The One Horse Open Sleigh (James Pierpont)--repost from 2011

Christmas Eve, and no word from Best Buy, which is allegedly transferring data from my deceased PC (the motherboard is "crap," said the tech) to my new laptop.   I'm currently on an ancient Lenovo (c. 1912-1913), and it's taking years to do anything.  But it's an old PC, so I shouldn't speak too unkindly of it.  It's a miracle that it runs at all.  Yes, I feel like tossing it down the bank, but that's my German and Irish blood speaking.

Anyway, on this creaky relic I found a zip file containing my 2011 self-recording (on my Casio WK-3800) of Jingle Bells in its original version.  This version is from the William B. Bradbury tunebook, The Victory (1872; above).  I'd wanted to do a new scan, but this... thing won't allow my Epson to do anything.  It detects the device, but that's about it.  Kudos to the machine for at least knowing that a scanner was plugged into it.

Anyway, this is what Jingle Bells initially sounded like, and I'm glad it was revised.  It's arranged for solo-and-accompaniment, and then for the chorus it goes into SATB harmony.  This raises the fascinating possibility that the chorus was intended to be sung a cappella.  That's my guess.

The chorus presented a music-reading challenge, since (in typical fashion for a 19th-century choral book) the tenor is notated at the top in the treble clef (and meant to be sung one octave lower).  But I soldiered through.  And the outlets in this room lost power a few minutes ago, and I had to flip the breaker switch off and on.  Somebody (or something) doesn't want this post to happen.  (Theremin music: Oooooo-weeeee-oooo.)  Merry Christmas, anyway!

The One Horse Open Sleigh.mp3





Lee

From 2020: A Pickwick, SPC, and Spear Records Christmas!

 So, before I could ask, "What else can go wrong?" my main desktop PC (the one set up for track-ripping, editing, etc.) conked out--and it's currently at Best Buy, getting fixed.  Well, I hope, anyway.  That is, I hope it's a fixable issue.  Naturally, I have yet to receive a progress report...

Meanwhile, on this sluggish but still-working downstairs PC, I discovered a handful of Christmas zips that I had, for some reason, downloaded here.  This is one of those zips, which was twice deleted by Workupload.  At least two repeat tracks, but...

Four Pickwick LP tracks, followed by various 45 rpm singles and EPs.  Now, let us travel back to 2020 (echo: 2020, 2020, 2020, 2020...).

This time, more kiddie stuff, some of it performed by kiddies, including three Pickwick tracks which appeared on both Playhour Records (in mono) and on this two-record set (in stereo):

The Joyous Season was a Pickwick special, by which I mean it was Pickwick at its... Pickwick-est.  Not only are there no artist credits to be found, there isn't even a label name--that is, unless The Joyous Season was supposed to pull double duty as both the set title and the label name.  With Pickwick, any act of cheapness is possible.  By the way, my copy made it to Goodwill with only one record in the fold-out packet, so I guess I could call mine The Semi-Joyous Season.  Miraculously, the single, sleeveless record is in like-new condition.  Except for the missing record, someone took good care of this.  (Maybe they never played it.)

Anyway, we get stereo versions of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Up on the Housetop, and--especially for Bryan--The Twelve Days of Christmas.  All appeared on Pickwick's Playhour label in mono mixes, and I've included the mono mix of The Twelve Days.  What's cool about this is the novelty of hearing a Pickwick children's track in actual stereo, and you can hear how the mono mix gives the voices a more strident quality.  If Pickwick had never issued The Joyous Season, we might never have had the chance to hear any of the group's kiddie efforts in stereo, so... this is cool.  It rocks my world, anyway.  My therapist told me, "Whatever excites you--so long as it's legal."

Next, Spear Records, which Discogs tells us was connected to Spear Products.  Going to Spear Products, we learn that Spear Products was connected to Spear Records.  Going to Spear Records, we learn that Spear Records was connected to Spear Products.  So, going to Spear Products, we... (Somebody stop me... Help!!)  Whew.  And, so, we--or, at least, I--know zilch about Spear Records, except that it was a very, very cheap operation which managed to convince some talented folks to record for it, which only goes to show that there are more talented people than labels to feature them.  Something like that.  The Spear sides are fun and short.  Their 45s were co-released with six-inch 78s in the manner of Golden Records.  Which was connected with Golden Products, which was connected with Golden Records, which was connected with... just kidding.

Spear's choral direction was by Hugh E. Perette, who also recorded for Mayfair and Mercury.  One of his Mayfair sides was Kiddie Konga, on which he backed June Winters (left), who was married to Hugo Peretti, one of the writers of Elvis' Can't Help Falling in Love.  What stories these cheap labels tell.

Then, Laura Leslie--who recorded Baby, It's Cold Outside with Don Cornell on RCA Victor--somehow finds herself at SPC (Synthetic Plastics Co.), recording charming but poorly pressed Peter Pan Records sides like Sleigh Ride, which I really love in this version.  Actually, I love it in any version.  I'll have to jump down so I can combine the label image with text.  Here I go.

What a cool pic label.  And someplace, buried or tucked away in all my stuff, is the cool pic sleeve for this side.  I'll have to swipe the Discogs image and see if I can coax over here, on this side. 

Well, I almost did it.  There it is, directly below.  Note the cruder but fun "period" art.  Then, one of my all-time favorite low-budget kiddie holiday sides, Sing a Kris Kringle Jingle, written by none other than J. Fred (Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town) Coots.  According to the seven-inch Peter Pan 78 I ripped, the singer is Bobby Stewart.  According to the 45 rpm edition, the singer (who gets one or two short solo spots) is Gabe Drake.  I'm going with Drake, because it's clearly the same guy who did the Prom fake-hit version of Rock Around the Clock--the best of the RATC fakes--though this assumes he was actually named Gabe Drake.

Next, La Dee Dah and Love Is Strange.  And what are these two numbers doing in a holiday playlist?

Simple--they were both issued by SPC with Christmas art on the labels.  I have no idea why.  Logic would suggest that SPC simply screwed up, or... that it ran out of regular labels and decided to use a stack of leftover Christmas-themed labels (waste not, want not).  As I'm always saying, the cheapie labels saved money on quality control by not having any.  Very clever strategy.  See labels below.

On Peter Pan, Gabby Dixon and the Crickets (pre-Buddy Holly?) give us When Santa Claus Gets Your Letter, a fairly well known song by Johnny (Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer) Marks.  And I guess I figured that Pickwick had trademarked "Crickets" and all variations thereof (Cricketones, etc.), but I'm looking for order in the cheap-label world, and I already know there's none to be found...

And here are four later (post-1950s) SPC efforts, from an EP whose sleeve art makes me cringe.  I don't know why.  Rudolph is supposed to look cute, but... I don't know.  Something's wrong with the art.  For one thing, he doesn't look like a reindeer.  Maybe that's it.  And did I say post-1950?  Yes, except for the same ol' Johnny Kay version of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, which likely showed up in so many different issues, someone could write a book about it.  Or at least a long chapter in Johnny Kay--a Discography. Kay was the SPC singer with Perry Como's voice but not his looks--he looked more like Johnny Desmond, but with less sex appeal.  Not knocking his looks--Kay had nothing to worry about in that department, but we all know that singing stars need more than excellent pipes if they're going to make it big.  Oh, and Rudolph's Christmas Party may not set new standards for terribleness, but then again... Other than Kay (who, of course, is not credited), the artists on Rudolph are the usual unknown kid singers.  We have to wonder if there was a special musician's union for uncredited artists.  

Then, we hear what I regard as the second-best recording of Carol of the Drum, under its much better known stolen title (not quite sure how to put that), The Little Drummer Boy.  This is allegedly by the Peter Pan Caroleers, but this sounds very recorded-in-Europe, and the choir is simply too good to be Peter Pan regulars.  Otherwise, I can't figure how such a superb rendition would end up on the cheapest of the kiddie labels.  It has a fairly cool picture sleeve.  Well, actually, it's not very good, really...

DOWNLOAD:  SPC, Pickwick, Spear Records Christmas.zip




Lee

Merry Christmas to All: New High Fidelity recordings of popular Christmas Hits (Audition AUD 33-5945)

 

"New High Fidelity recordings," claims Audition (Waldorf).  Well, that depends on our reading of "new."  In fact, all but one of these tracks originally appeared on two 1955 ten-inchers-Christmas Holiday and When Christmas Comes to Our House--on the Waldorf Music Hall label.  And this LP appears to be from 1959, given that Waldorf catalog numbers typically included the two-digit year.  Audition and Colortone releases tend to be from the late 1950s.

And, speaking of Colortone, the Colortone Christmas Holiday Time for Children recycled (re-recycled?) seven of these tracks, and so the sell-the-same-material-over-and-over-again train continues.  (My thanks to dc_animal for alerting me to that release.)  But, it's how the cheapies survived.  As for label head Enoch Light taking songwriting credit, along with Lew Davies, for The Night Before Christmas and Jolly Old St. Nicholas, this was standard procedure across the industry when it came to P.D. material--crediting the arranger or producer, and not the actual author and composer.  In fact, the lyrics for Jolly Old... date back to 1865.  They're by Emily Huntington Miller.  So there.  Meanwhile, Christmas Has Come Again is an old Scandinavian number called Nu är det jul igen.  On this LP, it is presented without an attribution.  Still cool.

The performers include Artie Malvin, Dottie Evans, and (of course) Enoch Light, but for this LP, the credit goes to "The Audition Studio Orchestra and Chorus."  Similarly, for the Colortone LP, the artists are (who else?) "The Colortone Studio Orchestra and Chorus."  But I've listed the actual artists in my sleighlist below, save for those of Winter Wonderland.  I can't trace the source for that recording.  There was an earlier Waldorf release of the number, but it's not the same performance.

Terrific audio quality, but cut-rate vinyl.  Still, a good rip.  And I wish they'd included that all-time classic, Santa Claus Is Flying Thru the Sky, but maybe Enoch had lost the recording rights.  Nope, nope... wait a second.  Enoch reissued it on Fairyland Records (a subsidiary of Corona Records Inc.) at around the same time as this LP, or a bit later.  So, he must have retained the rights.

Anyway, enjoy!

DOWNLOAD: Merry Christmas to All.zip

Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town--The Brigadiers Quartet, With Michael Stewart, and Enoch Light and His Orch.

Frosty the Snowman--Mike Stewart

The Night Before Christmas--Artie Malvin

Winter Wonderland--Unknown

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer--Artie Malvin

Jolly Old St. Nicholas--Michael Stewart, With Enoch Light and His Orch.

White Christmas--Waldorf Music Hall Orchestra and Chorus

Let It Snow!  Let It Snow!  Let It Snow!--Artie Malvin

When Christmas Comes to Our House--Dottie Evans With the Brigadiers Quartet

Jingle Bells--The Brigadiers Quartet and Orchestra 

Christmas Has Come Again--Enoch Light Orch. and Chorus

Lee

Christmas in one key: "Original Music Box Favorites, Volume Two" (Pickwick, 1980).

 

A pleasant group of holiday numbers played on a Regina Style 50 Music Box--from vintage music-box discs, we can assume.  And the fidelity is amazing, and not just for Pickwick--this may have been digitally recorded, especially given the release year (1980).

Howard Brinkman's liner notes are unusually elegant for this label group, even if they're the standard content hype.  Er...  Well, actually, his prose is pretty clunky.  When I first skimmed it, it seemed fancier than usual for a cheap-label essay, but on closer examination... ugh.

For instance: "The idea of authentically reproducing music and other sounds, not just mechanically producing music, is what really fed the phonograph market, not any qualitative preference."  That reads nicely, but it doesn't make much sense.  Of course, Brinkman--who wrote the liner notes for at least seventeen Pickwick albums (mostly rock)--was filling space with words on the back of a Pickwick cover, so we can excuse the nonexistent grammar of that sentence.  But can the early-20th-century public truly be faulted for preferring early sound reproduction, which only provided a rough replication of vocal and instrumental sounds, over the "crystalline voice of music boxes"?

A question we've all struggled with at some point in our lives, I'm sure.

The way I see (or, rather, hear) it is that even a crude reproduction of "real" sound (and I love early 78s to death, so please don't get me wrong) was epically more interesting and exciting than tunes played on a musical comb.  (See below.)

Which is not to dis music box technology--it was pretty amazing as a pre-recording medium.  Regina boxes sounded gorgeous, as this LP demonstrates.  But music boxes couldn't provide the sheer range of sounds, however crudely replicated, that the phonograph provided: singing voices (solo, quartet, choral), bands (marching, concert, dance), and, to an extent, authentic percussion.  As in, sort of'/kind of authentic, at least prior to electrically recorded audio.  Even a horn-recorded cymbal crash gives us a record (literally) of that audio event, whereas the bells, drums, etc. of carousel organs are mere special effects.  And I'm starting to sound like Brinkman...

It's true that, in the beginning, the phonograph couldn't yet match mechanical music for a vivid and immediate musical experience, but it offered a far greater variety of sounds, however muffled.  1905 concert band recordings, for example, sounded more like real concert bands than the fanciest carousel organ could ever approximate.  They were analog: I.e., analogous to the real-world source.  And what the heck am I babbling about?

Music boxes had a gorgeous sound, but it was the same sound from one perforated disc to another.  Also, it would seem from this set of selections that music boxes had a limited range of pitches.  Which is to say, all twelve of these selections are in the same key: F-sharp (or, if we're thinking "down," G-flat).  While ripping these, it occurred to me midway that "Hey, these all sound like they're in the same key."  Because, as I realized upon review, they are.  At first, I used a Youtube Middle C video for a reference tone, and I determined a tritone (three whole steps) difference between Middle C and the key of the Regina.  (I don't have perfect pitch, but my relative pitch is good.)  Plugging in my Casio WK-3800 (which, despite the brand, is a fine synth), I confirmed the key--F-sharp.  Or G-flat.  A weird default key for a music box, but then why not?

It's not a cut on mechanical music devices, which were state-of-the-art tech for their day, to note that the phonograph had more to offer.  Just as TV has more to offer than radio.  Then again, radio has made a comeback by way of internet radio and digital music streams (analogous to radio playlists), so maybe mechanical music will stage a comeback.  The probability seems low, but what do I know?  Hey, that rhymed...

DOWNLOAD: Original Music Box Favorites Vol. One.zip

O Holy Night

Christians Awake

Cloister Bells

Come Hither Ye Children

Under the Mistletoe Bow (Mother Goose Song)

On the Christmas Tree the Lights Are Burning

Holy City

Song of the Virgin Mary

Still Night Holy Night

Monastery Bells

Good King Wenceslas

Skaters Waltz

Lee

"Christmas Favorites," from Promenade. Or, what do MINT SPC pressings sound like?

 

This is complicated.  This four-EP Promenade set, wherein most of the sides are titled Christmas Favorites, is a fascinating hodgepodge of Lord-knows-what-source-LP-or-EP-set selections, with Santa Claus himself (sounding like Art Carney with a respiratory virus) turning up on the A side of the fourth EP to narrate the story of Christmas.  A quick Discogs search failed to reveal the original source for this track--or any of the others.  And, as usual, the audio quality is quite good, for the most part (though several selections are accompanied by annoying hum, which I didn't try to suppress, since doing so detracts from the fidelity), but the pressings are garbage, basically.  I previously described the sound-editing hassle involved, and so I won't say anything more about the hideous, day-ruining, "I'd love to smash these things into tiny particles" frustration I endured.  No point in revisiting that sheer Hades-on-Earth experience.  From which I'll never fully recover, probably.  But no point in describing it.

  
And now Blogger is creating larger-than-usual paragraph breaks. What the...?  It already decided to divert this blog's comments to my gmail account, and after informing me that I had turned off the comment notification feature (I had not).  And, on line, there is an explanation of this action on Google's part.  Essentially, the idea is to inconvenience its users for the sake of "security."  "We'll make this service more secure by not allowing you to utilize it."  I tend to doubt that inconveniencing customers does anything to hamper the efforts of hackers.

Anyway, the topside sleeve/mailing wrapper/envelope, which is for a completely different EP set, was used by the eBay dealer who shipped these mint-in-sleeves records.  And I had to wonder, did the mismatch originated with SPC?  In fact, did this EP set ever have its own sleeve?  Or any sleeve, period?

And, after searching eBay and Discogs, it does appear that these were released without a mailing envelope/sleeve, which seems hugely improbable, but then we're talking about a famously ultra-cheap label group.

Though mint, these discs feature all the pressing flaws we expect from the Synthetic Plastics Company of New Jersey, which I won't go into.  Except to note the following: Loud surface noise at the close of each track, pressing faults which necessitated umpteen file splices to remove, and... so on.  But these are stressors to be removed from my memory.  No point in dwelling on the visit-to-Hades nature of this audio-rescue effort.  So I won't.

But, despite all these things (which I refrained from noting), this is a hugely fun set.  The performances are mostly fine, and as noted above, the fidelity WOULD be terrific if not for the vinyl issues.  And I find these Franken-presentations perversely gratifying.  The let's-just-cobble-something-together aspect of budget collections is kind of endearing, I think.  Yes, the budgets all lied and claimed to offer a superior product, but what's a little truth-flipping?  As far as that goes, what IS truth?  We want to regard truth as an empirically testable feature of the natural world, but it's undeniably also, to a degree, something intangible.  But we won't discuss this.  I don't want to sound like I'm professing any version of, "Reality is simply what we perceive it to be."  Then again, what if that's the case?  But I won't go there...

DOWNLOAD: Christmas Favorites--Promenade EP set.zip

Santa Claus is Coming to Town; Jingle Bells; Adeste Fideles--Promenade Orch. and Chorus

Winter Wonderland--Billy Reed, Promenade Orchestra

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer; Deck the Hall; Good King Wencelas (sic); God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen; Joy to the World--Promenade Orchestra and Chorus

Home for the Holidays--Frank Moon With the Promenade Orchestra

White Christmas; Silent Night; O Little Town of Bethlehem--Promenade Orch. and Chorus

Nuttin' for Christmas--Bob Stain With the Promenade Orch. and Chorus (originally credited on the Peter Pan single to "Bobby Stewart")

Frosty the Snowman; It Came Upon a Midnight Clear; Away in a Manger; The First Noel; Hark the Herald Angels Sing--Promenade Orch. and Chorus

Sleigh Ride--Laura Leslie With the Promenade Orchestra

Lee