Watch the Snow Fall Forever and Ever

On By jbIn ChristmasLeave a comment

Between November 1971 and October 1973, Elton John released four albums, each now recognized as a classic: Madman Across the Water, Honky Chateau, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player, and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. The latter three all went to #1 in the States. All but two of the singles from those four albums made the Top 10 (“Tiny Dancer” peaked at #41 and “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” at #12). And as 1973 drew to a close, with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road at #1 in America and the second single and title song in the Billboard Top 10, it’s arguable that Elton John did not need to release a standalone single too. But he did, and we’ve been listening to it for 50 years now.

To the extent that my usual half-assed research process has been able to determine, “Step Into Christmas” did not generate an abnormal amount of trade-paper buzz upon its release. The article you see at the top of this post, from the edition of Record World dated December 1, 1973, is the only one I could find apart from mentions in record-review columns. For example, in the December 8 edition of Cash Box, a reviewer said of it (exactly as it appears below):

There’s gonna be boogeying ’round the Christmas tree as Elton steps out in front of this Phil Spector-like Xmas production and gets down to good rocking and rolling. Aside from Eltons usual vocal dynamics is a great music track filled with bells, drums and guitars blending perfectly in making another Top Ten bound Elton John masterwork and one that will last far beyond New Years Day. 

“Step Into Christmas” debuted on the Cash Box chart the next week at #85. It rose to #65 during Christmas week, was #56 on the 12/29 chart, and was gone from the chart dated 1/5/74. It made #1 on Billboard‘s Christmas chart 50 years ago today. It has 24 listings at ARSA, although several of those are from Capital Radio in London and LM Radio in Mozambique. Its highest position on an American station was at WRBN in Warner Robins, Georgia, where it got to #14 on the chart dated December 17.

Even with Elton giving away copies, “Step Into Christmas” did not become an especially big hit in the UK in 1973. It made #24 and did not chart again until the download era. An article at Elton’s website says he played it at some of his 1973 Hammersmith Odeon Christmas shows, but it’s not on the bootlegged show in my collection. (He did toss off “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” though.) At least one source says he played it a year later at the Odeon, at his legendary Christmas Eve show, but it’s not on any of the setlists I’ve seen, airchecks I’ve heard, or videos I’ve watched. He closed the show that night with a raucous “White Christmas.”

As best I can tell, “Step Into Christmas” was available only on the 1973 45 release until 1978, when it got a 45 reissue in the States. A second single reissue followed in 1980. The first time I ever saw it on CD was on the 1987 Time Life compilation Jingle Bell Rock. Elton himself did not officially release it on CD until 1990, on the To Be Continued box set. In 1995, it was a bonus track on the reissue of Caribou, even though it belongs chronologically on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. (FWIW, “Pinball Wizard” is also a Caribou bonus track although it belongs chronologically on Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. Elton was so prolific in the middle of the 1970s that he literally broke time.)

Because this website never strays very far or very long from the contemplation of its proprietor’s navel, let me say that I’m pretty sure I must have heard “Step Into Christmas” that first year. Given Elton’s popularity at that instant, WLS would not have ignored it. I know that I was hearing it regularly on lots of radio stations by 1974. It’s peak Elton, a glittering glam-rock wall of sound, and it’s always welcome every year.

Postscript: In a world where no archive goes unplundered, the 1974 Christmas Eve show at the Odeon has somehow never gotten an official release. It was broadcast on UK radio and TV that night, and I remember hearing highlights of it on The Kingbiscuit Flower Hour in some succeeding year. It, too, is peak Elton. You can see and hear that he’s going to be king of the world—if he isn’t already.

Note to Patrons: This is your last chance to request a date around Christmas or New Year’s for the One Day in Your Life treatment. Get in touch in any of the usual ways.

Return to the Golden Age

On By jbIn Christmas, Record Charts6 Comments
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(Pictured: Brenda Lee onstage in Nashville, with the tiny figure of Vince Gill behind her, on December 5, 2023.)

On the Billboard Hot 100 dated December 9, 2023, 12 of the Top 20 are Christmas songs. A few are relatively contemporary, including “Santa Tell Me” by Ariana Grande (2014) and “Underneath the Tree” by Kelly Clarkson (2013). “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is back again, as is “Last Christmas” by Wham. But the others are from the golden age of Christmas music.

1. “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”/Brenda Lee. This song reached #2 last Christmas, and is #1 63 years after it first charted and 65 since Lee recorded it at the age of 13. I wonder about the value of the Hot 100 in the download era, but we can all agree to be happy for Brenda Lee. I would like America to discover some of her other great work now, but I’m not holding my breath.

4. “Jingle Bell Rock”/Bobby Helms. Nobody should be surprised if/when this gets to #1 someday.

5. “A Holly Jolly Christmas”/Burl Ives. From The Story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which aired for the first time on Sunday, December 7, 1964, as an installment of The General Electric Fantasy Hour at 5:30 Eastern/4:30 Central Time, in the timeslot normally occupied by GE College Bowl. (Today, late Sunday afternoon is essentially garbage time, devoted to sports and local affiliate infomercials, but in the 60s it was useful network real estate.) Click to embiggen the print ad at the left; watch the original network promos and GE appliance spots that aired during the show here. If you are of a certain age, it’s a little like returning to the world of the mid 60s, and a house full of the cutting-edge gadgets Santa’s elves were hawking that Christmas.

10. “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”/Andy Williams
14. “Sleigh Ride”/Ronettes
Both of these are celebrating 60th anniversaries this year. “Sleigh Ride” is from A Christmas Gift to You From Phil Spector, which was released on November 22, 1963; it made #14 on Billboard‘s Christmas chart that year, although it wouldn’t chart again until 1972 and 1973, after it was reissued on Apple. None of the album’s famous songs charted until the download era. Neither did “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” It was on The Andy Williams Christmas Album, but Columbia decided to push his version of “White Christmas” as the single. The Andy Williams Christmas Album hit #1 on the 1963 Christmas charts and was a perennial for a while, charting each of the next 10 Christmases, even though Andy released another Christmas disc in 1965. (Another track from The Andy Williams Christmas Album, “Happy Holiday/The Holiday Season” is on the Hot 100 at #47 this week.)

13. “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”/Dean Martin. When “Let It Snow” re-charted for the first time in 2019, it was Dino’s first pop chart hit in 49 years. Martin released Christmas albums in back-to-back years, both containing “Let It Snow,” one in 1965 (a retitled reissue of a 1959 album) and one in 1966. I have written before about Martin’s especially boozy sound on Christmas records; the charm they hold for listeners today eludes me entirely.

16. “Feliz Navidad”/Jose Feliciano. Feliciano is still with us at the age of 78, and I hope he’s still getting paid for this song. I wrote about it for its 50th anniversary in 2020.

19. “The Christmas Song”/Nat King Cole. In 1960, Cole released The Magic of Christmas, which did not include his 1946 hit. In 1963, Capitol reissued the album, adding a new version of “The Christmas Song” that Nat had cut for The Nat King Cole Story in 1961 and retitling the album The Christmas Song. It’s moved something like six million copies in 60 years, and is one of the top-selling Christmas albums of all time. (Nat’s “Deck the Halls” is also on this week’s Hot 100 at #28.)

Fourteen other old Christmas songs are on the Hot 100 below #20, running the gamut from Chuck Berry’s “Run Rudolph Run” and two Gene Autry chestnuts, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Here Comes Santa Claus,” to “Wonderful Christmastime.” There are no new Christmas songs on the 12/9 Hot 100, although Cher’s “DJ Play a Christmas Song,” which is currently #1 on Billboard‘s adult contemporary chart, will probably make it. And if Taylor Swift’s reissued “Christmas Tree Farm” doesn’t make it eventually, I’ll eat my hat.

Geezers such as I like to talk about music that’s timeless, but that’s often a subjective judgment. Here’s empirical data proving that some music really is timeless. A young person who likes “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” enough to go out and get it is probably not thinking how it was a hit the year their grandfather was born.

Christmas Shadow

On By jbIn Christmas4 Comments

In the edition of Billboard dated October 26, 1963, there are several pages of new album reviews, each with a thumbnail photo of the cover and a brief description, written in the breezy, hype-laden style familiar to Billboard readers. Listed are The Very Best of Connie Francis (“fans should be delighted”), Wilson Pickett’s It’s Too Late (“Pickett broke into the scene some months back with his disking of ‘If You Need Me,’ which created a good bit of noise”), the soundtrack from the movie Palm Springs Weekend (in which Billboard suggests “Ox Driver” by the Modern Folk Quartet “has possibilities”), and a gospel album by the Blackwood Brothers Quartet (“good, stirring wax”). At the bottom of the page, we find the item you see here (click to embiggen).

Every Christmas I bang on about The Spirit of Christmas With the Living Strings, and because this year marks the album’s 60th birthday, you’re gonna have to read about it again. You can do so while listening to it here.

Continue reading “Christmas Shadow” →

Holiday Atmosphere

On By jbIn Christmas, The Re-Listening ProjectLeave a comment

I got a text from my brother the other day, accompanied by the pic you see here. He was helping Mother and Dad with some housecleaning and asked if I wanted any of their vinyl, otherwise he was going to take it and sell it for them. However much I might have enjoyed having a few more totems of childhood, I haven’t had a turntable hooked up in the house for years and I do not need any more physical objects taking up space, so I let them go.

I have written a little bit here about growing up in a musical house. The radio was always on in the kitchen and the barn; my mother played piano, and she and Dad sang in the church choir (even though he could not carry a tune at all). They also bought vinyl, but not a lot. Their collection fit in the rack pictured. Many of them were Christmas records.

The one on top, Christmas Drummer Boy by Don Janse and His 60 Voice Children’s Choir, is typical of their Christmas collection. There wasn’t any rhyme or reason to the way they bought Christmas albums; they didn’t buy particular artists or even particular genres, unless you can call the Firestone, Goodyear, and True Value Hardware Christmas compilations a genre. They did not buy Christmas albums that have become enduring hits; it’s almost as if they bought based on album covers: “this looks Christmassy, let’s get it.” That’s the likeliest explanation for how they came to own Christmas Drummer Boy, which came out in 1962, not long before they bought their first console stereo with a small sum of money they received from my great-grandmother’s estate. (Before that, the only record player they owned was Dad’s old 45 player, which I would briefly commandeer before getting one of my own.)

A 60-voice children’s choir, backed only by an organ and occasional sleigh bells, is pretty much the opposite of what I want to listen to, even at Christmastime. But you know what? Christmas Drummer Boy isn’t terrible. It’s not a slick production; the kid soloists occasionally lose track of what key they’re in, and even in the full chorus, clunkers are clearly audible. But they sing with an earnestness that’s charming.

You can listen to the album here. Don Janse, longtime choral director at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, had a unique gift for arranging, shown by “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers,” which also includes verses you don’t hear much on other recordings of the song. On “Jingle Bells” and “The 12 Days of Christmas,” Janse does the nearly impossible and arranges them so that you’re actually surprised by how they go. “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” cleverly interpolates a bit of “Frere Jacques.” The most ambitious arrangement is on “Babes in Toyland,” the only track to feature an adult voice, which probably belongs to Janse.

I remembered bits of the performances better than I remembered whole songs (further testimony to Janse’s arranging skill), and I found some of the songs nostalgic and moving. “Joy to the World” starts with the sort of triumphant organ I always enjoyed hearing at Christmas Eve services when I was a kid. “Silent Night” takes me back as far in time as it’s possible to go. Surely I sang it in public myself, as part of some Sunday school Christmas program, in a group with even less of a grasp on the proper key.

I am sure that had I poked through the stack of albums in the picture my brother sent, I would have found others that, like Christmas Drummer Boy, I had long since forgotten. But the individual titles matter less to me now than the fact that the stack existed, and how every year we used it to fill the house with holiday atmosphere.

We can’t do that in our house today, BTW. We dispensed with a full stereo setup years ago, so there’s no turntable, no CD player, and no big speakers in the living room. When we listen to Christmas music, we play CDs in the DVD player through the soundbox for the TV, or I turn up the external speaker connected to my laptop. I have better speakers in my office, but they possess nowhere near the room-filling power of a console stereo.

I don’t miss having a big stereo downstairs. Except in December.

A further post along this line will appear later in the week. 

Schticks of One and Half a Dozen of the Other

On By jbIn Repeat Posts4 Comments
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Sixty years ago this past summer, Allan Sherman was on every radio with the indelible “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah!” In the fall of 1963, his album My Son, the Nut spent nine weeks atop the Billboard album chart. November 20 of this year was the 50th anniversary of Sherman’s death. Yesterday would have been his 99th birthday.

Sherman started as a TV producer, best known for creating the original I’ve Got a Secret. He was hired to produce the Tonight Show in 1962, but for various reasons, that job didn’t last long. Out of work, Sherman managed to land a recording contract with Warner Brothers, the same label that had made Bob Newhart a star a couple of years earlier. Taking advantage of the folk boom in the early 60s, Sherman released an album of folk-song parodies, the kind of thing he had been doing at Hollywood parties ever since hitting town in 1950 or so.

Late in 1962, My Son, the Folk Singer became a surprise hit. My Son, the Celebrity quickly followed, and in the summer of 1963, My Son, the Nut. All three went to #1, all in a span of about 10 months. The single from My Son, the Nut, “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah!” rose to #2, behind Stevie Wonder’s first single, “Fingertips,” in August 1963. That same month, Sherman was invited to sit in as guest host of the Tonight Show, back in triumph on the show that had fired him only about a year before.

What happened next is a showbiz tragedy: at the moment of Sherman’s greatest triumph, something happened that was out of his control, and wham—career (practically) over. John F. Kennedy, who had famously been overheard singing a Sherman parody to himself, was assassinated. Sherman’s next album was a relative stiff, and, according to Allmusic.com’s Jason Ankeny, the assassination was the reason. Sherman’s brand of frivolity suddenly seemed inappropriate to the times.

Perhaps, although by the time Sherman released Allan in Wonderland in early 1964, the British Invasion was underway, transforming the record business, radio, and popular culture itself in ways that made it difficult for a lot of artists who had flourished beforehand to thrive afterward. The sunny pop of the early Invasion period was in some ways the spiritual opposite of Sherman’s heavily Jewish comedy. (Sherman proved it later in 1964 by recording a song called “Pop Hates the Beatles.”) After several more poorly selling albums, Sherman’s showbiz career ended in 1966 after Warner Brothers dropped him. He was already suffering from emphysema and financial difficulties by that time, and he died in 1973, 10 days shy of his 49th birthday.

Sherman’s schtick lives on in the work of Weird Al Yankovic, who lists Sherman as one of his influences. And any one of Sherman’s first three albums would be a good place for a Sherman newbie to start. There’s “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah!,” of course, and “Pop Hates the Beatles,” sung in the sort of gritted-teeth manner that makes clear Sherman knows he’s lost the battle and the war. Like Yankovic, Sherman frequently recorded parody medleys, in which he’d take off on several songs one verse at a time, such as “Shticks of One and Half a Dozen of the Other.”

But considering that the holiday season is here, it’s probably time to listen again to “The 12 Gifts of Christmas,” which was released for Christmas 1963. I suspect younger people won’t get all of the references, but no matter what your age, you have certainly received a bewildering gift or two, and “The 12 Gifts of Christmas”  effectively captures the feeling of receiving one—for example, a statue of a lady with a clock where her stomach ought to be.

(You know the “lady” version, but the original release called her “a naked lady with a clock where her stomach ought to be.” The word “naked” was, of course, far beyond the pale for radio in 1963, so the word was edited out before the single went into wide release.)

This post is rebooted from one I wrote on Sherman’s birthday in 2006. Shortly afterward, I heard from author Mark Cohen, who was then working on a biography of Sherman. The book, Overweight Sensation: The Life and Comedy of Allan Sherman, was published in 2013. Other recommended reading about Sherman includes Professor O’Kelly’s 2017 piece about him, which has many more music links and is generally much better than what you are reading right now.

November 24, 2005: Lonely No More

On By jbIn One Day in Your Life3 Comments
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(Pictured: Mariah Carey plays the halftime show in Detroit on November 24, 2005.)

November 24, 2005, is a Thursday. It is Thanksgiving Day. In New York City, sustained winds over 20 miles per hour require balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade to fly lower than usual. A balloon featuring the red and yellow M&Ms characters tangles in a utility pole, and two sisters from Albany, New York, are injured by falling debris. Two other balloons suffer wind damage. Stars appearing and/or performing in the parade include Carrie Underwood, Kristin Chenoweth, Michael Feinstein, and the Beach Boys. Tonight, network newscasts lead with stories about Thanksgiving Day in New Orleans, still suffering from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in September. In Canada, opposition leader Stephen Harper introduces a motion of no-confidence in the government of Prime Minister Paul Martin; if the resolution passes in Parliament next week, it would trigger new elections. After a week in which he pardoned two turkeys and met with the prime minister of Austria, President George W. Bush is at home in Crawford, Texas, where he makes phone calls to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Celebrity couple Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey issue a statement announcing that they will separate after three years of marriage. Actor Pat Morita, famous for his role in The Karate Kid movies and on Happy Days, dies at age 73. In Pahrump, Nevada, the local newspaper reports on a recent influx of counterfeit $10 bills.

In the National Football League, Atlanta beats Detroit 27-7, blowing the game open in the second half following a halftime performance by Mariah Carey. Denver runs its record to 9-and-2 with a 24-21 win over Dallas. The Broncos get a field goal on the first possession of overtime; the Cowboys never touch the ball. In the NBA, Indiana beats Cleveland 96-78 and Los Angeles beats Seattle 108-96; in the latter game, Kobe Bryant leads all scorers with 34 points. Last month, the National Hockey League resumed play following the cancellation of the 2004-05 season due to the owners’ lockout of the players. Today, the New York Rangers, Nashville Predators, and Vancouver Canucks all win. On TV tonight, ABC presents A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and the theatrical movie Finding Nemo; after football, CBS presents Survivor, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Without a Trace. NBC’s lineup includes a Thanksgiving episode of the Friends spinoff Joey and two episodes of The Apprentice. FOX primetime is devoted entirely to the theatrical movie Daddy Day Care starring Eddie Murphy. CBS wins the night, doubling and tripling the audience shares of its broadcast competitors.

On the new Billboard Hot 100, which will come out on Saturday. “Run It!” by Chris Brown knocks “Gold Digger” by Kanye West and Jamie Foxx out of the #1 spot. “My Humps” by the Black Eyes Peas holds at #3. Two songs are new in the Top 10: “Laffy Taffy” by D4L at #7 and “Stickwitu” by the Pussycat Dolls at #9. The top song on Billboard‘s Adult Contemporary chart is “Lonely No More” by Rob Thomas, in its 15th week at the top; it has a long way to go to catch Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway,” which spent 21 weeks at #1 AC, 20 of them consecutive, between March and July. Keith Urban is #1 on the Billboard country chart with “Better Life,” in its sixth week at the top. For the ninth straight week, there’s a new album atop the Billboard 200, This week it’s The Road and the Radio by Kenny Chesney, knocking out the compilation album Now 20. The Rolling Stones bring their Bigger Bang tour to Denver with Jason Mraz opening. Bob Dylan wraps up a five-night stand in London, while the Everly Brothers play the Royal Albert Hall. Phil Collins plays a show in Prague.

Perspective From the Present: We drove to Mother and Dad’s on the morning of this day, and they were thrilled to have us stay over for two nights—although maybe less so after Ann came down with a violently bad flu on Thursday night. Instead of going Black Friday shopping, she spent the day in bed, although she was sufficiently recovered to go out on Saturday. It snowed on Friday; I slid into town to tutor a friend’s kid for his upcoming ACT, and did a little work on a freelance assignment.

And now, the Thanksgiving weekend has come again. Thanksgiving Day is, as I wrote in my journal that week, “one of the days by which I mark the progress of my life.” I am not sure if you can call what I’ve made to this point 18 years later “progress,” but here we are.