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.
