A little quiet around the yuleblog...

Folks, it's been a busy time for me lately... My birthday was last Sunday and I'm mulling my options on what Christmas CDs to purchase (any ideas?). I'm also doing some side work for the theater group I'm involved with here in Fort Wayne. And I still have a stack of Christmas CDs I need to review here at the yuleblog and catalog into my collection.

On top of all of this, I have been preparing for FaLaLaLaLa.com's annual Christmas in July celebration by transferring deserving Christmas vinyl to digital files so I may share with you good brethren of the Christmas music faith... some real winners & losers in my LP stack... can't wait to share!

More will be posted here soon... promise!


Capt

A little quiet around the yuleblog...

Folks, it's been a busy time for me lately... My birthday was last Sunday and I'm mulling my options on what Christmas CDs to purchase (any ideas?). I'm also doing some side work for the theater group I'm involved with here in Fort Wayne. And I still have a stack of Christmas CDs I need to review here at the yuleblog and catalog into my collection.

On top of all of this, I have been preparing for FaLaLaLaLa.com's annual Christmas in July celebration by transferring deserving Christmas vinyl to digital files so I may share with you good brethren of the Christmas music faith... some real winners & losers in my LP stack... can't wait to share!

More will be posted here soon... promise!


Capt

Merry Christmas From (Coral Records)

The album you see before you is the second sampler that Ernie offered at his blog Ernie (Not Bert) during the 2005 Christmas download season.

Coral Records was a subsidary of the mighty Decca Records. Back in their heyday, Coral released many jazz and swing band singles, then R&B singles, and made the transition to rock-n-roll by signing a young kid out of Lubbock, TX by the name of Buddy Holly.

According to the liner notes of this extended play 45:

"Here is a genuine novelty - a novelty which will be a standard for many years to come. Here are eight new Christmas songs sung by new (or comparatively new) artists who, like the songs, are definitely here to stay. All of the songs have a unifying theme - the perennial spirit of Yuletide - and all of them are new this year. They are true "firsts" in every sense: new titles, new words, new music, and interpretations which, while new, will never grow old."

Using this info, I've estimated that this sampler was released at Christmas time, 1952.

Here's a track-by-track review:

1.) The Ames Brothers - Sing A Song Of Santa Claus
A fun, rollicking song sung perfectly by the Ames boys... This song doesn't sound old to me...

2.) The Ames Brothers - Winter's Here Again
Another jingley, jangley song that's sometimes reminiscent of the Mills Brothers... Great stuff!

3.) Don Cornell - Let's Have An Old Fashioned Christmas
This guy's belting it out even in the soft tender moments... a little scary!

4.) Don Cornell - I've Got The Christmas Spirit
He sure does! This one's bold, brassy, and loud... Cornell's singing is perfectly matched here!

5.) Eileen Barton - The Little Match Girl
The classic tearjerker based on Hans Christian Anderson's famous tale... yawnnnnn.

6.) Eileen Barton - The Night Before Christmas Song
A very nice version of this song... whatever happened to Eileen Barton?

7.) Johnny Desmond - (You Can Just Feel) Christmas In The Air
Ooohh sooo smoooooth! Everything is perfect in this song: the vocals, the strings, the arrangement!

8.) Johnny Desmond - Christmas Is A Time (That Will Never Change)
I deem this the perfect slow dancing Christmas song - use in your house when the snow is falling and all the lights are off with the exception of the Christmas tree lights and a warm fire.


If I had purchased this sampler back in 1952, I would have sought out anything by the Ames Brothers and Johnny Desmond. Upon listening to it in 2006, I will be seeking out Barton, Cornell, and especially Desmond. Anyone out there know if any of these artists ever released full length Christmas LPs or CDs?

The Ames Brothers released Christmas music that's easily available and Ed Ames released several solo Christmas records when he wasn't throwing tomahawks on the Johnny Carson show. Give the Ames a listen... fun stuff!

On to the next new Christmas CD in my collection...


Capt

Merry Christmas From (Coral Records)

The album you see before you is the second sampler that Ernie offered at his blog Ernie (Not Bert) during the 2005 Christmas download season.

Coral Records was a subsidary of the mighty Decca Records. Back in their heyday, Coral released many jazz and swing band singles, then R&B singles, and made the transition to rock-n-roll by signing a young kid out of Lubbock, TX by the name of Buddy Holly.

According to the liner notes of this extended play 45:

"Here is a genuine novelty - a novelty which will be a standard for many years to come. Here are eight new Christmas songs sung by new (or comparatively new) artists who, like the songs, are definitely here to stay. All of the songs have a unifying theme - the perennial spirit of Yuletide - and all of them are new this year. They are true "firsts" in every sense: new titles, new words, new music, and interpretations which, while new, will never grow old."

Using this info, I've estimated that this sampler was released at Christmas time, 1952.

Here's a track-by-track review:

1.) The Ames Brothers - Sing A Song Of Santa Claus
A fun, rollicking song sung perfectly by the Ames boys... This song doesn't sound old to me...

2.) The Ames Brothers - Winter's Here Again
Another jingley, jangley song that's sometimes reminiscent of the Mills Brothers... Great stuff!

3.) Don Cornell - Let's Have An Old Fashioned Christmas
This guy's belting it out even in the soft tender moments... a little scary!

4.) Don Cornell - I've Got The Christmas Spirit
He sure does! This one's bold, brassy, and loud... Cornell's singing is perfectly matched here!

5.) Eileen Barton - The Little Match Girl
The classic tearjerker based on Hans Christian Anderson's famous tale... yawnnnnn.

6.) Eileen Barton - The Night Before Christmas Song
A very nice version of this song... whatever happened to Eileen Barton?

7.) Johnny Desmond - (You Can Just Feel) Christmas In The Air
Ooohh sooo smoooooth! Everything is perfect in this song: the vocals, the strings, the arrangement!

8.) Johnny Desmond - Christmas Is A Time (That Will Never Change)
I deem this the perfect slow dancing Christmas song - use in your house when the snow is falling and all the lights are off with the exception of the Christmas tree lights and a warm fire.


If I had purchased this sampler back in 1952, I would have sought out anything by the Ames Brothers and Johnny Desmond. Upon listening to it in 2006, I will be seeking out Barton, Cornell, and especially Desmond. Anyone out there know if any of these artists ever released full length Christmas LPs or CDs?

The Ames Brothers released Christmas music that's easily available and Ed Ames released several solo Christmas records when he wasn't throwing tomahawks on the Johnny Carson show. Give the Ames a listen... fun stuff!

On to the next new Christmas CD in my collection...


Capt

A Christmas Sampler (Westminster Records)

Many years ago, I worked for the Musicland Group. Under this umbrella were music stores such as Musicland and Sam Goody. Media Play was a combo music/video/book store, and Suncoast Motion Picture Company, where I worked as a store manager, was videos, DVDs, and other movie related items.

One of the only perks as a store manager were the wonderful items the record and video companies used to distribute at annual meetings as their way of appreciation for all the work we did selling their product.

I picked up several Christmas samplers from various record companies (Rhino, Columbia, Capitol) during my time there and have sought out other promo compilations from other companies via eBay and other sources.

Samplers usually contain some of the finest material anywhere or contain repackaged drudge that you really could have done without. Whenever I see the word "Sampler" on anything, I'm very wary.

So when I saw this sampler album (one of two samplers) being offered by Ernie at his blog, I was thrown for a loop. I knew samplers existed back in the day, of course, but how many times have you seen one in this day and age? And I had never heard of Westminster Records... was it a fly by night outfit or an overlooked, forgotten label of the day?

Back in 1949, James Grayson was a New York City businessman and music lover who travelled to the Westminster Record shop, a well respected classical music shop owned by Mischa Naida. Along with music conductor Henry Swoboda, they were frustrated over the lack of quality classical records being put out by the Big Four record companies - Decca, RCA Victor, Columbia, and Capitol.

With plenty of money from Grayson, a place to sell and distribute albums thanks to Naida, and musical expert Swoboda selecting the music to release, they took the name off the window and created Westminster Records.

Their first release came in April 1950 and soon the label got a great reputation as a "major minor" label. Most of their early releases came from Switzerland and soon they were discovering new talents in classical music. Some of these early discoveries were Maurice Abravanel, Jan Peerce, a young pianist named Daniel Barenboim (who would lead major symphonies later in his career), and a younger opera singer named Beverly Sills whose first recording was on Westminster.

Early on, Westminster released two Christmas albums - "A Merry Wurlitzer Christmas" by Dick Leibert, the long time organ player at Radio City Music Hall and "Adventures In Carols" recorded by a young duo named Ferrante & Teicher.

I'm not sure when this sampler album (any guesses Ernie?) was released but it does have tracks from both the Leibert and Ferrante & Teicher albums. Other artist tracks include the Cathedral Bellringers, the Collegium Musicum, the Randolph Singers, the Brooklyn Museum Children's Choir ("Joy To Da Woild..."), and even Basil Rathbone reciting Isaiah 40: 1 - 5 from the album "The Christmas Story in Carols".

(Click on image to enlarge)

The Ferrante & Teicher album has been available at many places on the Internet. There are some long lost Christmas albums on the back of this sampler... I would love to find or hear some of them.

End of history lesson: Westminster Records could no longer compete with the likes of Elvis and Ricky by the early 1960s. ABC Records came to their rescue and bought them and Westminster continued on until 1965 when it took its baton and went home. ABC later became ABC/Dunhill Records, ABC/Dunhill was bought by MCA in 1979 , MCA and classical label Deutsche Grammophon were bought by Seagram's (yes, the liquor company) in 1998, Seagram's owned Universal Studios (founded by MCA), Seagram's merged MCA & DG into the new Universal Music Group. Everyone get that?

Earlier this year, Universal announced that nearly 10,000 albums from all of these back catalogs (including Westminster) would be re-released via digital downloading. Here's hoping they release a ton of good Christmas stuff as well...

On to the next new Christmas CD in my collection...


Capt

A Christmas Sampler (Westminster Records)

Many years ago, I worked for the Musicland Group. Under this umbrella were music stores such as Musicland and Sam Goody. Media Play was a combo music/video/book store, and Suncoast Motion Picture Company, where I worked as a store manager, was videos, DVDs, and other movie related items.

One of the only perks as a store manager were the wonderful items the record and video companies used to distribute at annual meetings as their way of appreciation for all the work we did selling their product.

I picked up several Christmas samplers from various record companies (Rhino, Columbia, Capitol) during my time there and have sought out other promo compilations from other companies via eBay and other sources.

Samplers usually contain some of the finest material anywhere or contain repackaged drudge that you really could have done without. Whenever I see the word "Sampler" on anything, I'm very wary.

So when I saw this sampler album (one of two samplers) being offered by Ernie at his blog, I was thrown for a loop. I knew samplers existed back in the day, of course, but how many times have you seen one in this day and age? And I had never heard of Westminster Records... was it a fly by night outfit or an overlooked, forgotten label of the day?

Back in 1949, James Grayson was a New York City businessman and music lover who travelled to the Westminster Record shop, a well respected classical music shop owned by Mischa Naida. Along with music conductor Henry Swoboda, they were frustrated over the lack of quality classical records being put out by the Big Four record companies - Decca, RCA Victor, Columbia, and Capitol.

With plenty of money from Grayson, a place to sell and distribute albums thanks to Naida, and musical expert Swoboda selecting the music to release, they took the name off the window and created Westminster Records.

Their first release came in April 1950 and soon the label got a great reputation as a "major minor" label. Most of their early releases came from Switzerland and soon they were discovering new talents in classical music. Some of these early discoveries were Maurice Abravanel, Jan Peerce, a young pianist named Daniel Barenboim (who would lead major symphonies later in his career), and a younger opera singer named Beverly Sills whose first recording was on Westminster.

Early on, Westminster released two Christmas albums - "A Merry Wurlitzer Christmas" by Dick Leibert, the long time organ player at Radio City Music Hall and "Adventures In Carols" recorded by a young duo named Ferrante & Teicher.

I'm not sure when this sampler album (any guesses Ernie?) was released but it does have tracks from both the Leibert and Ferrante & Teicher albums. Other artist tracks include the Cathedral Bellringers, the Collegium Musicum, the Randolph Singers, the Brooklyn Museum Children's Choir ("Joy To Da Woild..."), and even Basil Rathbone reciting Isaiah 40: 1 - 5 from the album "The Christmas Story in Carols".

(Click on image to enlarge)

The Ferrante & Teicher album has been available at many places on the Internet. There are some long lost Christmas albums on the back of this sampler... I would love to find or hear some of them.

End of history lesson: Westminster Records could no longer compete with the likes of Elvis and Ricky by the early 1960s. ABC Records came to their rescue and bought them and Westminster continued on until 1965 when it took its baton and went home. ABC later became ABC/Dunhill Records, ABC/Dunhill was bought by MCA in 1979 , MCA and classical label Deutsche Grammophon were bought by Seagram's (yes, the liquor company) in 1998, Seagram's owned Universal Studios (founded by MCA), Seagram's merged MCA & DG into the new Universal Music Group. Everyone get that?

Earlier this year, Universal announced that nearly 10,000 albums from all of these back catalogs (including Westminster) would be re-released via digital downloading. Here's hoping they release a ton of good Christmas stuff as well...

On to the next new Christmas CD in my collection...


Capt

A Kimball Christmas

When Ernie offered this very album at his blog many months ago, my heart nearly skipped a beat... in 3/4 time!

To quote from Ernie's original post:

"Once upon a time, everyone had a piano in their home. Later, people had organs in their homes. Nowadays, we have CD players and TVs and iPods and Sega.

"But back to the organs for a sec. This LP was designed to help sell those organs. I don't know if this was given away to customers, or sold in the organ stores, or what, but the ultimate goal was to get you to buy an organ from Kimball so that you could play like the artists on this record."

One of my uncles went out and did exactly that one year. He was lured into a local mall outlet where the salesmen, resplendent in their polyester slacks, sat behind desks and occasionally behind a keyboard to show you the ease of playing the organ. After selling you an organ, they ask "can you play?" If not, they would sell you "how to play the organ" accessories, a maintenance plan in case anything went wrong with the organ, etc..

My uncle plunked down a good chunk of change, bought the organ home, fiddled with it for about three days, and gave up on the whole mess. The only time it was used was around Christmas when actual family members with talent came and played on the organ. It stayed in his home near Chicago for more years than I can remember.

Speaking of Chicago, that's where Kimball got it's start (nice segue into the history lesson, no?). In 1857, W.W. Kimball was tired of selling real estate and insurance in Iowa and moved to Chicago to open a piano store. He realized that people were moving west and would soon be setting up homes and families. What better way to establish a home than with a new piano?

For the next one hundred years (100!), Kimball sold and manufactured pianos, then organs, by the thousands and shipped them out from Chicago to all over the world. At its peak, it was making 250 pianos and 150 organs a day!

In 1959, the Kimball company was sold to a cabinet company out of Jasper, Indiana called the Jasper Corporation. It moved its operations from Chicago to the Jasper / West Baden Springs / French Lick area in southern Indiana where the materials for building /assembling pianos and organs were close by.

They continued to prosper - Kimball Electronics was formed in 1961 and purchasing the Austrian piano manufacturer Bosendorfer in 1966. Jasper renamed themselves Kimball International in 1974 and bought the U.S. piano manufacturer Krakauer in 1980.

This album was released in 1982 and features several big shots at Kimball ("Organ Product Coordinator at Kimball International", "Administrative Sales Manager for Recording and Broadcast", "Kimball Director of Musical Evaluation") playing tunes on two of their new organs - The Enterprise model and the Xanadu model - flashes of bad late 1970s movies!

The standout track on this album is Track #1 - Parade Of The Wooden Soldiers. If there was ever a Christmas tune designed for a home organ, this is it. It has never sounded better. Other great tunes included "Mary's Little Boy Chile", "Blue Christmas" done in a country twangy feel (on a Kimball organ?), and a very synthesized "O Holy Night".

Kimball stayed with the piano and organs throughout the 1980s while other piano and organ manufacturers like Hammond and Wurlitzer got into the synthesizer business to compete with Casio, Yamaha, and others. It proved to be a poor decision.

Kimball Electronics quickly put out a synthesizer (the EK-61) but also began dabbling in circuit boards and car electronic parts. The cabinetry that once wrapped around a set of keys began making custom office furniture, quickly branching over into executive office furniture and modular office furniture.

There was no room left to make pianos and organs. In 1996, Kimball announced they would cease production on both and the last keyboards rolled off the assembly lines in 1997. Kimball International continues to produce all of the above and has even gotten into contract manufacturing as well. If you want a peek, click on Kimball.com.

I always loved playing with the Kimball whenever I visited my uncle's house. There were white and red pedals above the keyboard that had names like "treble", "swell to choir", and "harmonium" that I pushed incessantly like I was a NASA engineer at Mission Control. I wonder if my uncle would be willing to part with it... My kids would love it!

On to the next new Christmas CD in my collection...


Capt