Patti Page - Christmas With

You'll have to bear with me today. My election day duties yesterday have totally wiped me out and I'm trying to get my footing. If the prose doesn't flow like in entries past, you'll know why.

I was extremely lucky back in September to find this CD on eBay. In past auctions, this CD frequently sold for $75 and up but thanks to the iPod revolution, compact discs have lost the collectibility factor and aren't selling - CDs now outweigh vinyl in many Goodwills and Salvation Army stores.

Let's get the confusing part out of the way first. There is another CD readily available with the same title from Columbia Records which is from her 1965 album. This has eleven songs and is a good Christmas album with lush sounds all around.

The 1995 Mercury release you are looking at was originally released in 1951 as a 10" LP (eight songs). It later became a full length 12" LP in 1955 (for some nifty artwork and some samples of the music, check out this Patti Page entry at Rock Over Graceland) and includes the bonus cut of "Boogie Woogie Santa Claus" that was released as the B-side to "The Tennessee Waltz" in 1950.

By far, this is the better of the two albums you could hope for. It's bouncy one moment (track one - "Jingle Bells"), solemn the next (track two - "Silent Night"), and Patti's voice is just a marvel handling both tasks.


Gonna have a lie down... sorry for the abbreviated entry.


Capt