Originally posted December 2018 Tom Caufield performs an instrumental version of “Silent Night” on guitar. From Wikipedia: The song was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, a village in the Austrian Empire on the Salzach river in present-day Austria. A young priest, Father Joseph Mohr, had come to …
Originally posted December 2012. This was the first song the duo at the restaurant I had brunch at today played after setting up their ukulele and stand-up bass. Here’s local girl Bette Midler singing “Mele Kalikimaka” from her 2006 album “Cool Yule”. The song was written in 1949 by Robert Alexander Anderson, another local. He …
Originally posted December 2017. All these folks promising to come home for Christmas have to get there somehow. Here are The Andrews Sisters singing “Sleigh Ride.” It’s not clear when this was first recorded, but it appeared on the 2004 compilation “Songs for Christmas”. The sisters had an incredible career. It began in the 1930s …
From a 1994 TV special entitled Aaron Neville’s Christmas in New Orleans, here’s “Silent Night”. Neville and Linda Ronstadt performed several glorious duets on her 1989 album “Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind”, and they reunited here on this show from his hometown. From Wikipedia: The song was first performed on Christmas Eve …
“I’ll Be Home for Christmas” was written in 1942 or 1943 by lyricist Kim Gannon and composer Walter Kent. An additional writing credit was given to The Platters’ Buck Ram after a lawsuit. Bing Crosby recorded and released it in 1943 and the US War Department also released a live version Crosby recorded on the …
Here are 14 new Christmas albums that have been or will be released within the next month. Some are re-issues, some are from people I’ve never heard of, and at least one is made up of mostly new Christmas music. There are albums by The Oak Ridge Boys, Bing Crosby (with the London Symphony Orchestra), …
Tom Caufield performs an instrumental version of “Silent Night” on guitar. From Wikipedia: The song was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, a village in the Austrian Empire on the Salzach river in present-day Austria. A young priest, Father Joseph Mohr, had come to Oberndorf the year before. …
No, no, no. Leaping Lords, not lizards! Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters sing “The Twelve Days of Christmas” on a 1949 Decca release. From Wikipedia: The song, published in England in 1780 without music as a chant or rhyme, is thought to be French in origin. “The Twelve Days of Christmas” has a Roud …
I know my East Coast and Southern friends are digging out from under, so I hope they don’t hate me for this. Eric Clapton plays and sings “White Christmas” in a way you’ve never heard before. The song has a fascinating history: Irving Berlin wrote it in either 1940 or 1941. The first public performance …
“Silver Bells” made its first appearance in the film “The Lemon Drop Kid” in 1951, sung by Marilyn Maxwell and Bob Hope (yes, Bob Hope). It was first recorded on vinyl in September 1950 by Bing Crosby and Carol Richards, after the film had completed production but before it was released. When the Crosby/Richards duet …
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