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

What a great thread! I'm really enjoying reading everyone's lists! Here's mine:

1) The Soulful Strings, The Magic of Christmas (1968): This one hits the sweet spot between jazz, funk, and easy listening. Features the all-time great jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby.
2) Arthur Lyman, Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas) (1964): The only full-length exotica holiday album (of which I'm aware). Moody and low-key classic.
3) Jackie Gleason, Merry Christmas (1956): The saddest Christmas album ever, which really captures the mood of those of us who are ambivalent about the holiday. The version of "Jingle Bells" will make you want to kill yourself. Highly recommended.
4) James Brown, A Soulful Christmas (1968): The Godfather cut three Christmas albums during his prime, of which this is the second. Tons of vintage funk tracks that hold up to his secular albums of the period!
5) The Three Suns, A Ding Dong Dandy Christmas! (1959): A great space age pop Christmas record with off-kilter, wacky arrangements! Be sure to buy the Living Stereo version of it, as the early stereo soundscape is fantastic!

 

These are stellar picks and some great ones that many people might not be aware of too. I just got the Soulful Strings album a few months ago as it was the only RGM release from a few years ago that I had not bought, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it.

I really like The Three Suns as well as A Ding Dong Dandy Christmas is a kick in the pants. Once again, Real Gone Music did a great job with the Living Stereo version on CD. Another must have for those who like something fun and different. Reminds me of how I feel about The Ventures Christmas album.

 

Thanks for your kind reply! I'm excited to read that The Soulful Strings and The Three Suns albums have been reissued on CD! I own the LPs, but it's great that others can discover them without a huge amount of effort to find playable albums from so long ago.

Thanks for starting such a great thread, as well as resurrecting that John Klein album! We had a carillon on my college campus, and I always thought of the Klein albums (Christmas or otherwise) when someone played it. I really enjoy his collaboration with Sid Ramin, The New Sound America Loves Best (1960).

 

Your welcome and it is my pleasure and joy to get to share all these great picks that people like yourself came up with too! I always find something I was not even aware of and this thread is no exception. Yes indeed, the John Klein project has been a true labor of love and it took me almost two years to get it done. Wow, and Mr. Piacentini's remastered version of A Christmas Sound Spectacular is wonderful sounding to say the very least. I am really enjoying listening to Mr. Klein's second holiday album as well that is included on this great twofer CD by Real Gone Music. I too love the sound of both of those beautiful carillons on each of Klein's holiday albums, but that rhythm section and orchestra on A Christmas Sound Spectacular really blows me away.

 

The original Robert Shaw Chorale Christmas Songs and Carols was a collection of four 78 rpm singles in an album released in 1946, credited to "Victor Chorale, Robert Shaw, conductor." It then was released as a box set of four RCA Red Seal 45s in 1949; first pressings are credited to the RCA Victor Chorale. In 1950, the four-record set was issued as one 12-inch LP, finally credited to the Robert Shaw Chorale.

What most people don't know is that when Shaw re-recorded Christmas Hymns and Carols for stereo, several of the carols had different arrangements than the original album. "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" is one I know for sure that is different between the two versions.

After the stereo re-record, the original version of the album was reissued on the Camden label under the title Joy to the World.

 

Well first of all, I am very envious of the size of your Christmas collection. Secondly, your top choices are impeccable and you obviously have superior taste in music. The Percy Faith and Johnny Mathis Christmas albums are essential picks in any great collection from the Golden Age of Christmas. Oh, that Christmas Wonderland album by Bert Kaempfert is fantastic as well!

 

Grants released eight volumes of A Very Merry Christmas, one each year from 1967 through 1974. I have all eight of them, and it's easy to tell that the chain was starting to struggle near the end as the number of tracks dropped from 14 to 12 to a mere 10 the last several years.

 

The Nutcracker is the full ballet. If you collect those old LP's , be careful about going by the covers, Mercury switched them around. The Andy Williams set was the 3-fer from Real Gone Music.

 

Received my copy of Christmas Sound Spectacular. It's an album that gets better with each listen. 1500 bells in Living Stereo for Christmas....what a concept! Naturally, they had to include a handful of "bell" songs like "Carol of the Bells", "Silver Bells", "I Heard the Bells...." which they pulled it off wonderfully, as they did with the other Christmas standards. Real Gone did a great job with the CD. The liner notes are beautifully done.

The bonus album Let's Ring the Bells All Around the Christmas Tree is fine (and I'm glad to have finally heard it), but not quite the classic that is Christmas Sound Spectacular.

 

Sold!

 

This one is kind of obscure and not considered a classic, but it has sentimental value in our family. I was just a young boy who went grocery shopping with my Dad one December night around 1962. This album was in a bin in the grocery store and on sale for about 52 cents. My Dad bought it and it became one of the most played albums in our house each Christmas after. It's a charming album featuring a children's choir under the direction of Don Janse accompanied by his wife, Helen, on the organ. I have since discovered that the album was released with several different album covers; I picked up a mint condition copy on ebay. I'm curious if anybody is familiar with this album:

 

To my mind this was the real beginning of prog rock, and not just because ELP used the same tune:

 

Thank you so much Brian for that great post and the shout out for my liner notes. I have got to tell you that I thought I could whip out those liner notes in a day or two, but after several weeks of research there was just so much novel and historical information about the recording of the album and Mr. Klein's very eclectic background that I wanted to get it all in and give him credit for the truly one of a kind masterpiece that he contributed to this unsurpassed age of glorious Christmas music.

I agree with you also that repeated listening just makes the album get better and better. As a younger person I was focused a lot on the uniqueness of the bells meshing with the beautiful orchestra, which is indeed truly a sonic wonder, but now I focus in a lot on the fantastic group of New York studio musicians on the great rhythm section as well. I really dig that acoustic bass, drums and guitar work featured throughout the album as I think this makes it standout as well from most of the great instrumental albums of the time that really focused almost solely on the strings or horns in their marvelous arrangements.

I also totally agree with your observation that as much as I enjoy the great orchestral arrangements of Henri René on the second album, and that one has definitely grown on me too, it cannot match the brilliance and iconic nature of the first album for many reasons as I point out in the liner notes. It is just very hard to follow up something so unique, no matter how great the effort was intended by Mr. Klein and the label. Still, the bells on the second album are a joy to hear and the orchestrations are gorgeous as well, it just does not have that element of swing and those stellar rhythm players that make the first Klein album so distinctive.

 

I just ordered Ding Dong Dandy and John Klein from Real Gone. I have a few others in the cart to take a look at as well.

I bought the Soulful Strings from Real Gone three years ago and it's a regular play at Christmas now. Fantastic disc. I'm going to check out the Gleason too. Thanks for the list.

 

You have stellar taste my friend as I have all three of those albums as well that Real Gone Music was able put out on CD for the very first time. Ding Dong Dandy is a kick in the pants to say the least and sort of the flip side of the coin of John Klein's A Christmas Sound Spectacular album, which is very sophisticated and jazzy. I love them both for different reasons and both of their iconic album covers are worth having in your collection just for the great album artwork. If those iconic album covers do not get you in the mood for Christmas, I do not think anything would.

 

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but this one (well, one side of it) from 1955 by Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians is nuts (and my all-time favorite):

 

In no particular order:
Rocky Mountain Christmas - John Denver
The Last Month Of the Year - Kingston Trio
Christmas In the Heart - Bob Dylan
We Wish You a Merry Christmas - Ray Conniff Singers
Hark! - Fab 4

Alternates for a different day in the season:
Do You Hear What I Hear? - Living Voices
Christmas - Bruce Cockburn
New Carols For Christmas - Rod McKuen
The McGarrigle Christmas Hour - Kate and Anna McGarrigle and friends
Merry Christmas, Have a Nice Life, etc. - Cyndi Lauper

 

That Williams Brothers Album is one of my all-time favourites. Clever arrangements and stunning harmonies.

Best Wishes,
David

 

This Fred Waring album is a whimsical delight and a must have from the Golden Age of Christmas. The album cover alone makes it essential to have with the iconic Norman Rockwell drawing and of course Chip Arcuri over at the YuleLog.com rates this album cover as the number one Christmas album cover of all time. The music and vocal arrangements are pretty darn great as well and although it is a mono album, the Real Gone remastering from last year does it some justice. Also included in their twofer CD is his Christmas Time album, which really was a companion album to 'Twas The Night Before Christmas, so you get two iconic albums on one great CD.

 

Wow! A person can really get their old fogey freak on here! I love all these old school Christmas records. They bring back so many fond memories of small kid times. I generally make comps for my Christmas listening pleasure rather than listen to whole albums by the same artist, drawing on as many styles as I can find. I am surprised that after 5 pages, not one mention of Doris Day's contributions to the genre. Is she not liked here? This particular track transports me straight back to my youth and going downtown to window shop. She recorded these songs several times over the years but this early 60s version is my go to.

 

This was another iconic Christmas album cover...at least around our house.

 

O Holy Night is my favorite religious Christmas song. There are way too many wonderful versions out there and this is pretty much at the top.

 

This is so beautiful it gives me goosebumps. I still stop dead in my tracks whenever I hear it.

 

This was recorded in the 50's or 60's?

 

I’ll put this one on my list. Thanks.