What Are Your Top Five Christmas Albums From The Golden Age (1950's to the 1960's) ?

If you do mp3 files, you can find a lot of this stuff on the KPM brown sleeve series.

 

Here is a great KPM track in this genre that did not make it to TV Dinners: "Hollywood Holiday" by Frank Samuels. You can buy the mp3, though.

 

Sounds good. Thanks for the KPM Brown Sleeve recommendations.

 

I'll have to think more to come up with a top five, but I just bought a used vinyl mono copy of The Jack Jones Christmas Album (Kapp KL-1399). It's certainly would make a run at the top five. It is quite good and will get more plays this season. Beautifully done.

 

I agree. I like it quite a lot.

The album has also recently been released as a High Resolution 192/24 download.

 

If you want, I'll send you a PM with some track recommendations.

 

A Charlie Brown Christmas
A Jolly Christmas - Frank Sinatra
Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas - Ella Fitzgerald
The Nat King Cole Christmas Album
White Christmas - Bing Crosby

 

Hope I'm not hijacking the thread. Last year, several pages back, I mentioned that my Mom was one of the Ray Charles Singers and on Perry's TV show.

PBS is now showing a vintage Christmas variety show retrospective called A Classic Christmas - PBS Presents. There is a segment in which Perry sings "Home for the Holidays," including a section with several of the female singers (stereotypically) working in the kitchen. I was surprised to see my Mom prominently featured. She is on the left of the screen, polishing silver, and she sings a few solo lines.

The show is worth catching if you are into this kind of stuff. They will probably air it more than once in most markets.

 

I'm very familiar with the show, that particular Perry Como segment, and that particular scene in the kitchen. Actually, I've already seen it about six times! However, now that you brought this to our attention, I'm looking forward to seeing it again just to pick out your Mom!

 

Thanks for this thread. Such a treasure trove of Christmas music to explore. Most of my collection is post 50's & 60's excepting compilations, but I'll share a few:

Vince Guaraldi Trio | A Charlie Brown Christmas
The Staple Singers | The 25th Day of December
Ella Fitzgerald | Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas
V/A | The Original Soul Christmas

these last two are comps that span into the 70's and they are terrific!
Frank Sinatra | The Sinatra Christmas Album
Elvis Presley | If Every Day Was Like Christmas

 

I wish that more of those kind of shows were available in their entirety. The audience for them sure isn't getting any younger.

 

Many have already mentioned my favorites, but I'll add one more:

 

See: The Sinatra Family’s “Cool Yule” at 50 | The Official Site of Nancy Sinatra

 

Your post is just the kind of information that makes this thread really fun to follow. Thanks for posting about your Mom. Do you know if your mother sang on The Ray Charles Winter Wonderland holiday album that came out in the 1950's? That album is overdue for a remaster and release on CD. I do not think it has ever been available on a CD before, unless I am mistaken.

 

Oh, yes, definitely. A week or so ago, getTV had a Bing Crosby Christmas Marathon featuring several of his old Christmas TV Specials. It was very enjoyable and emotional. Obviously, most of the guests are now deceased and, of course, his children who were so young on the shows are now in their 60's. But the shows were so innocent and brought me back to a simpler time, a time I miss.

getTV has also been featuring similar, old Christmas TV Specials including Perry Como, Andy Williams, Johnny Cash, Mac Davis, Sonny & Cher, and Cher solo.

Several of the old, annual Perry Como Christmas TV Specials are slowly but surely being made available on DVD. They're a bit grainy and they could use some visual and audio enhancing, but at least they are out there.

 

It has been an absolute pleasure to start this thread and see everybody's great contributions to it. Most of my Christmas music for many years was post 70's and featured a lot of county and more modern pop stuff. I grew up with Johnny Mathis's Merry Christmas album and John Klein's A Christmas Sound Spectacular, so those were my mainstays for many years, and they still are my two favorite holiday albums of all time, along with Percy Faith's Music Of Christmas, which I discovered in the 1980's, and Elvis, who is my all time favorite singer. About six or seven years ago, I discovered Chip Arcuri's splendid YuleLog.com website and it opened up a whole new world of Christmas music that I fell in love with from the 1950's and 1960's or as Chip calls it, The Golden Age of Christmas. His top 500 List of the greatest Christmas albums ever is a fantastic resource for discovering truly beautiful and iconic music. I highly recommend his website. The man has been responsible for getting more of these albums from the Golden Age remastered and released on CD than anyone else in the world. He also has more knowledge about this era of music than anyone else currently living in the entire world.

 

Top five? Well, here's five that have brought me much pleasure over the years. I'm always looking for more, so I appreciate everyone else's thoughts.

• Julie Andrews and Andre Previn - A Christmas Treasure
• Harry Belafonte - To Wish You a Merry Christmas
• Charles Brown - Sings Christmas Songs
• June Christy - This Time of Year
• Various Artists (Clarence Carter, King Curtis, Otis Redding, Joe Tex, Booker T. and the MG's, Carla Thomas, Solomon Burke, William Bell) - Soul Christmas (Atco)

 

That would be theyulelog.com for his website. Thanks!

 

Thank you for posting the direct link kind Sir!

 

That is a fine list you made there, my friend. I think that June Christy's This Time Of The Year is the finest holiday album of all original songs ever made. It also features a who's who of studio musicians like famed guitarist Al Viola, known for his great work over many decades with Frank Sinatra. The great arranger/conductor Pete Rugolo did some fine big band charts for the album. His name is pretty well carved in Christmas granite, along with the legendary Nelson Riddle, for coming up with the original string arrangement for Nat King Cole's iconic holiday standard, The Christmas Song.

 

Vince Guaraldi Trio
Charlie Brown Christmas


I just have the one.

Winter season is the time of joyous enlightenment for the Navajo Nation during which elders share their cultural wisdom through oral stories and songs of
the origin of the Diné people. It is also a time to teach traditional Navajo values and ethics. Elders teach how natural foods, plants, herbs, land, animals, and all creation must be respected because it is Earth's gift for Navajo survival. Today, these cultural teachings are carried on through sacred songs, prayers, and ceremonies.

Dine' Ba'aliil of Navajoland, U S A (1974) - Canyon Records - Native American Navajo

 

I don't think so. It dates from 1956; I think the earliest she may have been involved with Perry/Ray was 1958, which I believe is when the Kraft Music Hall show debuted. I'll have to look for that album, though!

 

Must be karma because I'm listening to an mp3 rip of this album from the internet right now! Wonderful album that completely puts you in the holiday mood. I'm thinking it needs the Real Gone treatment for 2020!

 

A very meritorious idea. Real Gone Music would be the perfect label to get The Ray Charles Winter Wonderland CD remastered and reissued in high fashion.

 

Christmas with The Chipmunks 1962