Ya gotta decorate, right? Aretha Franklin sings “O Christmas Tree.” This is taken from a 1992 Christmas album done to benefit Special Olympics, “A Very Special Christmas”. There have now been ten of these compilation albums since the first one was released back in 1987.
Chicago plays a very different arrangement of “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” from the one we’ve all heard a thousand times. John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie wrote it in 1934 and it was an immediate hit. Its first performance was on Eddie Cantor’s radio show in November 1934, although it was first recorded …
Johnny Mathis thinks “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” The song was written specifically for Andy Williams’ TV variety show’s Christmas episode in 1963 by its vocal director George Wyle and co-composer Edward Pyle. As of November, 2016 it was the seventh most-played holiday song of the last fifty years. More amazingly, for …
Judy Garland sings “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” The song made its first appearance in the 1944 film “Meet Me in St. Louis.” Hugh Martin composed it and Ralph Blane wrote the lyrics. Some of those lyrics were changed during filming when Garland, Tom Drake (her love interest in the film) and, perhaps most …
Happy ones, of course! If you can’t believe Manhattan Transfer, who can you believe? The song was written by Irving Berlin and turns up in the movie “Holiday Inn,” which is famous for the first appearance of “White Christmas.” Here Manhattan Transfer pairs it with Kay Thompson’s “Holiday Season,” which other artists have done as …
If you’ve already bought a couple of gifts it must be Christmas season, right? John Legend sings “Christmas Time is Here” from his “A Legendary Christmas” released this year. The album is notable in that it has six original songs on it in addition to eight “classics”.
Ho’okena sings “The Song of Christmas,” from their 2003 “Home for the Holidays” album. As a bonus you get the Koolau Mountains in the background and a hula performed to the live music. Ho’okena are three veteran Hawai’i musicians who have won four Na Hoku Hanohano awards, the premier music awards in Hawai’i.
‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.’ So wrote Robert Frost, in an extraordinary poem. Home is a ready-made theme for the holiday season. Here Leon Redbone sings “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays,” music by Robert Allen, lyrics by Al Stillman. the …
John Denver and the Muppets sing “Christmas is Coming,” an English nursery rhyme from the 19th century. Research indicates it probably originated in Georgian or Victorian England.