🎄Deck the Malls PLAYLIST: Christmas Songs They Didn't Play While You Were Shopping🎅
Spanning decades & genres, you know you couldn't hear 'em all! Besides, a little "Jingle Bells" and that Mariah song go an awfully long way! Holiday songs don't have to be overbearing and monotonous!
A Little Tree-Trimming
Thirty Christmas and Holiday-themed songs, carefully curated and clustered together into three groups of around ten songs each: Rockers from the British Isles yule flip over, a set of classic artists, and a kooky dustbin of oddball tracks and wonderments, with just a bit of commentary, ‘cause that’s what we do!
The set begins and ends, though, with thematic tunes that help set the mood: Track #1 is an original from David Archuleta, “Melodies of Christmas” (which perfectly describes our Playlist) that he wrote (with a Z. Picante) when he was about 19, a year or so after he was the American Idol runner-up in the show’s 7th season in 2008.
Archuleta once told MTV News that working on an original Christmas tune came naturally: “It all happened so fast that I didn't really think about it! I mean, that was the last song we worked on and recorded,” he said (referring to his second album, Christmas From the Heart), and concluded that “It was all pretty much a rush.”
Donny Osmond’s nephew, David Osmond (pictured above), who appeared on the 8th season of Idol in 2009, sings back-up vocals on “Melodies of Christmas.”
Track #30, “And to All a Good Night,” appropriately serves us a musical hot toddy to wrap up the evening’s listening pleasures. That one and #24’s “Holiday in L.A.” are courtesy of Band of Merrymakers, a rotating (they must get dizzy)-cast, holiday supergroup created (with philanthropy in mind) by hit songwriters Sam Hollander and Kevin Griffin in 2014.
The British Make Their Holiday Mark (Tracks #2-10)
You’ll know most of these, and all are songs I was playing madly when they were first released, especially Roy Wood’s Wizzard, and anything by Ian Anderson and his merry band of musical misfits, Jethro Tull, both represented here!
Ian’s good friends, Steeleye Span (with Maddy Prior singing lead) offer their “Gaudete” (“rejoice [ye]” in Latin), a sacred carol believed to have been composed in the 16th century.
The Classics (Tracks #11-21)
“Classic” in so many ways: Song, composer, artist, message, with everyone from Springsteen to the Partridges, and the Monkees to Patti Page! With Track #11, Libera (and their director, Robert Prizeman) teach us some more Latin, with “Jubilate Deo.”
Libera appeared at Beach Boy Brian Wilson’s Lincoln Center Honors in 2007, and sang his “Love and Mercy.” We wrote about it here:
#12 takes me back to 1975: The stats say this was recorded live in concert in December 1975 at C.W. Post College in Greenvale, NY. I have no reason to doubt this, but I wish I could remember where the recording took place that we had at KLOL-FM/Houston throughout 1976. This sounds like the one we had, though!
Houston had always been an early Springsteen fan hotbed (joining Austin in that regard), and manager, Mike Appel, had given us an early recording of “The Fever” we were one of the lucky few to have (and play)! He apparently also gifted us with a recording (we had it on customary-for-radio 4-track cart) of Bruce’s “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”. Bruce was reportedly none-too-pleased with any of this!
We traveled back in time (and those details) in prose, here:
At #13, Darlene Love’s (with Cher singing background vocals) beyond-classic “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” is taken from the holy vinyl grail of Phil Spector’s 1963 Christmas album, A Christmas Gift For You. For years, bless him, David Letterman (and musical director, Paul Shaffer) would invite Darlene to sing this song every Holiday season on Dave’s NBC Late Night show. This is her final performance of the song on the show, taped on December 18, 2014. She was 73…and fabulous, with full band, strings and horns:
Cher and Darlene were reunited for “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” on Cher’s 2023 album, written about fully, here (it’s partially paywalled, but as a Christmas gift for you, it goes fully-free December 22! If you’re a Paid subscriber, enjoy it all now!):
"Christmas" Album Forecast: Sunny and Cher
#14 brings us Shirley Jones, her step-son, David Cassidy (and a host of studio singers) and their Partridge Family, on “My Christmas Card to You,” written by Tony Romeo (who was born on 1938’s Christmas Day, passing away in June ‘95 at 56). ‘Twas Romeo who wrote the Partridge’s #1 “I Think I Love You” in 1970. Cassidy fans will want to make sure they’re caught up on FR&B’s DC coverage, perhaps starting here:
#15 brings us the winter pretty….Patti Page’s (above) “Pretty Snowflakes,” from 1955.
More than willing to pick up the musical cue at #16, Willie Nelson counters with his “Pretty Paper.”
Nevertheless, “Pretty Paper” unwrapped itself on the Texan’s first Christmas album, released on Columbia Records in 1979. Willie wrote it, and Roy Orbison had a hit with it in 1963, while Willie recorded it for his first time the following year. R&B legend Booker T. Jones reprised his production chores he offered on Willie’s 1978 Stardust album by knob-twiddling ably on it.
#17. Amy Grant’s “Grown-Up Christmas List” is my favorite cover of this song (produced by Brown Bannister). I first heard it upon its release in 1992. It was originally recorded by its composer, David Foster, in 1990, and again, in ‘93. The earlier arrangement featured Natalie Cole on vocals. Joining Foster in writing the song was his wife (from 1991 to 2005), Linda Thompson-Jenner.
FR&B’s resident singer/songwriter/guitarist/recording artist/actor, Stephen Michael Schwartz was one of the earliest musicians to hire a 25-year-old Foster! In 1975, Stephen enlisted Foster to be musical director (and keyboardist) for Stephen’s RCA Album #2. That incredible story (with exclusive photos from the studio during those sessions!) can be read here, in Stephen’s own words! In case any further inducement is needed, here’s a sneak peek at one of those rare session pix from ‘75:
#18 brings us Barry Manilow, and his take on Joni Mitchell’s “River,” which originally appeared, in a completely non-Christmas setting, on her heralded Blue album in 1971. Never released as a single, it nevertheless has been widely covered. In 2021, it was ranked at #247 on Rolling Stone’s “Top 500 Best Songs of All Time.”
Barry’s cover comes from 2002, and his A Christmas Gift of Love album. In concert, Barry often prefaces the song with a rhetorical, “Can there be a worse time of the year to have a break-up than Christmas?”
Barry does what he does best—arranging—and turns Joni’s mournful ode into a heart-rending three-tissue sniffle-fest (his deft use of strings, and a subtle choir shadowing, are highlights). Listen for Barry’s call-out to the Almighty toward the end, accentuating his clenching desperation. No one else does this.
BONUS SONG!
In the early 1980s, our own Stephen Michael Schwartz wrote a Christmas song, “Merry Christmas (Wherever You Are).” The song was recorded in 1981 by L.A. AM-radio DJ, Rick Dees (he of ‘70s “Disco Duck” ignominy), a good friend of Manilow’s, who helped break Barry in the L.A. market in the mid-’70s. Barry heard Rick’s version, liked it, and sang it on a couple of Solid Gold Christmas TV Specials in the mid-‘80s.
Barry (who knows a Holiday classic when he hears one) sings Stephen’s song:
If you’re new to FRONT ROW & BACKSTAGE, meet Stephen, who, besides recording an album (at age 20) in 1974 for RCA Records, has written songs with the likes of David Pomeranz (who landed two songs with Barry that became hits) and Phil Spector-era legend, Jeff Barry (co-writer of “Be My Baby,” “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Chapel of Love,” and scores of other early rock’n’roll hits).
Get to know Stephen (and hear a rare song demo), the singer/songwriter, here:
Back to the Playlist!
#19 is a song written by The Band’s Robbie Robertson (inspired by the birth of his son, Sebastian), and done up melodically rockin’ by Daryl Hall and John Oates, “Christmas Must Be Tonight.”
Wrapping up our Classics Section are two internationally-flavored tunes (“Riu Chiu” and “Pat-a-Pan”), both recorded by David Archuleta on the album from whence we get our opening song, “Melodies of Christmas”.
For #22 and “Rui Chiu (TV Version)” though, we turn to The Monkees, with a disc made available during Record Store Day 2019, in a Limited Edition of 5,000:
“Rui Chiu” is a Spanish villancico, a common poetic and musical form of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America popular from the late 15th to 18th centuries.
David’s “Pat-a-Pan” (#21) is a French Christmas carol in Burgundian dialect, later adapted into English. It was written by Bernard de La Monnoye (1641–1728), and first published in Noël bourguignons in 1720. Its original title is “Guillô, Pran Ton Tamborin” (“Willie, Bring Your Little Drum” or “Willie, Take Your Little Drum”).
The Final 9: The Kooky & Offbeat
A specially-recorded, ‘60s-era Beach Boys radio PSA kicks off this odd-ball collection of sleigh-bell-y tunes. The aforementioned “Holiday in L.A.” leads us, appropriately, from the Valley to the beach, where Sherman Oaks’ The Hollyberries give us their Holiday wish from 2013 (surfing with a benevolent North Pole elf…hey, you do you):
The Beach Boys are back, at #26, for a song title with 14 letters, half of which are vowels! Throwing away our map, we’re sure that points us west to Hawaii!
The wacky and wonderful 80-and-a-half-year-old Martin Mull, gets up and gets down, all at the same time, with the Sondra Baskin Glee Club, and their FUNky “Santafly” at #27, soulfully birthed in 1973. The more adventurous of you can unwrap his Holiday bauble from ‘72, “Santa Doesn’t Cop Out on Dope,” by clicking on the YouTube link here. Marty would certainly want you to fully enjoy yours-elf.
The Godfather of Punk gladly Bings you the Crosby Holiday chestnut, “White Christmas,” croaking the well-known lyrics in a basso so profundo that it makes Jim Nabors sound like Tiny Tim (the ‘60s novelty singer or the Dickens of “A Christmas Carol”s tiny lad). Iggy Pop (“call me Jim”) once met this writer. One of them wrote about it here.
Cheap Trick close out our Mall-in-Fun Playlist before The Band of Merrymakers tuck us in for the silent night.
Brad, don't forget about Weird Al's "Christmas At Ground Zero!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t039p6xqutU
Hmmmm, no Rob Halford Holiday tunes?