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!

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

 

01-Thanksgiving

Hello!  I know I'm a day early, since Thanksgiving isn't until tomorrow, but I wanted you to maybe have a chance to listen to and enjoy this music on the actual holiday itself instead of having to wait a year. So if you're stumbling onto this post in time for the big day tomorrow, download it and give it a listen on the day it's intended for. Things are going to be a little bit different around here this year, and I'll go into some more detail about that for you tomorrow, but suffice it to say that today's share is very similar to the Election share I gave you earlier in the month, if you happened to catch it. All the music here is from 78's that were digitized and shared by the amazing Internet Archive as part of their Great 78 Project. I know this is cheating a little since I've previously only shared music from my own collection, but it's so hard to ignore their quarter of a million great recordings. Also new this year, mostly because I don't have all the time in the world for such things, I'm not going to list out everything in the share for you, I'm just going to try to post scans of all the labels, again from the Internet Archive. Hopefully that will give you an idea of what's there. But trust me when I say there is great stuff in every single download this year.  No throwaway records, no random organ and chime stuff, no kiddie garbage, just lots of great music that's been mostly lost to time.  Like I said, I'll get into more details as the season goes on, but for now, here's a great collection of Thanksgiving related tunes to kick off your holiday season. Enjoy!

MEGA

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

1. Earl Fuller's Rector Novelty Orchestra-Cold Turkey
2. Florian Zabach-Cold Turkey
3. Red Ingle And The Natural Seven With Frank "The Terrible Turk" Leithner At The Town-House Piano-Moe Zart's Turkey Trot (Based On Mozart's "Rondo All Turca")
4. Lawrence Duchow And His Red Raven Orchestra-Pilgrim Polka
5. Big Jay McNeely-Texas Turkey
6. Benny Rubin-Thanksgiving Day (Comedy Monologue)
7. Remo Biondi And His Orchestra-Turkey Run
8. Horace Henderson And His Orchestra-Turkey Special
9. Roy Rogers (King Of The Cowboys) With Male Quartet And Orchestra-Gabby The Gobbler
10. RCA Victor Orchestra-Ardon Cornwell, Conductor-March Of The Pilgrims (From "Harold In Italy")
11. Carson Robison And His Pleasant Valley Boy-Old Tom The Turkey
12. Jimmy Wakely With String Orchestra-Thanks
13. Les Brown And His Band Of Renown-Turkey Hop
14. Jan Savitt And His Orchestra-Turkey In The Straw
15. Freddie "Schnickelfritz" Fisher And His Orchestra-Turkey In The Straw

I would also point you to a few old Thanksgiving posts in the archives, many of which still have active downloads. You may have to look in the comments, but they are there. The more the merrier, right?

Soon

 

Election 2020

I wasn't going to post anything before Thanksgiving this year, but I put together this playlist of stuff from The Internet Archive that I've really been enjoying, so why not share it hear with you folks. Not sure who might stumble across it before Election day in America this Tuesday, but hopefully it inspires you to go out and vote. It's all songs about elections, voting, politics, and in honor of this election cycle, a few songs about the post office. Lots of great stuff, here, including some comedy bits from Johnny Standley, Will Rogers, Yogi Yorgesson, even Amos & Andy (which I hope isn't too offensive to anyone). Fifties pop artists like Vaughn Monroe, Perry Como and Eddie Fisher are well represented, as well as some divas like Ella Fitzgerald and Sophie Tucker. Swing artists like Glenn Miller & Hal Kemp come in for a bit, and even a few Washington-titled instrumentals will get you into the dancing mood. Mamie Eisenhower's favorite The Three Suns join America's favorite The Sons Of The Pioneers in the list, as well as the daughter of Woodrow Wilson singing the Star Spangled Banner to raise money for The Red Cross in the oldest recording here.  It's a real hodge podge of stuff, and that's why I love it.  I hope you enjoy it as well.  Lemme know what you think in the comments, and maybe I'll do more of these themed collections throughout the year instead of just for Christmas.

MEGA