The latest edition of Billboard magazine is out, featuring charts for the week ending December 21. I used to love reading Billboard when I was in high school and I followed the pop singles and albums charts (the Hot 100 and Hot 200, respectively). It was easier to keep up in college since I worked on the college radio station and we had a subscription to Billboard. I kept up with the music scene pretty consistently until I got into my mid 30s, when the number of artists I didn't know began to outnumber the ones I did.
The methods by which Billboard determines its charts have changed radically over the years. They used to be based almost entirely on record sales and airplay, but today's chart makers have to account for such things as streaming on Spotify, YouTube and other services, digital sales and other factors.
During the holiday season, millions of listeners play their favorite holiday tunes many millions of times, driving a holiday-themed takeover of the Billboard charts. The latest Hot 100 for the week ending December 21, 2024, features 29 holiday tunes, including 11 of the Top 20 and five of the Top 10:
Far be it for me to trash all of the oldies, I only wish programmers would try out some material that's less than 30 years old. And I wouldn't shed any tears if I never had to hear Mariah Carey or Wham! ever again. Happily, my favorite Christmas song of all time, Darlene Love's 1963 release "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" is at #31 on the Hot 100, up from #38 last week. It's also #16 on Billboard's "Holiday 100" chart. The Top 10 Holiday songs for the week ending December 21 appear below:
I hope your favorite holiday song turns out to be a big hit again this year!
Today we've got some background on three more tracks from my 2024 holiday compilation, "I Wish It Was Christmas Today." I've been posting information on a handful of selections every few days since just after Thanksgiving, and you can find stuff about many of my previous mixes elsewhere on this blog. I've been making these holiday mixes for the past 20 years, and you can learn more about all of them on my holiday music website. Here are today's listings:
Track 34 Getting In The Mood for Christmas, Brian Setzer Orchestra (2000)
Brian Setzer's musical interests cover a fair stretch of territory, and there's no doubt that holiday tunes have a place near the top of his list of favorite styles. I think of him mostly as the front man for the Stray Cats, the rockabilly group that made a splash in the early '80s with the songs "Stray Cat Strut" and "Rock This Town" from their eponymous debut album. But Setzer's career has included forays into a wide array of styles, and he seems to enjoy each twist and turn of the road.
Born and raised on Long Island, New York, Setzer started out playing jazz in high school before developing an interest in rock and punk. By his early 20s, he'd started to get more into rockabilly and started a band with his brother that ultimately became the Stray Cats. After moving to London, they hooked up with Dave Edmunds, who produced their hit debut album. After the Stray Cats disbanded in 1984, Setzer joined Robert Plant's short-lived group the Honeydrippers, followed by work on a couple of blues/rock-style solo records and a tour with George Thorogood.
By the 1990s, Setzer turned his attention to big-band swing music and formed the Brian Setzer Orchestra (BSO). The group has recorded nine studio albums since 1994 including three Christmas records: "Boogie Woogie Christmas" (2002), "Dig That Crazy Christmas" (2005), and "Rockin' Rudolph" (2015). In 1999, the BSO won a Grammy award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group for its version of the Louis Prima classic "Jump, Jive an' Wail." In recent years, the BSO has launched several holiday-themed tours during the Christmas season, and they've become well known for their performance of big band holiday sounds.
Setzer was forced to cancel the BSO's planned "Christmas Rocks!" holiday tour on doctor's orders due to a severe case of tinnitus in 2019, and the band has not toured subsequently. Setzer toured with a reunited version of the Stray Cats this past year. At least BSO fans have that group's holiday records and videos to see them through the 2024 holiday season.
Track 35 Christmas in Kenmore Square, Billy West and Tom Sandman for WBCN Boston (1985)
This track is the third of three WBCN-FM 1980s holiday promos I've included in this year's mix, and it's another of the awesome clips created for the station by Billy West and Tom Sandman. It brings back some great memories for me, not only of WBCN's golden era but also of the Christmas I spent in Kenmore Square myself.
Although I attended and graduated college in Baltimore, I spent my junior year in a special program on urban government at Boston University. I had a dorm room in a complex known as The Towers on Bay State Road, and as I recall I spent nearly the entire holiday vacation on or around campus. I loved being in Boston that year, and I was starting to get into live music in a big way and enjoyed being able to hang out at clubs like The Rat, Spit and The Paradise without the crowds of students from outside of Boston that typically filled the Square when school was in session. It was a crazy time. Ronald Reagan had just been elected president, John Lennon had just been killed, and there was all sorts of amazing music in the air. Bruce Springsteen released his double-album masterpiece "The River" in November, and I played that album, John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "Double Fantasy," and "Remain in Light" by the Talking Heads almost non-stop — also "Catholic Boy," the debut album by The Jim Carroll Band, and a bunch of great local bands including Third Rail, The Neighborhoods, Ron Scarlett and more.
Billy West
As this is the last of this year's WBCN promos, I should add at least a couple of words about the two guys responsible for them. Billy West was hired by the station primarily as a voice actor, and he worked there from roughly 1980 until 1988. He voiced various characters for the "Mattress Mishigas" feature that wound down Charles Laquidara's "Big Mattress" show each morning, and he created promos and other comedy bits for the station. A native of Boston's Roslindale neighborhood, West also played in a band called The Shutdowns during this period. After leaving WBCN, West became a regular on the Howard Stern program on K-Rock Radio 92.3 FM in New York, voicing a wide array of characters from Johnny Carson and Rudy Giuliani to Lucille Ball and Sammy Davis, Jr. In 1995, he moved to Los Angeles and became a successful voice actor and performer for film and television. He's probably best known for his work on The Ren and Stimpy Show, Futuramaand Doug.
Tom Sandman
Tom Sandman started his radio career in 1973 working at his college radio station at the University of Cincinnati. From there he took a job doing an overnight show on the local public radio station, followed by work as a production specialist at Cincinnati's leading album-oriented rock station, WEBN. Wanting to expand his horizons, he applied for jobs at a variety of larger stations and received an offer from WBCN in September 1982. As he later explained,
What's interesting is that both [WEBN and WBCN] also had,
from day one, a commitment to offbeat, creative, eccentric, weird, humorous
production — produced elements in between the records, some of them
commercials, but some of them not commercials — just production for the sake of
entertainment, image production. That also attracted me to 'BCN, and I had a
very happy and productive eight years there.
Here's another great holiday promo Sandman and West created for WBCN, "Christmas in Kenmore Square":
Track 36 Merry Christmas Santa Claus, Max Headroom (1986)
I remember first hearing about Max Headroom in early 1987, by way of a single off-hand comment by one of the reporters at a small monthly newspaper I edited in Boston. It's funny the things we remember about people. This reporter was a bright, interesting and all-around terrific guy and the one thing I remember most clearly about him was his telling me that he'd seen the first episode of the Max Headroom show on TV the night before and thought it was really funny. No reflection on him, but I have yet to see a single episode.
Max Headroom
The U.S. version of Max Headroom was a mid-season replacement that aired on ABC beginning March 31, 1987. Based on a British TV movie, the show takes place in the future, when the world is controlled by a powerful web of television networks. Investigative reporter Edison Carter is the last remaining check on the hegemony of the networks. Despite his network employment, Carter files a series of inside reports on their many abuses of power. Fearful of his safety, Carter attempts to flee but is seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. Carter's brain is downloaded onto a computer, from which he can communicate, albeit with occasional glitches of stuttering. The computerized version of Carter adopts the name Max Headroom, as the last thing the real Carter saw before his accident was a moveable gate in the parking garage bearing those words of warning.
The series did well enough in its first half season to be picked up for the fall, but scheduled opposite Dallas and Miami Vice it was pulled before the end of the year.
Max remained a cultural icon of sorts even after his show was cancelled. There was something about a computer-generated character stuttering as his data buffers that portended a dangerous future, and who doesn't enjoy an occasional preview of our dystopian future? But Max Headroom never quite achieved the same sort of cachet in this country that he had in Britain a short time earlier.
Before invading American shores, the British producers of the show even scored with their own holiday special, the "Max Headroom Giant Christmas Turkey Special, which aired in late 1986. It was from that special that Track 37 from this year's mix was commissioned as a limited edition 7" single on Chrysalis Records. Enjoy:
For those brave folks who can handle it, here's the complete "Max Headroom Giant Christmas Turkey Special" for your holiday enjoyment:
There's been talk of a Max Headroom reboot now in production at AMC. I guess we'll have to wait and see on that.
We must also wait and see about my reports on the remaining five tracks from this year's mix. They'll be posted before Christmas, but I can't say exactly when. Mystery makes life more interesting.
Among the rock-era holiday standards with genuine staying power is the song "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)," recorded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono with the Harlem Community Choir and released as a single in late 1971. The song wasn't a huge hit at the time of its first release, barely cracking the bottom positions of the Top 40. But over the past 50 years, it's surely earned a spot among the most popular and iconic holiday tunes of the period. The folks at Parlogram, which celebrates the music of The Beatles and other music of the 1960s, offer an engaging look at the creation of this enduring release that's well worth a look:
With just a little more than 10 days left to go until the big day, it's time to resume our look at the tunes on my latest holiday compilation, "I Wish It Was Christmas Today." Here's some background on the next three tracks:
Track 31 We Wish You a Merry Christmas, George Carlin and Ringo Starr (1990)
One tends to miss an awful lot of fun without kids in the house. Yeah, I suffered through PinkFong's "Baby Shark" jingle last year like everyone else on the planet, but I suspect it's a very different experience to hear it non-stop for a month, as several of my parenting friends patiently explained to me. Similarly, I can't claim to know too about the popular PBS children's show "Shining Time Station," which I understand was inspired by a British program called "Thomas the Tank Engine." "Shining Time Station" first ran on PBS from 1989 through 1993, with subsequent reruns on Nick, Jr. and a variety of other cable and streaming services.
"Shining Time Station" is as popular with educators and parents as it is with children. The basic premise is simple and straightforward. According to Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker: "It's an old-fashioned show that creates a gentle, lulling atmosphere to convince children that life is fun and that trains are the way to travel." True enough.
During the show's first season, the key role of the train conductor was played by Ringo Starr, who was nominated for a Daytime Emmy award for his work. Starr was replaced at the start of the second season by comedian George Carlin, and a holiday special featured both gentlemen was produced to bridge the transition. This short clip was taken from the holiday special:
There's so much I could say about each of these two guys, as I genuinely admire them both and have enjoyed their work for years.
I first heard of Carlin as a kid in summer camp when an older camper regaled us with his bit about the "seven dirty words" you can't say on TV. That caught my attention because it was titillating and forbidden. Of course, Carlin's work was far more than that. It was consistently sharp and insightful — and he was unfailingly courageous. He told truth to power and got away with it, for the most part, because he draped his biting observations in comic clothing. In describing religion as "the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims" (his "religion is bull****" rant) he took aim at the clergy with memorable precision. To the end, Carlin reminded us that the American system was intentionally designed to maintain the ruling class at the expense of the typical Trump voters. If you haven't seen the 2022 HBO documentary "George Carlin's American Dream," I recommend it.
I first knew Ringo as the drummer for one of my two favorite bands, The Beatles. (I also loved The Monkees.) He also sang lead on one of my favorite Beatles songs, "Yellow Submarine." I suppose most folks would consider Ringo to be the least consequential of the four Beatles, but in the 50-odd years since the group's breakup he's clearly established that he's got both staying power and class. He's had a couple of #1 hits as a solo artist, he's acted in movies and on TV, and he's toured with multiple variations of his popular All Starr Band.
Ringo and George Carlin teaming up to share Christmas greetings may not be the biggest holiday blockbuster of all time, but it does my hippie heart good to hear them.
Track 32 Plasma for Christmas, Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band (2008)
While the group's name might lead you to think otherwise, The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band is a three-piece, Indiana-based country blues group consisting of Reverend Peyton on guitar and vocals, "Washboard" Breezy Peyton (his wife) on the washboard and Jacob Powell on drums. This song served as my introduction to the group. I'd received the album "A Very Standard Christmas" as a gift in 2006, and it featured this one as well as Harley Poe's "It's Christmas Time Again," which I used as the title track of my 2017 mix.
(L to R): Powell, Breezy and the Rev
Reverend Peyton started playing guitar at the age of 12. After a friend told him his noodling around had a blues-like quality, he worked to immerse himself in country blues and tried unsuccessfully to develop the finger-picking technique that animated much of the music of that style. After playing guitar at his high school graduation party, he awoke with his hands in terrible pain and was told by doctors that he would never be able to play guitar again. Following a frustrating year of abstaining, Peyton had surgery and was able to regain his strength and play better and more easily than before. While recovering from surgery he met Breezy, who shared his interest in country blues, and the two began writing, performing and eventually recording together and with Powell.
In 2008, the group signed with Los Angeles based SideOneDummy Records, for whom they recorded four albums. They subsequently recorded a string of other albums for several different labels and have built a significant following by maintaining a busy touring schedule. Their must recent album, "Dance Songs for the Hard Times" reached #1 on the Billboard Blues Albums chart.
I've been holding on to "Plasma for Christmas" for years and just never managed to find a spot for it on earlier mixes. Sadly, with the Trump team preparing to take over the federal government I'm guessing my choice to include the song on this year's mix will make me look rather prescient in short order.
Track 33 Merry Christmas Is All I Hear, Donald Trump and David Pakman (2024)
Like millions of others, I was despondent following Trump's electoral victory last month. Much of my sadness and anger stemmed from the willingness of so many to overlook or minimize the never-ending stream of hateful and ridiculous lies he told. One of the silliest and most idiotic of his lies was that the Democrats had somehow made it illegal for people to say "Merry Christmas." He claimed that neither President Obama nor his wife ever used the phrase, which was a preposterous slander. And he pledged that if he was elected he'd make it OK for ordinary folks to say "Merry Christmas" without being carted off to jail.
I've tried to minimize the mention of politics on this year's mix, but I couldn't resist including this short clip, which features Trump's pledge along with an apt retort from political commentator David Pakman. I enjoy listening to Pakman's show, which is available on YouTube, among other places. He's a reasonable and exceptionally well-informed podcaster whom I hold in high regard.
Every Saturday from Thanksgiving through New Year's Day, it's been our tradition to post a classic holiday sketch from the golden days of NBC's Saturday Night Live (SNL) to provide a few minutes of respite from the stress you're likely feeling during the holidays. Hard as it is to believe, that gives us 50 years' worth of holiday sketches from which to choose.
Today's selection features the late great Chris Farley as a Motivational Santa who can't quite seem to get it together. After frightening a group of children and their parents at the mall, Santa is left to prepare for Christmas Eve in a van down by the river. This one's from SNL Season 19, and it debuted on December 11, 1993. Truly seems like another time and place, no? Enjoy!
Join us again next Saturday for another SNL Holiday Flashback.
I guess it's about time for my annual rant about the appearance each December of a handful of venerable Christmas songs on Billboard's Hot 100. I used to gripe about Billboard's Holiday Sales and Airplay tallies, complaining that for the most part nothing but musty old standards ever made the holiday charts. During the past several years, however, changes to the formula that determines Billboard's weekly Hot 100 have led to a takeover of that chart by a bunch of 50-year-old holiday records each December. The latest Hot 100 reflects the same tired old pattern. Five of the nation's current Top 10 are perennial holiday tunes with an average age of 52 years. Three of the remaining five are by Kendrick Lamar:
Don't get me wrong, I'm fond of lots of the old standards (a class that excludes anything by Mariah Carey or Wham!, both of whom I could happily do without). But Lord knows there's plenty of other great Christmas music that merits a little airplay now and again. I realize that my advancing age has turned me into a curmudgeon when it comes to popular culture, but music, TV, films, the news media and politics had higher standards 40 years ago and lazy and greedy media executives deserve a good share of the blame.
One of my favorite musicians released his version of one of my holiday favorites this week with a note reading "Happy Holidays! Love Earth, Neil and [Neil Young Archives]." Enjoy!
We're continuing to examine the 41 tracks on my 20th and latest holiday music compilation, "I Wish It Was Christmas Today," and today I have some background on two more tracks, each of which touch on U.S. politics in the 1970s and '80s.
Track 29 The Night Before Watergate, Rich Little (1973)
This short track is another clip from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, the second of three on this year's mix. It was taped on November 30, 1973, which is just over 51 years ago, and it features a guy whom Carson refers to as "probably the finest impressionist in the business" at the time — Rich Little. I was a big fan of Mr. Little back then, based largely on his impressions of Richard Nixon, whom I actively disliked. While most of my family was Republican, my maternal grandmother loathed Richard Nixon as did the woman who took care of my brother and me after our mother was killed, and these two smart women persuaded me that Nixon was bad news. I avidly followed the Watergate scandal throughout junior high. When I was 13, I won my school's citizenship award and was thrilled to receive a bound volume of the Senate Watergate Committee transcripts as my prize. Of course, most of the country was following Watergate then, and Rich Little was getting lots of work doing his Nixon impressions. As Little explains in the clip, he used to do a version of "The Night Before Christmas" each year, and with the public's attention focused on Nixon's problems, his Christmas story for 1973 was called "The Night Before Watergate":
I've set the clip (above) to start at the beginning of the selection I chose to include in this year's mix. but I urge you to watch the tape from the beginning to see Little's entrance, get a sense of the in-house NBC Orchestra, and hear about the other guests on that evening's show.
Rich Little is still alive, and recently celebrated his 86th birthday. He was probably at or near the high point of his career around the time this show was taped. Throughout the rest of the 1970s and '80s, he was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show and occasionally guest hosted for Carson. He frequently appeared at various venues in Las Vegas and ultimately relocated there, and maintained active television and touring schedules. Born in Canada, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2010. I was sorry to learn recently that he considers himself a Republican and thought Donald Trump won the 2020 election.
I can't help but compare the public's reaction to the Watergate scandal with our current political climate. Back then, reports of the alleged bugging of the Democratic National Committee in June of 1972 received scant coverage at first, allowing President Nixon to win reelection by a landslide that fall. But when evidence emerged suggesting that Nixon may have participated in covering-up Republican involvement in the break-in, Congress, the media, the FBI and others began thorough investigations. Once Nixon was found to have lied about his role in the cover-up, it was over. His political support evaporated overnight, with even most Republican leaders demanding his resignation. This year, by contrast, we have just elected a twice-impeached, convicted felon who has committed far greater transgressions than Nixon and whose entire campaign was based on lies, hatred and revenge. His recent appointments consist of unqualified, corrupt stooges eager to destroy the departments they are supposed to lead. Yet even as he sets himself up as a de facto dictator, the institutions that should be protecting us appear uninterested or unable to stop the impending madness. I'm heartbroken, and left to wonder how we could have fallen so far so fast.
Maybe we should look to some of our comedians for help, as we did a half century ago. I'm just not sure Rich Little's going to be much help this time around.
Track 30 The Night Ronald Reagan Rode with Santa Claus, Red River Dave (1984)
"Red River" Dave McEnery
This next track is (or should be) a genuine Christmas classic, for it tells the story of the night Ronald Reagan accompanied Santa Claus as he delivered toys to the children of the United States. I discovered this one on The World's Worst Records, an aptly named website, subtitled "An Arcade of Audio Atrocities." The song was written and performed by a feller named Dave Largus McEnery (1914-2002), a Texas native who became known as "Red River Dave" because he enjoyed singing the classic ballad "Red River Valley."
Described by the Old Time Blues website as "[o]ne
of the true blue, larger-than-life Texas characters," McEnery
tried his hand at just about every occupation that appealed to him at one point
or another: prolific songwriter, blue yodeler, rodeo cowboy, television
personality, real estate agent, Shriner, ventriloquist, fine artist, truck stop
preacher, and many, many more.
He launched his career doing rope tricks and singing western songs at rodeos in and around San Antonio before migrating to the East Coast. He found work at a series of radio stations singing and playing western music. He started making records in 1940 for the Decca label and went on to become a prolific recording artist, creating dozens of discs of traditional cowboy songs and popular standards.
During the 1950s and '60s, his material evolved to include topical social commentary and tributes to dead celebrities. This is the stuff he's perhaps best known for today. As the Old Times Blues site explains,
[h]is songs increasingly reflected his patriotic, conservative, and
staunchly anti-communist politics, as heard in such numbers as “The Bay of Pigs,”
“The Great Society,” and “The Ballad of John Birch.” For a time in the mid-1960s, Dave turned his
attention toward being a “dynamic real estate salesman,” even billing himself
on contemporaneous records as “Singing Cowboy Realtor.” Though sales of his private press 45 RPM
singles were usually fairly poor, Dave continued to record and publish his
old-time yodeling songs about current events all the way into the 1980s, with
numbers like “The Pine-Tarred Bat (Ballad of George Brett),” “The Ballad of
E.T.,” and “The Night Ronald Reagan Rode with Santa Claus.” In total, McEnery penned more than a thousand
songs over the course of his life, many of which were never commercially
recorded, and are now likely lost to time; in one 1946 publicity stunt, he
wrote fifty-two songs in twelve hours while handcuffed to a piano. Later in his life, he broadened his horizons
to include oil painting, usually western landscapes, which he sometimes
sold.
This track was released in 1984 on Beautiful America Records, backed with a song called, "Santa's Watchdog, Archibald," both of which can be heard on and/or downloaded from the World's Worst Records site HERE.
I suppose any true patriot would be stirred by the notion of Santa and Ronald Reagan joining forces, which is why this track is so powerful. Even a quick look at the lyrics should quicken the pulse of any true-blue American:
It was the
night before Christmas at Santa’s abode,
The cold wind
was whistlin’ down the old Arctic Road,
Reindeer were
prancin’ out there in the snow,
And Santa’s big
sleigh was all ready to go.
When out from
the snow storm there rode a tall man,
The cowboy
dismounted, extended his hand and said,
I’m Ronald
Reagan, I hope it’s alright,
I’d like very
much, sir, to join you tonight.
I’m bringing
some presents, some items of truth,
That I want to give to America’s youth,
Oh, ho!
chuckled Santa, of course I know you,
I gave you a
pony the year you were two.
Why, you’re
Ronald Reagan,
Of course, it’s
alright,
I’m happy to
have you on my journey tonight
We’re proud of
you, Ronnie. You’re on the right track,
Now what’s in
your saddlebag? What’s in your pack?
Why you’ve got
mementoes of America there,
There’s
Washington crossing the Old Delaware,
And miniature
replicas of the Liberty Bell,
And prints of
the Star Spangled Banner as well.
And pictures of
patriots long in their graves,
And Abe’s
proclamation that freed all the slaves,
And framed
constitutions to hang on the wall,
And statues of
liberty, nine inches tall.
And flags
called old glory. Oh, God bless her name,
And little toy
Alamos and the Battleship Maine,
And copies of
music, well there’s “Over There,”
And “God Bless
America,”
And manuscripts
rare.
Son, you’ve
brought some keepsakes more precious than gold,
For they tell
the story of our country of old,
America’s creed
and the great Declaration,
Of the 4th of
July that made us a nation.
Why your pack’s
a treasure,
I’m so glad you
came,
To help me
deliver such gifts in the name,
Of honor and
liberty and freedom so sweet,
Ronald Reagan,
this Christmas will never be beat.
Quick Dasher,
quick Dancer, quick Vixen of old,
Yes, we’ve got
a story that’s worth being told,
Get moving old
Rudolph, start leading the way,
This Christmas
we’re boosting the great USA!
With a dash on
the wind they flew into the night,
Ronald Reagan
and Santa Claus, holding on tight,
The sleigh
bells were playing Yankee Doodle in time,
And here’s what
I heard Santa shout down the line.
Merry
Christmas, America, it’s time to renew,
Your pledge of
allegiance to the red, white and blue,
And we found a
new spirit in America because
One night
Ronald Reagan flew with old Santa Claus.
I'm not sure there's much more to be said about that — at least not until someone finds a way to add Donald Trump to the mix. (If you want a real acid trip. try playing this song at a very slow speed.)
In his later years, Dave leaned real hard into the dead celebrity thing, releasing post mortems on Bing Crosby, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Lee Harvey Oswald, Sharon Tate, Amelia Earhart and Elvis Presley's mother, Gladys. He recorded a tribute to kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst when she was feared dead, but the discovery that Hearst helped her captors pull a bank heist kind of killed the mood for that tribute. He released the song anyway. I believe it's sung to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." (Listen HERE.)
In the end, of course, McEnery himself was called to follow the celebrities he'd honored in song. He died on January 15, 2002 at the age of 87. All told, he led a rather interesting life.
Hope you're keeping happy and warm and have finished at least some of your holiday shopping. I'll be back now and again over the coming days with background on the 11 remaining tracks from this year's mix.
We're in the process of reviewing the 41 tracks on my 20th annual holiday mix, "I Wish It Was Christmas Today," and it's time now to look at the next couple of tracks:
Track 27 Rock 'n' Roll Santa, Jan Terri (1994)
Jan Terri
I first posted about Jan Terri in 2017, when I included one of her songs in my "It's Christmas Time Again" mix. The song I used that year was "Excuse My Christmas," and it's a real piece of work. Like many of Jan's records, my initial reaction to it was severe cringe. But slowly it grew on me, as her songs sometimes do. My reaction to "Rock 'n' Roll Santa" was pretty much the same, though I'd say that of these two tunes, this year's selection is the better of the two.
A native of Chicago, Jan comes from a musical family. As a child, she reportedly played in a local jug band with her mother, while her father performed in various Chicago clubs wearing blackface as "Black Elvis." After finishing school, Jan worked a variety of jobs and tried to make it as a musician. Whatever extra money she earned was invested in studio time and equipment, and she fashioned several crude music videos to promote her songs. While working as a limousine driver, she became friendly with a local advertising executive, who gave one of her videos to Marilyn Manson, the controversial shock rock artist who hit it big in the mid-'90s with such songs as "The Dope Show." Manson was taken with Jan's work, noting that her simple, frumpish lyrics and brash, unpolished style combined to form something greater than the sum of their parts. The IMDb website echoes this theme in its write-up of Jan, whom it describes as an "[e]ndearingly bad amateur Italian-American singer/songwriter."
Short (5' 1"), plain, and dumpy, with a gratingly nasal
off-key voice and a strangely engaging abrasive, yet earnest persona, Jan
possesses a certain lovably ham-fisted charm that makes her essentially the
latter-day equivalent to notorious ‘60s freak celebrity old lady singer Mrs.
Miller.
Any wonder why I like her?
In any case, Manson arranged for Jan to open for several of his Chicago area shows, which led to an appearance on "The Daily Show" in 2000. Sadly, the publicity failed to deliver any offers of a record contract, but it did help her develop a modest cult following.
It's not exactly clear when "Rock 'n' Roll Santa" was officially released. I've seen reports that it was originally included on her 2013 album "High Risk," though it doesn't appear on the latest version of that LP. I've also read that it was first released as a single in 2012, so that's the release date I'm going with. This tune also appears
on her 2014 album "Holiday Songs," which includes
"Excuse My Christmas" and songs about Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's
Day, Halloween and April 15 — the day income taxes are due.
So without further ado, here's this year's Jan Terri selection, presented by way of the video that accompanied her single release 12 years ago:
Jan performed the song live on the cable access show Chic-a-go-go in 1996, and fortunately for us, it was captured for posterity and posted on YouTube. Be sure to watch this one to the end as an exclusive interview with the artist herself follows the performance:
You can read my first post about Jan Terri from 2017 HERE. Since I posted that first report, Jan's released a new album called "Songs for Hope," which came out two years ago. She's also got a couple of TikTok accounts under the names jan.terri and janterri1, although, sadly, they feature some rather blunt medical updates that are tough to hear. On a more positive note, I learned through one of Jan's TikTok posts that she recently performed a show at Tone Deaf Records in Chicago. Clips are available on Jan's YouTube channel. Whatever critics think of her music, there's little doubt that Jan's a cool lady who loves life, so we're pleased to send along warm holiday wishes and hopes for a happy and healthier 2025.
Track 28 Merry Christmas You Filthy Animal, Artist Unknown (from Home Alone 2) (1994)
I'm embarrassed to say that I can't share much information about this next track, which I ran across among a bunch of other short clips in a catch-all folder on my computer last month. I often save files there without any identifying information thinking I'll be able to retrace my steps later on. Well, that's what happened here, and now it's too late to remove the track from the mix. I'll update this post if I can identify who's responsible for the track at some time in the future, and I'm confident that at some point I will.
I can tell you that the clip is an excerpt from the popular 1992 film Home Alone 2, and that whoever created this beefed-up version of it did so two years later. Of course, the heart of the track is the line "Merry Christmas, you filthy animal," which the character played by Macaulay Culkin lifts off a TV movie as we can see in this clip from the film:
The maker of the track I've used reworked the quote in question so that it appears several times with some additional heft added to each repetition. Here's what you'll hear when you play Track 28 on my mix:
We've looked at 28 of the 41 tracks and have 13 more to review. See you back here again soon.
I started this blog to share information about the tracks on my annual holiday compilations, and we're currently in the midst of reviewing the 41 tracks on my 20th holiday mix, "I Wish It Was Christmas Today." We're now more than half-way through this year's mix and today we'll be looking at Tracks 22 through 26. Here we go!
Track 22 Holiday Greetings, William Shatner
I don't know that I've ever seen a full episode of Star Trek or even a partial episode of T.J. Hooker on TV. I've watched none of the Star Trek movies and only a few bits and pieces of Boston Legal, although I keep meaning to watch more of that show since I did practice law in Boston for a number of years. Come to think of it, the only programs I can recall seeing William Shatner in are his Saturday Night Live appearance with the Sweeney Sisters that I wrote about last week and his two appearances on the original Twilight Zone series — "Nick of Time" from Season 2 and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" from Season 5. Still, I'm crazy about the guy, especially because he's now 93 years old and still going strong. I stuck in this five-second holiday greeting strictly as a brief homage. Shatner's worked in a variety of media, kept busy throughout his career and while he takes his work seriously he's never taken himself too seriously, as we can see from the following rendition of the Elton John classic "Rocket Man," which Shatner performed in 1972 following an introduction by Bernie Taupin, who penned the song's lyrics:
Shatner's performance takes on special significance when you consider that in 2021 he became the oldest man to fly into space when he embarked on a suborbital Blue Origin flight at the age of 90 with Star Trek enthusiast and Blue Origin creator Jeff Bezos. I tell you, there's just no stopping William Shatner.
Track 23 Krampus Is an Evil Man, AAIIEE (2013)
Krampus
While the predominant American image of Santa Claus has changed over the years (as I noted last week), he's generally seen as a kind and generous soul whose raison d'etre is delivering gifts to well-behaved children throughout the world. Because he sees kids when they're sleeping and knows when they're awake, Santa knows if they've been bad or good and dispenses gifts accordingly. The worst punishment he can inflict is leaving a lump of coal in a child's stocking — disappointing, but hardly catastrophic. There's a competing folk character, however who metes out far more severe forms of punishment. Conceived in Germany and recognized in many European countries, this horned, anthropomorphic figure is known as Krampus, and he rounds up young miscreants on Christmas Eve, throws them in sacks and beats them with sticks.
I first learned about Krampus by way of David Sedaris' story "6 to 8 Black Men," which appears in his 2004 collection "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim." Seriously, if you haven't read this story or heard Sedaris recount it, it's worth your time to do so. Links appear below.
Krampus' origins are the subject of some debate, but the notion of an evil character who invades the winter solstice goes back many centuries. Sometime in the 17th century, many realized that it didn't look good for Santa's precursor, St. Nicholas, to be dishing out punishment to naughty children. He was, after all, a saint. The idea emerged that St. Nicholas need to have a helper who could inflict whatever pain was required, and Krampus was assigned to do the job.
During World War II, the ruling fascists forbid any discussion of Krampus. I guess they figured that when it came to dispensing punishment they were more qualified than any made-up character. Things changed after the war. For example, the new government of Austria took to circulating leaflets titled "Krampus Is an Evil Man," which warned parents that evoking this character might lead to serious trauma, and surely everyone had had enough of that. Around 2000, however, Krampus experienced a revival of sorts, and he's lately begun to appear with increasing frequency at holiday celebrations throughout Europe. These have mostly been fanciful appearances to date — tongue in cheek, if you will. But given the troubles some European countries are currently experiencing, one wonders what sorts of duties Krampus might ultimately be asked to perform.
This track was recorded by the Seattle-based band whose name is depicted by the symbol at left. I think Prince did something similar some years later, didn't he? symbol at left. Somewhere along the way the symbol was translated into English as AAIIEE, which seems to have led only to additional confusion.
The band was conceived and first started playing together in 1981 and is comprised of Johnny Vinyl on guitar, vocals and keyboards; Jeff Larson on bass and vocals; Brent Petty on drums, and Greg Stumph on guitar and vocals. While the band's maintained this same basic line-up from its founding, the members' outside pursuits and travels have led to a number of lengthy hiatuses over the years. They do not seem to have ever formally dissolved, but the "Gigs and News" page on the group's website lists nothing noteworthy after 2012.
AAIIEE
I first discovered "Krampus Is an Evil Man" on the album "Christmas Boogie Woogie: Ten Years of Green Monkey Christmas," a truly offbeat collection of holiday mayhem that you can preview or purchase on Bandcamp HERE. I love the eerie and rather frightening sound of this track; in fact, along with "Christmas Party" and one track yet to be introduced, "Krampus Is an Evil Man" is one of my three favorite tracks on this year's collection.
I included these tracks with a certain amount of misgiving because I'm a big fan of Judy Garland and I don't mean to ridicule her for requiring three takes to record a short holiday greeting. Garland is said to have suffered from drug dependency for much of her life, and I don't mean to make light of that either, as this is an affliction that can affect any of us and in her case it appears to have arisen in part because of the heavy demands placed on her by movie studio executives who sought to take maximum advantage of her talents and celebrity. Ultimately, I chose to include this recording, divided into two separate tracks, because it demonstrates that taping any message is difficult work and getting things right often involves more than one attempt.
Track 24 is Garland's first attempt at recording the greeting. It ends badly, as she laughingly admits.
Track 26 consists of the next two attempts, the first of which is unusable because she fails to include a mention of the holidays. "She's aware of that," says someone — possibly the director. On the next attempt, she gets it right.
I should note that I took some dramatic license in presenting these takes as I did. In reality, what I label "Take 1" was Garland's second take, and my "Take 2" was actually her first attempt. You can see the real recording of all three takes in their proper order HERE.
Garland began her film career in 1936 at the age of 14 in the film "Pigskin Parade." She became a huge international star three years later with her portrayal of Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz," and went on to complete an additional two dozen features for MGM at the rate of around three a year over the next decade. Released from MGM in 1950, Garland was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress for her role in the 1954 Warner Brothers film "A Star Is Born," and Best Supporting Actress for the 1961 film "Judgment at Nuremberg" for United Artists. In the 1960s, Garland's focus shifted from movies to sound recordings, live performances and television. In 1969, she died from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills at the age of 47.
Here's Judy performing a Christmas medley with Jack Jones and her daughter, Liza Minnelli, from her 1963 holiday TV special:
And here's Judy's moving performance of "'Till After the Holidays" on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, from December 17, 1968:
Garland was an enormous talent whose life included both magnificent achievements and terrible challenges. She was a warm and empathetic personality whose performances always seemed to include a certain measure of human frailty, which earned her the allegiance of fans who faced challenges in their own lives. She was revered by members of the nascent GBLTQ community in the 1960s, and was among the first performers to acknowledge and appreciate her many gay fans. Judy Garland was surely one of a kind, and she will be long remembered for her incredible talents and the body of wonderful work she left behind.
Track 25 Mighty Lunch Hour with the WBCN Chipmunks, Tom Sandman for WBCN Boston (1986)
(L to R): Shelton, Parenteau and Laquidara
I wrote several days ago about Billy West and Tom Sandman, who created a variety of memorable sketches, characters and promos for rock radio station WBCN-FM in Boston during the 1980s. This track was recorded to kick off one of the thousand or more "Mighty Lunch Hours" hosted by legendary Boston DJ Ken Shelton during his 10+ years at WBCN. Shelton's show ran each weekday from 10:00 am until 2:00 pm between Charles Laquidara's "Big Mattress" program (6:00 to 10:00 am) and Mark Parenteau's afternoon show (2:00 to 6:00 pm). As I recall, this line-up was in place for most of the 1980s.
Shortly before 12 noon each weekday, Ken would play a short intro piece featuring a reworked version of a well-known song altered to emphasize some lunch-related theme. For example, the Temptations' classic "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" was reworked as "Papa Ate a Chicken Bone"; David Bowie's "This Is Not America" became "This Is Not a Hamburger"; and "I'm on Fire" by Bruce Springsteen became "Lunch on Fire." Sandman and West created hundreds of similar parodies, and they helped to make the "Mighty Lunch Hour" a daily Boston tradition.
This track, of course, was a take-off of the 1958 novelty record "The Chipmunks Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)", which I posted about last year. This Tom Sandman creation features DJs Laquidara, Shelton and Parentau as chipmunks bickering about who works the hardest and clamoring for something good for lunch. I didn't include the entire promo in my mix, but here's the full version of the song as it appeared on Shelton's "Mighty Lunch Hour":
I have to say that Shelton is one of my favorite radio personalities of all time. I first started listening to him on WBZ-FM in Boston when I was in junior high school. He and Clark Schmidt were the only two on-air personalities at that station in those days, and I especially enjoyed listening to their weekly countdowns every Thursday after school.
Shelton got his start as the floor manager for WBZ-TV's children's show "Boomtown," with Rex Trailer. From there he migrated to WBZ-FM, where he got the nickname "Captain Ken," by which many fans still think of him today. After WBZ-FM became fully automated in 1975, Shelton worked for WCOZ-FM, WEEI-FM, and finally WBCN, where he replaced Matt Siegel in 1980. Shelton had a friendly, relatively mature style at WBCN. He always impressed me as a true student of rock who could both recognize new talent and play the very best stuff from the past.
"Captain" Ken Shelton
In addition to the Mighty Lunch Hour, Shelton's show also included a daily "Coffee Break" at 10:30 each morning, which featured listener requests phoned in from workplaces throughout Greater Boston. You can hear his regular "Coffee Break" jingle HERE.
Things at WBCN started to go south in the 1990s. Shelton left in 1993 to assume morning drivetime duties for WZLX-FM, which became a classic rock station after it was purchased by Infinity Broadcasting. Laquidara left three years later when his morning slot was turned over to Howard Stern's syndicated program out of New York. By the 2000s, the station was a mere shadow of its former self, and in 2009 it was taken off the air entirely. Boston's 104 FM is now a sports station.
I don't listen to radio much anymore. Most stations have limited playlists of comprised of unobjectionable dreck selected by corporate functionaries and played by unctuous automatons amidst seemingly endless stretches of idiotic ads. Stations had distinct personalities in the 20th century, individual DJs played terrific tunes based on their particular tastes and the music was authentic and imaginative. You kids don't have any idea how good it really was.
We've got 15 tracks yet to discuss from this year's compilation and 15 days to go before Christmas, not counting today. I'll be back with more someday soon.
It's Saturday, December 7, 2024, which is hopefully not going to be a day that will live in infamy; but, of course, these days one never knows. After today there are only 17 shopping days left until Christmas, so visit some of your favorite stores and go crazy. I'm trying to stay away from amazon.com as much as possible myself. Old-fashioned stores with walls, floors and real people are a lot more fun and use far less cardboard.
We're here to talk about the 41 tracks on my 20th holiday mix, "I Wish It Was Christmas Today," and we're already up to Tracks 19, 20 and 21, which means we've passed the half-way mark and still have 17 more days in which to look at the remaining 20 selections. I don't want to jinx things here, but I think we'll make it with time to spare. Ready? Let's begin!
Track 19 Christmas Party, Brendan Hanlon and The Bat Men (1964)
This one's a real winner, in my book — in fact, it's definitely in the running for my favorite song on this year's mix. Released at the very start of the garage rock boom of the mid-1960s, this track is loaded with the sort of brash energy you'd expect from a group that wasn't aware of the rules, had no limits and fully expected to make it big with their first release.
I haven't been able to find out too much about the group, unfortunately, although Hanlon apparently worked as both a regional theater actor and a clown, according to one report (honest to God). It seems he also appeared with Sid Caesar and The Grateful Dead on Hugh Hefner's syndicated "Playboy After Dark" show on March 22, 1969. It's not clear exactly what he did on the show. He was also a guest on the weekly "Hollywood Palace" TV variety show that same year. He appears to have released three singles as a solo artist in 1967, but from the looks of it, "Christmas Party" was his most widely recognized effort.
I'd say we should enjoy this track for what it is, and be grateful it's still working its magic 60 years after it was first recorded.
Track 20 Dave's Christmas Record Collection - Germany, David Letterman
This short clip is the Christmas version of a bit David Letterman did from time to time on his NBC "Late Night" show during the mid-1980s in which he'd play excerpts from various oddball albums that were supposedly from his personal record collection at home. This particular series of excerpts were all from screwball Christmas albums Dave purportedly owned — several of which, I'm proud to admit, really can be found in my holiday collection. Among the records he featured were Christmas albums by Lorne Greene, Jack Webb, Senator Everett Dirksen and KFC's Colonel Sanders, There was also a tacky looking album from a German artist named Heino, which is the selection my clip highlights. The video below is teed-up to begin from the start of the German excerpt I used, but you can move the cursor all the way to the left to watch the bit from the beginning. I recommend you also watch it to the end.
Track 21 Oh, Santa, Mr. B, The Gentleman Rhymer (2012)
Mr. B, The Gentleman Rhymer is a character played by British parody artist Jim Burke. According to one recent profile, Mr. B is a "self-styled country gent," who "raps about high society, cricket and pipe-smoking and is
accompanied by his beloved banjolele." He was cited in that same profile for having creating his own musical genre — "chap-hop," which he describes as “reconnecting
hip-hop with the Queen's English."
Burke lists his musical influences as hip-hop legends Chuck D,
The Beasties Boys, KRS-One and the Def Jam mob and these inspired some of his
tracks including "Straight Outta Surrey" and "Let Me Smoke My Pipe."
Burke started performing as Mr. B in late 2007, and has performed at cabarets and other venues across Europe, including the Glastonbury Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. His debut album "Flattery Not Included" was released in 2008.
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