Track 14
Holiday Greeting, Pete Townshend
Holiday Greeting, Pete Townshend
Many years ago, before Millennials, Gen X or Gen Z were even a thing, Pete Townshend wrote a song with the following lyrics about a group now sneeringly referred to as Boomers:
People try to put us d-downJust because we get aroundThings they do look awful c-coldI hope I die before I get old
My Generation, The Who
I'm awfully glad Pete Townshend's still alive at age 79, because he's written and played a lot of terrific music in the 60 years after writing "My Generation." Indeed, the album he and Roger Daltry released in 2019 as The Who is as powerful as nearly anything they recorded in their younger days.
Known primarily as a guitarist and for his work with The Who, Townshend, in fact, has a far-reaching set of talents and interests that include a string of successful solo albums and work as an artist, author screenwriter and essayist. This isn't the place for a deep dive into his illustrious career, but I've always been a big fan of Pete Townshend and The Who and I'm happy to be able to pass along his holiday greeting to all in my latest Christmas mix.
Track 15
Santa Claus Gave Me a Brand New Start, James Brown (1968)
Santa Claus Gave Me a Brand New Start, James Brown (1968)
James Brown was known by a variety of nicknames, including "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr. Dynamite" and "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business" — the latter, no doubt, as a result of his prodigious output of recorded music. From 1958 through 2002, just four years before his death, Brown placed 59 studio albums on Billboard's Hot 200 chart. During the 1960s and early '70s he was routinely releasing between two and five hit albums each year, which is a remarkable feat.
Brown was not only hard-working; he was a giant of American popular music, pioneering a unique blend of blues, gospel and funk and establishing himself as one of music's most energetic live performers. He was among the first inductee's into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and ranks at #7 on Rolling Stone's list of the Top 500 Musical Artists of All Time. Remarkably, he hit #1 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart with 17 different songs.
And Brown was clearly a Christmas music enthusiast, having recorded three albums of mostly original holiday tunes during his busiest years, including "A Soulful Christmas," the 1968 album that featured the jazzy instrumental "Santa Claus Gave Me a Brand New Start," written by Bud Hobgood and Nat Jones. This song lacks the signature style that's apparent on most of Brown's other holiday tunes — in fact, it's almost unrecognizable as something from James Brown's catalogue. But it's spirited and fresh and surely in keeping with Brown's enthusiasm for holiday magic. What do you think?
I've used four of Brown's other holiday tunes on previous mixes, which are listed as links, below. Few artists offer more or better material to liven up any holiday gathering.
Track 16
Santa Claus for President, Sammy Kaye, featuring Don Cornell and the Three Kaydets (1947)
Santa Claus for President, Sammy Kaye, featuring Don Cornell and the Three Kaydets (1947)
This spot was originally intended for a song with the same title by a group called The Peppermint Kandy Kids from their vintage album "Snoopy's Christmas." I drew up my first tentative track list for this year's mix back in early October and thought it would be fun to include a song about presidential elections in light of the nationwide balloting scheduled for November 5. I had high hopes for a Democratic victory in October, and my first draft track list included an item labeled "Holiday Greetings from President-Elect Kamala Harris and First Gentleman Doug Emhoff." Sadly, some things weren't meant to be.
Anyway . . . when I retooled this year's mix after finally emerging from my darkened room sometime during the middle part of November, I misplaced the version of "Santa Claus for President" I'd intended to use and signed into YouTube to find another copy. To my surprise, I couldn't find it right away and only managed to locate my initial choice after stumbling over several alternatives.
Here's The Peppermint Kandy Kids song I'd originally meant to use:
Frankly, I never much liked this tune — in fact, I find it slightly nauseating.
To my delight, I'd found another tune with the same title before relocating The Peppermint Kandy Kids version of the song. This was posted by an outfit called Holiday Spirit Productions, which, according to their YouTube page,
is a production group originally founded to create music for film and TV, expanding into curatorial services, original record label releases, boutique music distribution, video production, animation, promo/marketing and much more.
Over the years, Holiday Spirit Productions has developed a notable repertoire of popular holiday hits, creating original audio and video recordings, compiling some of the best known classic Christmas mixes, curating and assembling tailored compilation albums, playlists and public performance productions through our comprehensive production and remastering processes.
Based on the quality of their version of "Santa Claus for President," as well as the many other high-quality tunes they posted on YouTube, I decided to use their track for this year's mix:
But then I ran across this video of a 1947 record with the same title by an artist listed as "Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye," featuring a vocal refrain by Don Cornell and the Three Kaydets:
Sammy Kaye was a big band leader and composer who was popular in the 1930s and '40s who is perhaps best known for recording early versions of the classic tunes "Blueberry Hill" and "Harbor Lights." I don't know what you think, but it sounded to me as though the Holiday Spirit folks relied on Sammy Kaye's record as the soundtrack for their video, so it seemed to me that I'd be better off going with Sammy, too. That doesn't take anything away from Holiday Spirit Productions — in fact, I've added links to their YouTube page and website, below, for those who wish to get more information about their good work.
In the course of reviewing the various versions of "Santa Claus for President," I discovered a couple of other things. First, it seems The Peppermint Kandy Kids seem to have updated their earlier version of this song for an apparent 2012 re-issue of the "Snoopy's Christmas" album. I like their updated version better, which is a relief since the group is responsible for one of my favorite holiday songs of all time, "Santa's Magical Bag," which I included on my 2008 mix, "Home for the Holidays." Here's their updated version of the song:
The other thing I discovered is that there are quite a few other variations on the "Santa Claus for President" theme posted on YouTube in all manner of shapes, sizes and levels of quality. Run a search of your own and you'll see what I mean.
In the end, I'm pleased to have run with Sammy Kaye's version of the song, which is, of course, a wholly different composition than versions The Peppermint Kandy Kids have used. Sammy also seems to have been the first artist to use the title. Of course, we'd just elected FDR to four consecutive terms as president back then, so the idea of putting Santa Claus in the White House may not have been so wildly appearing as it is today.
I'll be back one of these days soon for some background on the next two tracks, which both involve one of Australia's biggest musical exports, the Bee Gees.
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