10 Well-Known Songs That Your December Playlist Should Have

Atop my prior list of hidden-gem seasonal music for December comes this list of definitive versions of holiday classics.

Enjoy, and Merry Christmas to all.

Carol of the Bells - Danny Wright

This song can get awfully frantic and busy. But this all-instrumental version retains the vigor and verve that the carol calls for without going crazy.

Christmas Time Is Here - Vince Guaraldi Trio

No better version exists than the original. I love the slightly off-key singing (which had to be coached, as the original call for kid choir singers brought well-rehearsed groups who sang as if they were at Carnegie Hall!). And the piano, which sounds "well seasoned" is perfect for an upbeat song with a tinge of melancholy.

Ding Dong Merrily On High - Roger Whittaker

The synth accompaniment is a little dated here, but I love the opening peal of bells. And the reflective tempo (rather than the usual vigorous 2/2) is a welcome change from the usual.

12 Days (Gifts) of Christmas - Allan Sherman

There's a deserved love-hate relationship with The 12 Days of Christmas that understandably has listeners checking out somewhere around the maids-a-milking (day eight, btw). Sherman not only cuts the length but does so hilariously. I also love that the background choir, against Sherman's ridiculous lyrics, takes its harmonies absolutely seriously. The dichotomy is brilliant.

Good King Wenceslas -  The Ames Brothers

Listen to this with earbuds: I love how the brass intro starts in mono and then travels to stereo-land before the vocal. This weird carol gets a zippy interpretation here that makes me smile, even down to the fourth beat "ding" that occurs pretty much throughout.

Hallelujah - The Harry Simeone Chorale

Okay, so the Hallelujah Chorus is really for Easter. But it often appears as part of Christmas-music season. This re-arranged version (brilliant brass parts!) is energetically upbeat and fun and full of appropriate praise.

Can't embed this one for some reason, but here's the well-worth-clicking link.

Here We Come A-Caroling - The New Christy Minstrels

The Minstrels aren't so 'new' anymore, in fact, they're all but forgotten. But in the early 1960s, they were a big deal in the folk scene. Their version of "Here We Come A-Caroling" is full of intricate rhythms and harmonies, backed by a bright banjo and string bass.

Let It Snow - Les Brown

Jazzy and fun and hard to keep your fingers from snapping to.

Silent Night - Linda Eder

This familiar carol starts simply and quietly, where Eder's pure tones shine. Verse two gives her a charming countermelody. Verse three sends her into a goosebump-inducing octave version of the melody that sends her to the top of her impressive range.

Silver Bells - Johnny Mathis

Full disclosure: This one makes me cry, especially when I first bring out my Christmas playlist in the post-Thanksgiving time frame. I grew up with it on a compilation sold by WT Grant (the Walmart of its day), and hearing it now reminds me of hearing it as a kid, with the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking and the hustle-bustle of decorating etc. The feelings of family it evokes are very powerful for me, especially given the losses over the years.

All that emotional muck aside, I adore Mathis' vocal, the choral backing, and especially the bells (various versions of them) subtly in the accompaniment.

10 Little-Known Songs That Your December Playlist Should Have

I have a massive December-Holiday-Christmas playlist.

Given that vocal music was interwoven in my genetic makeup from a very early age and the fact that as a church musician, I've been exposed to seasonal songs for decades, it's probably no surprise.

So the following recommendations are purely things that have stuck with me through the years, fare that goes well beyond what the radios are playing ad infinitum (I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, Christmas Don't Be Late [ugh, those Chipmunks!]).

You may know and -- as I do -- love some of these.

You may have never heard of some of them -- or any of them.

In either case, if you're just discovering them or rediscovering them ... enjoy!

NB: I apologize up front for whatever ads you may need to endure. 

Also: I'm planning a follow-up post, listing 10 Well Known Christmas Songs and the Definitive Versions That Your December Playlists Should Have.

But here's the little-known gems, in no particular order:

Elohai N'tzor

This is a Hanukkah carol. And I understand exactly 0 percent of the words. But I find it calming and hauntingly beautiful. A great remedy for the hustle-bustle of December.

Through Your Eyes

Suzy Boguss is a country singer who was completely unknown to me before stumbling across this recording. Full confession here: Its theme -- how kids /get/ Christmas on a level that adults often forget -- is extremely evocative for me

 

Song of the Sleighbells

I heard this song in a store one long-ago shopping season, I was so taken with it, I tried as best I could to memorize them (I think I jotted as many as I could recall on a business card in my car immediately after). I had grabbed enough of the gist to find it online. I love the 50s-style close harmonies and the breezy orchestrations. The vocalist is long-since-forgotten Big Band singer June Hutton.

 

See Amid the Winter's Snow

I had never heard of this hymn until hearing Julie Andrews sing it. Since then, it's become a favorite.

It Wasn't His Child

A friend, instead of handing out Christmas cards each year, gave out CDs he made of seasonal songs he liked. This was included in one of his editions, and it quickly caught on with me

Happiest Christmas Tree

Nat King Cole, forever the "Chestnuts Roasting" guy, did this little ditty whose background chorus again evokes 1950s Christmases and their silver-tinsel trees, bourbon-heavy eggnog, and stacks of seasonal records on the hi-fi. 

Ev'rybody's Waitin' for the Man with the Bag

Kay Starr, jazz singer who conquered numerous music genres, feels quite comfortable with the big-band accompaniment she soars over here.

 

Christmas Tree

Like Nat, the Harry Simeone Chorale gets aired this time of year only for "The Little Drummer Boy." And as classic as that is, it's not the arranger's only standout work. This tune, which started out to be a countermelody to "O Christmas Tree," took on a pop sound all its own. It also features that rarity of rarities, a kids' choir that isn't annoyingly screechy.

Christmas Is a Birthday

Returning to Harry Simeone. I like this a lot because as a kid, it helped make my two-days-after-Christmas birthday feel special.

Cool Yule

Louis Armstrong's gruff-voice isn't exactly imbued with the holiday silkiness of a Bing Crosby or Julie Andrews, but it fits this song hand-in-glove. Tough to listen to this and not smile.

Why Nobody Needs Shoes More than the Cobbler's Son

 It has been a long time since I've blogged.

Like almost a year.

My readership, such that it is, doesn't seem to have missed me. It's not like I've been inundated by messages: Where are you? and Why aren't you publishing anymore? and Gee, did you retire after winning that Pulitzer?

As if.

The truth is I am writing. I'm writing a lot, in fact. Like every day.

It's the latest turn in my professional life. I'm now the editor of an online daily e-newspaper. So I'm writing a ton. My publishing schedule is five stories per day, somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 words, six days a week.

That's a lot of words.

I'm heading up a publication called BUCKSCO Today.

When I first came aboard last March, I balked mightily against the all-cap (not a fan, unless it's an acronym. Or a story about someone warning people about a disaster: "THERE'S A TIDAL WAVE COMING!").

But it is our brand standard.

Brandard?

Hmmm.

So I got over my all-cap-a-phobia.

The writing I'm doing is some original work. But the rest of the work involves 'curating' content from other (properly sourced, totally attributed, all-above-board) sources.

I'm therefore something of a re-write artist, boiling down lengthy articles from The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal into bite-sized pieces.

Oh, and there's one more twist.

My "beat" (do journalists still refer to a beat?) is Bucks County.

That was a bit of a stretch when I first came aboard.

We publish editions for Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties. And all of them had editors in place.

Bucks County was the last geographic addition to the family, so it needed an editor.

So I'm learning a ton about Bucks — including that fact that it really doesn't cotton to being called Bucks.

Bucks County seems to be the preference.

Sir Bucks of County, Your Magesty...

Whatever.

So in becoming something of a word machine, I've let this blog go quiet for a while.

I'll dust it off more often, squeezing in content when I can.

So thanks for hanging in there.

You'll hear from me more often moving forward.