Liberace

Artist: Liberace

LP: Christmas at Liberace's - Vol. III (7" EP)

Song: "Ave Maria"

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 Song: "Star Bright"

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I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas...but not TOO lovely, like the ones the Liberace family used to have. If you did, then you're probably one of those billionaires I heard about on the news who recently became an octillionaire during the COVID-19 pandemic, making money hand over fist while millions of Americans all over the world are struggling even to pay their rent! Shame on you!! ...unless you festooned your holiday celebration with a bunch of fabric and decorations you found in the attic, from the days when you were still only a billionaire, the way the Liberaces used to do back when the kids were young.

Wouldn't it be fun to have been included as one of the guests at the Liberace family Christmas party...back in the days when Angelina was still just Liberace's sister, and not his personal secretary?

[ Liberace: May 16, 1919 — February 4, 1987 ]

St. Nick (Performed by Just For Laughs Players)

Artist: St. Nick (Performed by Just For Laughs Players)

LP: 7" single

Song: "Jingle Bells (Laughing All the Way)"

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I can't really think of anything to say about this 1981 holiday single I found at Golden Oldies a few months ago...except maybe "hee hee," "ha ha" and, of course, "ho ho ho."

Charley Pride [1934-2020]

 

Artist: Charley Pride

LP: Christmas In My Home Town

Song: "Christmas In My Home Town"

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Song: "Santa and the Kids"

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Song: "O Holy Night"

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Country music legend Charley Pride died earlier this week from illness related to COVID-19. Reading about his career on Wikipedia just now, I learned a number of things (the number 4) about Charley that I hadn't known before: 

 

1.) Before his music career took off, Charley Pride played professional baseball! He pitched for teams in places like Memphis, Tennessee; Boise, Idaho; Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; Louisville, Kentucky; Missoula, Montana. When Charley was let go from the team in Missoula...

 

2.) Charlie Pride and his family lived in Helena, Montana for a number of years (the number 9), from 1960 to 1969, where Charlie did hard labor in a smelter during the day, while pursuing his dreams of a career in the arts at night (sound familiar?). 

 

3.) Though I knew Charley Pride was black, of course, I'd never before considered what it must have been like for him to have to face a crowd of (it's safe to assume) mostly all-white country music fans who may not have been aware of this fact in the early days of Pride's success in the mid-to-late 1960s. According to Wikipedia: In the late summer of 1966, on the strength of his early releases, [Charley] was booked for his first large show, in Detroit's Olympia Stadium. Since no biographical information had been included with those singles, few of the 10,000 country fans who came to the show knew Pride was black, and discovered the fact only when he walked onto the stage, at which point the applause trickled off to silence. "I knew I'd have to get it over with sooner or later," Pride later remembered. "I told the audience: 'Friends, I realize it's a little unique, me coming out here — with a permanent suntan — to sing country and western to you. But that's the way it is.'" 

 

4.) Charley had 30 hits that reached the top of the country music charts in the USA, and one of them, "Kiss An Angel Good Mornin'," was also a top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 pop charts, reaching #21 in early 1972.

 

Charlie Pride's one and only Christmas album was released in 1970, and I found this pristine copy earlier today at Golden Oldies Records in Wallingford. The New York Times obituary for Charlie Pride can be found here.

 

Charley Pride

[ March 18, 1934 — December 12, 2020 ]

We will miss you, Charley.

José Melis

 

Artist: José Melis and His Orchestra

LP: Christmas With Melis

Song: "Jingle Bells"

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Song: "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"

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Song: "The Story of Christmas"

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So here's a Christmas question for ya, or even a Christmas conundrum, if you will: When someone places themselves under the mistletoe during the holiday season, do they become fair game for kissing? For anyone? Like me, for example? Especially nowadays, with the "Me too!" movement and everything, we all need to proceed with an extra level of caution when dealing with the mistletoe situation, don't you think? 

According to the LP liner notes (included below), José Melis has a wife and two kids...yet there he is on the front of my LP, gazing forth with provocative bespectacled bedroom eyes from underneath the mistletoe. Rrrrrroooowww! 

Agh-hem. Anyway. José Melis was the musical director on "The Tonight Show" from 1957 to 1962, when it was hosted by his good friend Jack Paar. (Unfortnuately, Paar was openly hostile and disrespectful to the LGBTQ community in the 1960s and '70s. No mistletoe kisses for him!)

[ Jack Parr, Hugh Downs, & José Melis on "Jack Parr Tonight Show" in 1960 ]

According to Wikipedia, part of Melis' regular routine on shows with Paar was "the telephone game," where he would "improvise a musical number based on the last four digits of an audience member's telephone number." I love this. I wonder what José would have made of "3214!"

"Christmas With Melis," released in 1958, is a popular holiday favorite in my humble Ballard apartment each year. For a little more information about the spectacularly talented Mr. Melis, you can read his 2005 New York Times obituary here.

[ José Melis: February 27, 1920 — April 7, 2005 ]

Lee Towers

Artist: Lee Towers

LP: A Christmas Song For You

Song: "A Christmas Song For You"

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Tonight I post a Christmas song for you. According to Wikipedia, Lee Towers (born in The Netherlands in 1946 with the name Leendert Huijzer) was discovered in 1975 when he became known as "The Singing Crane Mechanic" while working (repairing cranes, I assume?) on the docks of Rotterdam. I find this fascinating, but I am also rather jealous, as I have been impatiently waiting for 18 months to be discovered as "The Singing Mail-Carrier." Maybe I need to change my repertoire. I wonder what songs Leendert sang as a crane mechanic that led him to becoming discovered. Lee, if you're reading this, PLEASE TELL ME! I really could use some pointers. Tom Jones? Celine Dion? Lisa-Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force?

Anyway, Lee went on to become world-famous. This Christmas record was his second, released in 1976. It was not one of his most popular recordings, peaking only at #37 on the Dutch album charts. But Lee has had many hit records since then, and in 2019 he cut the ribbon on two residential high-rises that bear his name. I suppose this means they are officially known as "Lee Towers"...and, if Lee were ever to end up moving into the place, he would suddenly turn into a 1981 Gino Vannelli song. 

[ Lee Towers ]

The Voices of Walter Schumann

Artist: The Voices of Walter Schumann

LP: Christmas Is In the Air! [10" EP]

Song: Side Two: "Wonderful Counselor/Wolcum Yole/Mary, Mary/Winter Wonderland/Adeste Fidelis/Finale"

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There's Christmas In the Air! ...though of course it's been in the aisles at Fred Meyer since the middle of October. According to the notes on the back of this 1951 10" EP, "In creating this album, (Walter) attained an inspired objective in his brilliant career...to assemble and rehearse a group of the finest male and female voices...not for days or weeks, but for years." For some reason that brings this movie to mind, and I can't help but wonder how many wives Walter had, and how many children called him "daddy." Plus you'd think that after rehearsing for years they'd be able to come up with enough material for a full-length LP, and not just a measly 10" record, lovely though it is. Go here to find out what famous TV show theme Walter Schumann composed, and which mesmerizing classic 1950s thriller he scored.

[ The Face of Walter Schumann: October 8, 1913 — August 21, 1958 ]

The Pogues

Artist: The Pogues

LP: If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Song: "Bottle of Smoke"

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Song: "Fairytale of New York"

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I don't remember what brought The Pogues to mind earlier this week, but when they were there, I suddenly realized that I couldn't recall seeing their records in my collection lately, and I worried that perhaps I'd gotten rid of them. (I've had similar vinyl "I got rid of it" regrets in the past.) 

I thumbed through the 'P's and was relieved to find my two Pogues records still there (the other one is 1985's "Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash"), but lodged in the slight fold in the top of the plastic sleeve for this one was the corpse of a spider, enshrouded in web. Thank you, dead spider, for underlining the fact that I've neglected my Pogues albums for far too long. I gave both records a spin and they haven't aged a bit.

Described as a "British Celtic punk band," The Pogues is one of the groups I discovered while working at Budget Tapes & Records in Yakima back in 1986-1988. We got a play copy of "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" (I think this may be that same copy!) when it was released in 1987, and I was instantly hooked. There's no other band like them. "Fairytale of New York" is the most wonderfully dreary Christmas song ever recorded, and it's been stuck in my head for days!

[ The Pogues ]

Ferlin Husky

Artist: Ferlin Husky

LP: Christmas All Year Long
Song: "Jingle Bells"

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Song: "I Wish It Could Be Christmas All Year Long"

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It feels like Ferlin is getting his wish for Christmas all year long here in Seattle this weekend. We've again been walloped with snow! Realizing I had nothing for my feet to traipse around in outside besides dress shoes and tennis shoes, I brushed eight inches of cold white powder off my car this morning and slid it to Fred Meyer. I was surprised and delighted to find that shoppers hadn't snatched up all available winter boots between sizes 8 and 15 in their Friday snowpocalypse shopping spree. I wonder what kind of boots Ferlin used to wear when dashing through the snow, laughing all the way. Wikipedia doesn't say.

[ Ferlin Husky: December 3, 1925 — March 17, 2011 ]