Classic Christmas Music's Swan Song

For me, the era of classic Christmas recordings' end is signaled by one seminal music event in 1977 when two legends met to make beautiful music together. Yes, I'm talking about the historic duet of Bing Crosby and David Bowie on their version of Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy.  Beyond that moment Christmas music entered a dismal period punctuated with a few minor bright spots.  How many modern R&B versions of This Christmas, or horribly glib rewrites of the 12 Days of Christmas, or worse yet Madonna's massacre of Santa Baby must we endure?  Funny enough though, this post is partially inspired by the recent release of a new animated cover of this 1977 classic, by non-other than Jack Black and Jason Segel.

I first read the story of this song's inception in a newspaper article published in the Edmonton Journal a few years ago.  Bing Crosby was looking for a British musician to share a duet with for his 1977 Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas, television special.  Most accounts suggest that Bing's kids suggested Bowie as a potential partner, and Bowie, who was in the midst of creating his celebrated Berlin trilogy and getting sober (after spend the the last few year a slave to a massive cocaine addiction) wanted to be involved in a project that would help him move beyond the Ziggy Stardust/Thin White Duke personas that he had been known for throughout the first half of the seventies.  Each with their personal agendas came together to make this final classic Christmas song, although it was not without some friction.

When told that Bing and the show's producers wanted to him to sing Little Drummer Boy, Bowie expressed extreme displeasure.  He hated the song (a sentiment that I completely get on board with) and asked to be given another song to sing.  Enter Ian Fraser, Larry Grossman, and Buz Kohan, who wrote Peace on Earth in under 75 minutes and arranged the two songs to compliment each other.  Bowie agreed to singing the new lyrics, and after less than an hour of rehearsal between Crosby and Bowie, Bowie's segment of the Christmas special had been laid down with little expectation that the performance would ever go beyond the special's broadcast.  Crosby died a month later, making this Christmas special the last project that he would ever complete.  Bowie continued on with his incredibly prolific career.

Since the special originally aired, the song has gone from an obscure oddity to a seasonal classic, given the poignant lyrics that still resonate today.  It is also charming to watch old guard Crosby banter with the undeniably original and strangely enduring Bowie.  Crosby wins me over more in the five minute segment than in any of the movies that I have seen him in and I could watch David Bowie pick lint out of his belly button for an hour and still be fascinated.  Here's the original segment from Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas...

A Bit of Holiday Auditory Nostalgia: Christmas Magic

The Christmas season brings out the most amazing array of seasonal music, considering the limited number of songs and the ridiculous number of covers that have been made of each.  Still there is something comforting about those old recordings made in the forties and fifties with their warm acoustic atmosphere, luscious orchestrations, and the use of a choral backing that has long since been abandoned in this age of cold, digitally manipulated music. 

As a child, my mother always used to play an old cassette copy of an LP that my grandparents used to own when she was a child.  It featured a number of orchestrated and choral numbers that to an untrained ear sounded like the usual old timey Christmas music of the era.  What distinguished it were three tracks the featured a singer who literally sounded like a grown woman trying her best to sound as if she were the most insipid five years-old to ever grace the planet.  My brother an I, not so endearingly, dubbed her the Neutered Chick.  A couple years ago I was feeling sentimental about the Neutered Chick and that whole album, and not knowing the name of the album, nor who the artists behind it were took up an evening of tenacious online research led me to both the name of the album and artist: Christmas Magic by The Hugo Winterhalter Orchestra, released in 1958.  The Neutered Chick's real name turned out to be Julie Valentine.  I managed to get a copy of the original LP (it's also available on iTunes now).

The Tracks include an orchestral version of White Christmas and Swing on a Star, the Neutered Chick singing Winter Wonderland, That's What I Want For Christmas, and I Want To Hitch  Ride With Santa Claus, and choral renditions of The Second Star To The Right, Carol of the Bells, I Saw Three Ships, Deck the Halls, I Love That Christmas Feeling, Away in a Manger, and Christmas Island.  Listening to it now, the choral tracks are the ones that really stick out the most to me (although, the Neutered Chick still holds a special place in my heart).

Upon receiving my own copy of the LP, I found a new reason to enjoy this album- the cover artwork is really great.  I enjoy the use of the old fashioned frosted glass Christmas lights draped around the girl and her beau.  It actually inspired a test photo session that a friend of mine and I held last Christmas.  I would like to fully imitate the cover with a couple at some point down the road.  If you and your significant other is interested you can always email us at info@photobombshell.com.  Here's a  sampling of the Neutered Chick.