Rat Pack

I'll Be Home for Christmas

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• published: 18 Aug 2012
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Artist: Elvis Presley Album: Elvis' Christmas Album Track: 04 Released: October 15, 1957 Label: RCA Victor Run Time: 30:09 Producer: Unknown Album Facts: Elvis' Christmas Album is the fourth album by Elvis Presley on RCA Victor Records, LOC 1035, a deluxe limited edition, released in October 1957, and recorded at Radio Recorders in Hollywood. It has been reissued in numerous different formats since its first release. It spent four weeks at #1 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart, and was the first of two Christmas-themed albums Presley would record, the other being Elvis Sings the Wonderful World of Christmas, released in the early 1970s. According to the latest certifications by the Recording Industry Association of America, Elvis' Christmas Album has shipped at least 13 million copies in the United States (three million copies of the original 1957 release on RCA Victor Records, plus ten million copies of a "budget" edition first released by RCA Camden in 1970 and then by Pickwick Records in 1975). It is the first Presley title to attain Diamond certification by the RIAA, and is also the best-selling Christmas/holiday album of all time in the United States. The original 1957 LP consisted of eight Christmas songs, and four gospel songs which had been previously released on the EP Peace in the Valley, catalogue EPA 4054, issued March 1957, peaking at #3 on the Pop albums chart and at #39 on the singles chart. The two album sides divided into a program of secular Christmas songs on side one, with two traditional Christmas carols and the gospel numbers on side two. Those included two spirituals by innovator Thomas A. Dorsey, "Peace in the Valley" and "Take My Hand, Precious Lord." Coincidentally, A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra released the previous month by that other 1950s singing icon, also divided into a secular and a traditional side. While most of the songs selected were traditional Christmas fare, such as "White Christmas" and "Silent Night," two new songs by regular suppliers of material for Presley were commissioned. One was "Santa Bring My Baby Back (to Me)" and the other (selected by Elvis to open the album), was a blues-based rock and roll number, "Santa Claus Is Back in Town," written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. This writer/producer team was responsible for some of 1950s rhythm and blues and rock and roll's most finely-honed satire in their work with The Coasters, as well as penning "Hound Dog" for Willie Mae Thornton and providing Elvis with some of his biggest hits, including "Jailhouse Rock" and "Don't." Elvis had asked the pair to come up with another Christmas song during sessions for the album; within a few minutes, they had the song written and ready for recording. Originally titled "Christmas Blues", this slyly risqué number is given a full-throated treatment by Elvis who, aided by the gritty ensemble playing from his band, was determined to ensure that this Christmas album would not be easily ignored.. Much of the remaining program was performed in a more traditional manner appropriate to the solemnity of Christmas, although Elvis' innate sense of occasion shone through on his left-of-center reading of Ernest Tubb's 1949 hit, "Blue Christmas." "Silent Night" and "O Little Town of Bethlehem" were arranged by Elvis Presley. The Bing Crosby holiday perennial "White Christmas," which appeared every year on the Billboard charts from 1942 to 1962, became the center of controversy upon the album's release, with calls by the song's composer Irving Berlin to have the song, and the entire album, banned from radio airplay. After hearing Presley's version of his song, which Berlin saw as a "profane parody of his cherished yuletide standard", he ordered his staff in New York to telephone radio stations across the United States, demanding the song be discontinued from radio play. While most US radio stations ignored Berlin's request, at least one disc jockey was fired for playing a song from the album, and most Canadian stations refused to play the album. The controversy was, ironically, fueled by Elvis' performance of the song in a style mirroring the version by Clyde McPhatter's group, The Drifters, which had been a Top 10 hit on the R&B; singles chart in 1954 and 1955. Unlike Elvis' recording, however, their version attracted virtually no adverse reaction, and certainly no reported opposition from Irving Berlin. Part of the reason that The Drifters' version of "White Christmas" was less controversial was because that version was played only on black radio stations. Elvis Presley's version brought greater attention to The Drifters' version which gained prominence with its inclusion in the 1990 movie Home Alone.