Today I thought I'd share a few thoughts on one of my favorite subjects, Christmas music done by 'our' artists. As many of you know, each day for a couple of weeks leading up to Christmas, I post one of these tunes on Facebook. I try to hit some of the best and most fun songs, and a few that are a little more obscure but still bring a smile to my face.
Now, like most of us 'born in the 50's' kids, my sister and I heard plenty of Christmas music in our home during the holiday season. Dad and Mom had musical tastes that were, for the most part, pretty much mainstream for their generation. Dad loved big band music, he especially had a fondness for Gene Krupa (as Dad had played drums for a time), and Glenn Miller. Mom was a Lawrence Welk fan, along with our Grandmother and Aunt (who lived with us at the time), and she also loved the traditional carols as done by Bing Crosby, Johnny Mathis, and Dean Martin - whose show was really 'must see' tv in our house.
Ginny and I loved these songs as well, and we got to hear and sing them in school. I remember Miss Trutken (sp), the music teacher at Stratford School teaching us kids to sing "Silver Bells" when I was in maybe 5th grade. Some of the kids in class got to actually ring small bells during the song, and boy, that hooked me! To this day, that song is still one of my favorite Christmas songs.
So we listened to, and sang, the traditional songs - we even had a couple of Christmas songs on the player piano rolls that we played when our relatives came over. And every once in a while, we'd get a bunch of our friends together and wander through the neighborhood, ringing doorbells and assaulting the ears of our neighbors by 'going Christmas caroling'. Yeah, just what people getting ready for Christmas want; 8 to 10 kids standing in front of their door screaming "Jingle Bells" or "We Wiiiiiiish you a Merry Christmas" off key and at the top of their lungs!
And then, slowly, over time, there was a change. When I was about 10, Dad came home one day with a gift for me; a small, AM band Koyo transistor radio. It was green and tan, came with a 'leather' case which was perforated on the front where the speaker was, and included a 9 volt battery and an ear phone for private listening. I was thrilled! Like most kids of that age, I was instantly hooked, and radio became (and still is) a big part of my life. I spent countless hours running up and down the dial, listening to every station that the little 8 transistor circuit could pull in, learning what format each station played. It quickly became evident that the 'cool' kids listened to 3 stations; 570 WMCA (home of the 'good guys'), 770 WABC (home of the 'All Americans'), and 1010 WINS. Each of these stations played top 40 rock and roll, and man, back in '63, the music was really jumping! I remember distinctly when "My Boyfriend's Back" was running up the charts, you couldn't go more than 10 or 12 minutes without hearing it on one of those stations! And Dion, man, "Donna (the prima donna)", what a cool song that was! Some doo-wop mixed in, and these surfer kids, The Beach Boys, they sounded great also. The Crystals, Ronettes, all the great groups and their signature sounds, man, I walked around with that little radio glued to my ear for hours on end! One of my biggest challenges was to somehow acquire enough 9 volt batteries to keep the thing playing all day. Remember, this was way before 'alkaline' batteries hit the market, and a typical plain old 9 volt battery didn't last very long, especially when the radio was on for hours on end. That was alleviated a bit when Dad, who must have been really tired of my constantly whining that I 'need' a battery, brought home a combination battery charger/ac power source. You could put your dead or almost dead battery on this thing and it would sort of recharge it, and there was a wire coming out of the other end that you could use to power the radio while the battery charged. Of course, the thing had to be plugged in to an a/c outlet, so you couldn't wander around like you could when the radio was using the battery, but, still, it gave you some flexibility and reduced somewhat, the need for all those batteries.
The months roll on, and we go from summer to fall, tunes change, and we've got Randy & The Rainbows doing "Denise", Jan & Dean with "Surf City", Trini Lopez doing "If I Had a Hammer" - great stuff! And so many different styles of music! Right next to "Surfin' USA", you might hear Nat 'King' Cole's "Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer", then Rolf Harris with "Tie Me Kangaroo Down"! We really had it great, three stations playing all sorts of wonderful music, and while we really loved the rock, we learned to appreciate other styles as well.
Skip ahead to late fall, sometime after Thanksgiving. I'm sitting around my room one day after school, probably avoiding doing my homework while listening to the radio, and I hear an amazing sound. It takes me a minute, but I recognize the tune almost immediately - it's Santa Claus is Coming To Town - but man, does it sound DIFFERENT! It's got a major rock and roll backbeat, great drums and saxophone work - it's amazing! But who the heck is doing it? Yeah, on comes the DJ (probably 'Big' Dan Ingraham), who tells me it's The Cyrstals! A rock and roll group doing a Christmas song! And I'm hooked. Immediately. This is like way cool, it's a great, fun, traditional song, but with 'our' kind of tempo and rhythm! Over the next few days, one by one, I hear all the tracks of the now legendary "A Christmas Gift For You" album (mostly referred to as the Phil Spector Christmas Album). I hear The Ronettes doing "Sleigh Ride";  Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans with "Here Comes Santa Claus", and the incredible voice of Darlene Love belting out "Marshmallow World", "White Christmas", and "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)". And I fall in love with each and every one of them! I spend the next several weeks scouring the radio dial listening for these songs - 570...770....1010...back and forth I'd spin the dial hoping to hear one of these new, and somewhat cool, songs. This spinning the dial back and forth by the way, was great practice for what was to come early in 1964, when all we kids wanted to hear was this new group from England, the one with the unusual hairstyles; you know who I'm talking about!
Anyway, Christmas comes and goes, and so does this great music. Until next year, when, around the same time, I hear one of those songs, and I'm again in love with it. Then, a couple of hours later, there's a different one - something called "Merry Christmas Baby", and I immediately recognize the group, it's The Beach Boys! And on and on it goes, 1965 brings "The Ventures Christmas Album", featuring what is possibly the silliest (and coolest) song ever, their version of "Sleigh Ride" (done to the tune of "Walk, Don't Run"). Then along come The Royal Guardsmen with "Snoopy's Christmas", and on and on it goes, songs that express my love of all things Christmas, done by artists that I can relate to, just as Mom and Dad relate to their favorite artists.
Through the years, my love for these songs has grown to the point where I can't wait to pop my Ventures "Christmas Joy" CD into the car's audio system, and listen to those silly, but lovingly done, songs, over and over. Booker T. & The MG's doing "Jingle Bells"? Love it. Frankie and The Four Seasons "Santa Claus is Coming To Town"? Ditto. Bobby Helms, Brenda Lee, all those great 50's artists doing their songs, "Jingle Bell Rock", "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", Chuck Berry's "Run Rudolph Run" - love 'em all!
And, now, also, I really appreciate a lot of the artists Mom and Dad loved. Yeah, The Ventures "Sleigh Ride" makes me smile and laugh each and every time I hear it; so does the original by Leroy Anderson (and the Johnny Mathis version); I love The Drifters "White Christmas" - and also Bing Crosby's. And nobody, nobody, does "Let It Snow" like Dean Martin, a truly great entertainer.
My sons have heard more times than they care to, how important music has been to me, how it's accompanied me in my life's journey, through good times, and bad. How it's added to my happiest moments, comforted me in my saddest moments, and how a day gone by without some joyous music in it seems like a wasted day to me. I know I got my love of music from my family, from the way we gathered around our old player piano, to the way Lawrence Welk, Dean Martin, and all of the great musical/variety shows played on our television set night after night, week after week. And that little 8 transistor radio that Dad brought home so many years ago, a simple little gift that fed my love of music, and really changed the way I look at life. Seems a little important to remember and reflect on things like that at this time of year. So, go crank up your record player, your cassette player (you young kids, send me a note and I'll explain what those are), your CD player, your MP3 player, or whatever device you use to listen to music, enjoy the music that YOU cherish at this time of year, and do your best to pass your love of that music, of all music, along to others in your life. Merry Christmas to you all!