but the record wasn't in the sleeve. And one of the Falalavians over at FaLaLaLaLa found a Golden Record with many of the same tracks and yet a different cover. It's amazing how they recycled some of the same tracks over and over and over again through the years.

Circle Gets The Square

OK, I admit it, I'm running out of stuff. I'm not running out of Christmas music, but I am running out of recorded albums that are ready to share. It takes me between three and four hours to record and clean an LP, including the cover scans. And I don't even do much processing to the audio. I'm sure some of the sharity sites out there take a lot longer to bring you their music. Most of the albums I'm sharing were recorded months ago, and I've been doleing them out a couple a day for three weeks now. Which brings us to this. Many people don't know about John Davidson's singing career before he became a game show host. He put out a lot of albums, and I don't think any of them are very memorable, this one included. For some reason, this album was on CD for a little while, but is now out of print. You won't mistake my recording for a CD, believe me. Please download and give a listen to John Davidson-My Christmas Favorites (Columbia P 13348).

A Whole Heap Of French Girls

I probably should have shared this out a couple of weeks ago when I posted some other French stuff, but I forgot about it. It's not that memorable, unfortunately. I had such high hopes. Beautiful cover, great concept, muddy execution. But you be the judge. Download and give a listen to Les Djinnes Singers-60 French Girls With The Christmas Bell Ringers-Joyeaux Noel (ABC Paramount ABCS 397, 1961). Maybe you'll like it more than I did. Not all of the tracks are sung by French girls though, some of them are by some group called The Christmas Bell Ringers. I guess they didn't have enough tracks for a full LP. Shame...

Triple Crown

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, here I am with a King Family bonus track. From the LP The King Family Show (Warner Bros. W 1601, 1965), this is Marilyn King-My Favorite Things. It's not exactly a Christmas track, but some people seem to think it is. So for the sake of giving you a little more music, I'll assume it's a Christmas track tonight. Enjoy!