Legendary B-52s Vocalist Fred Schneider to Re-Release "Destination . . . Christmas!"

I've been trying to steer clear of Twitter — I'm sorry, "X" — recently, for all the usual reasons; but I flipped it on while waiting in line at the Home Depot earlier and was surprised to see a post about Fred Schneider, the iconic vocalist from everybody's favorite 1980s college party band, the B-52s. It seems that coming up on November 17, Bandcamp will be re-releasing the album Fred did with The Superions in 2010 called "Destination . . . Christmas!"

Made up of 11 original holiday tunes, the album's promo material describes it as "equal parts disco bangers, sensual French pop, comedic holiday numbers, suggestive lyrics, and never a dull moment — an album that keeps the Xmas party going through new years."

I'm not sure why I haven't yet included anything from this album on one of my mixes because there are at least several tracks that would fit in awfully well. 

It's Christmas Time Again, Part 1

Well, it's time to kick things off for 2017 and take on the chief responsibility I set for this blog when I first launched it back in 2011 -- namely, to offer some background, comments and fun facts about the various tracks on each of my holiday CD mixes. We typically attack the tracks in clusters of two or three each day in reverse order each day, so that once the comments are done you can read them straight through in reverse chronological order. So without further ado, here's our look at the tracks included on my latest holiday mix, It's Christmas Time Again!

Track 4
Holiday Traditions at the Playboy Mansion
Hugh Hefner

As in previous years, a number of the tracks on this year's mix pay tribute to well-known celebrities who died during the past 12 months, and the first such person year is Hugh Hefner, the founder and publisher of Playboy magazine. Recognizing Hefner was a difficult decision, for while he championed the principles of sexual liberation and free expression, which I enthusiastically support, he and his magazine objectified women and promoted images and stereotypes that many women found deeply offensive. I ultimately chose to include a short excerpt from an interview in which Hef described some of the holiday traditions observed at the Playboy Mansion. It was obvious from his remarks that this was a guy who loved Christmas -- after all, it was one of times each year when he ate dinner sitting in a chair rather than propped up in bed. Kind of a nice tradition, don't you think?

Listen to Hugh Hefner describing holiday traditions at the Playboy Mansion

Track 3
Here I Come, Unknown Artist
I first ran across this creepy little number via the Internet Archive, which, among millions of other websites, songs and video clips stores recordings of a program called "Crap from the Past" that ran every Sunday night from March 1999 through October 2002 from midnight to 2:00 a.m. (so Monday morning, really) on KFAI-FM, 90.3 FM Minneapolis, 106.7 FM St. Paul, and KFAI.org. The show's host, Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber, liked to call it "a pop music radio show for people who already know plenty about pop music," and I'd say that's as good a description as any. The December 17, 2001 show featured the third track on this year's CD, called "Here I Come." As Gerber explains, it came on a three-track record that also included a couple of spoken word stories. No artist was willing to claim credit for any of it, but it seems the record was made in Finland. 

Listen to the December 17, 2001 "Crap from the Past" Show

Track 2
Jing, Jing a Ling, by Honey and the Bees (1969)

Honey and the Bees

I'm a huge fan of '60s and '70s Motown, soul and R&B, and there's a whole lot of fine but forgotten "urban" Christmas tunes from that era, several of which, I'm pleased to say, I've featured on previous CDs. This one's really special, and it manages to kick this year's mix into a dynamite groove from almost the very start. (Of course, we don't stay there for long, but it was nice while it lasted.)

Honey and the Bees were a short-lived and underappreciated girl-group based primarily in Philadelphia and made up of Nadine Felder, Jean Davis, Gwendolyn Oliver and Cassandra "Ann" Wooten "Jing Jing a Ling' was released as a 45 in 1969 (b/w Auld Lang Syne), made it one of their first releases. That was followed by a nice but relatively unsuccessful album called Love in 1970. The group broke up sometime around 1972, but within a short time, Oliver and Wooten hooked up with Cheryl Mason-Jacks and Richie Rome to form The Ritchie Family, a disco group that scored with two decent hits, "Brazil," which made it to #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1975 and "The Best Disco in Town," which made it to #17 the following year. Wooten and Mason-Jacks later contributed backgrounds vocals to the John Lennon/Yoko Ono "Double Fantasy" album as well as several solo albums by Yoko Ono.

Listen to "Jing Jing a Ling," by Honey and the Bees

Track 1
Christmas in Heaven, by Monty Python (1983)



This year's mix starts off with a track from the 1983 movie "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life." I've never seen it myself, and I don't really have any interest in seeing it. I understand the guests at the giant Christmas party depicted when the song is performed are either dead or on their way to their miserable demise and that the song is meant to ridicule the modern Western materialist lifestyle most of us pursue and enjoy today. I heard the song earlier this year and immediately felt it could work as an intro song to an upcoming holiday CD, and when I decided to assemble a knock-off version of my regular mix this year, "Christmas in Heaven" just happened to be one of the first tracks I saw. I think it kind of works out in the lead position this year.

I'll be back with more tomorrow. It's another beautiful warm day in Los Angeles and I aim to enjoy a little bit of this beautiful weather while it's there for the taking.

Deck Those Halls, Part 6 (Tracks 16-18)

Greetings holiday music fans. It looks like we're going to have a race to the finish here, because with only nine days to go before the big day I've still got 27 tracks to discuss here in some form or fashion. That's a pretty tall order, so I'd best get to it.

Track 18
C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S, by "Little" Marcy Tigner (1973)

When I put together my first few holiday mixes some 15 years ago, a significant number of the tracks I included were selected solely because of how awful they were. Seriously! Wait, you don't believe me? Try this little number on for size:  Track 32 from my 2005 mix. Or this one:  Track 34 from my 2006 mix. OK, I can hear the cries of "Uncle!" I'll stop. I only wish I'd shown that same sort of mercy and self-restraint when it came to picking this year's Track 18, but for some reason I turned sadistic and chose this monstrosity by the deceitful Marcy Tigner.

News flash! This hateful mess of audio was recorded by a middle-aged woman impersonating a child, and not by a cute little girl, as the "artist" would have you believe. Well, I already wrote about this woman in a 2011 post, and I have nothing more add. I apologize for my cruelty in selecting this track and promise it won't happen again.

(NOTE: I thought I'd amuse myself just now by doing a Google search for pictures of "Little" Marcy and her keeper online and discovered two horrifying facts. First, this obnoxious young child appears to have had quite a time of it in the 1970s, because  my Google Image search turned up at least 20 different album covers featuring her happy little face.  Even worse, tucked among the pictures the search turned up were several of my 2011 mix! Never again – I promise! (Look at this kid closely, by the way. I'm not even sure she's a human being.)

Track 17
Holiday Greetings, by Eddie Kendricks 

Eddie Kendricks

An Alabama native known for his distinctive falsetto voice, Eddie Kendricks is perhaps best known for his work during the 1960s as a member of R&B supergroup The Temptations. From 1965 through 1973 the group had 15 Top 10 records, including four Number One singles:  "My Girl," "I Can't Get Next to You," "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone," and "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)." Kendricks sang lead vocals on the latter song, which has been described as "Eddie's finest moment." Another song featuring Kendricks on lead vocals was intended to be the follow-up single to "Just My Imagination," but Kendricks left the band on bad terms around that same time, and the would-be follow-up, "Smiling Faces," was given away instead to the band The Undisputed Truth.

Kendricks was quickly signed by Motown after leaving The Temptations, and though it took awhile to get started, he enjoyed a very successful solo career. I was a huge fan of R&B, soul and even disco when I was growing up, and I first got turned on to Kendricks after hearing his rather touching single, "Shoeshine Boy." That was only a modest hit, but Kendricks also had smash hits like "Keep on Truckin'" and "Boogie Down," which made it to #1 and #2, respectively, on Billboard's Hot 100.

Tragically, Kendricks died of lung cancer in 1992. But he will be remembered as a huge contributor to an era of amazingly rich music.

Listen to "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," by the Temptations, featuring Eddie Kendricks on lead vocals

Track 16
O Christmas Tree, by The Orphan, The Poet

NOTE AS OF 1/1/24:  I recently discovered that the links to online versions of this track posted below no longer work. I've searched the internet high and low for alternate versions but seem to have struck out completely. This track simply doesn't seem to be available online, for purchase or otherwise. Too bad, because it's an awesome song. Sorry. 

Drum roll, please . . . for now we come to my very favorite song on this year's mix, "O Christmas Tree," by the Dayton, Ohio band The Orphan, The Poet. You can hear the song HERE. I've played it at least 30 or 40 times over the past couple of months, and it hasn't lost a bit of its original appeal to me. They also have a number of other awesome holiday tunes kicking around, such as their version of "Have Yourself a Merry, Little Christmas," which, through the magic of the interweb, is available below:



If you're lucky enough to live in Dayton (did I just write that?), be sure to attend the band's Christmas Extravaganza at the Canal Public House in Dayton this Friday night, starting at 7:30. And wherever you're from, check out their beautiful version of "O Christmas Tree."

We'll be back with more sometime soon.

Christmas at the Disco: Marcie and Anthony Webster's "Christmas Time Gladness"

Marcie is a singer/songwriter from my hometown of Boston who writes and performs both terrific children's tunes and hot dance music. She's recently collaborated with Anthony Webster to produce a new holiday track called "Christmas Time Gladness," a loosely based remake of Lana Del Rey’s "Summertime Sadness (Cedric Gervais Remix)." Planning a holiday dance party this month? I'm guessing this track will get folks out on the floor:



Thanks, Marcie!

Here Comes Santa Claus, Part 13

We're now in the home stretch of my look at the 38 tracks on my latest holiday mix CD, Here Comes Santa Claus. We've already covered the first 33 tracks, and today we look at Tracks 34-36, each of which celebrates the life of a popular entertainer who passed away during 2012. That will leave just two final tracks to consider after today's post, and I'm looking to tackle them over the next several days – assuming our luck holds out and the world survives the predicted Mayan apocalypse.

Track 36

Happy New Year from Dick Clark (2000)

Dick Clark in Times Square on New Year's Eve

When radio and television personality Dick Clark died this past April at the age of 82, he left behind a rich legacy of cultural achievement. But during the holiday season, the contribution that stands out most is New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, the program Clark created and hosted for nearly 40 years. This track is made up of two parts – an excerpt from an interview in which Clark discusses the launch of the program in 1972, and an excerpt from his New Year’s Eve countdown from Times Square on December 31, 1999. ABC is scheduled to air a tribute to Clark on December 31 this year, and its New Year’s show will be called “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest.” But it won’t be quite the same without him.

Track 35

I’ll Be Home for Christmas, by Donna Summer (1994)

Donna Summer

It’s not for nothing that the late Donna Summer was known as the “Queen of Disco.” While her career had its roots in gospel and musical theater and she ultimately explored a variety of different genres, she was one of the first recording artists to achieve commercial success with electronic dance music and she remains the only artist in history to top the Billboard album charts with three consecutive double album releases – the disco classics Live and More (1978), Bad Girls (1979) and On the Radio (1980). During the period from 1978-80, she had nine Top 5 singles, four of which (“MacArthur Park,” “Hot Stuff,” “Bad Girls,” and “No More Tears (Enough is Enough)”) made it all the way to #1. Summer died this past May at the age of 63, and her death brought tributes from a wide range of people within and outside of the music industry. This track is from her 1994 album Christmas Spirit, which includes a variety of traditional and popular holiday songs. (My original track list and the list inside this year’s CD list the date of this track as 2005, but that is incorrect. Although "Christmas Spirit" was reissued in 2005 as part of Universal’s 20th Century Masters line under the title "The Best of Donna Summer: The Christmas Collection," it was originally released in 1994.) The song was written by Kim Gannon and Walter Kent and originally recorded by Bing Crosby in 1943. It’s written from the point of view of an American serviceman writing home from overseas during World War II, and has subsequently been recorded by scores of other artists.

If you'd like to appreciate Donna Summer's version of the song that much more, listen to this alternate version that will make you wish the world was ending tonight:  I'll Be Home for Christmas (Mayan Apocalypse Version).

Track 34

George Plays Santa, from the Cast of “The Jeffersons,” featuring Sherman Hemsley (1981)



Hemsley (left) and Sean Garrett McFrazier
 in "All I Want for Christmas"

Best known for his portrayal of dry cleaning magnate George Jefferson in the long-running CBS sitcom The Jeffersons, Sherman Hemsley passed away this past July at the age of 74. An intensely private man, Hemsley rarely gave interviews or spoke about his experiences. However, in 2003, he confided in a rare interview for the Archive of American Television that playing George Jefferson was difficult for him. I’ve only seen a limited number of reruns from the show myself, but I get the sense that Hemsley is closer in temperament to the George Jefferson who appears in the 1981 episode “All I Want for Christmas” than the brash and cocky character he typically portrayed in the series. This track was taken from that episode, in which George Jefferson reluctantly agrees to play Santa for a group of orphans at the Help Center where his wife Weezie volunteers. One of the children, Mark, wants nothing to do with Santa, as he’s never received the one thing he’s asked for from Santa in the past – a family of his own. Unsure of how to respond, George notices that many of the younger orphans look up to Mark and depend on him for guidance and support. Isn’t that what a family’s really all about, asks George? The entire episode appears below, in two parts:

The Jeffersons was on the air for 11 years, which makes it one of the longest-running non-animated sitcoms in television history. Hemsley later starred in the NBC sitcom Amen, which ran for five seasons from 1986-91. It's worth noting that one of the three Christmas episodes that series produced, "The Twelve Songs of Christmas," includes a performance of Mary's Boy Child, a Christmas carol written in 1956 by one of the show's stars, Jester Hairston. The full episode is available on YouTube in three parts:

Part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3

Part 3 of 3

Sherman Hemsley brought a lot of laughter into this world, and the characters he created helped emphasize a variety of lessons about how to treat others and value what's most important. He'll be missed.

Here Comes Santa Claus, Part 2

Yesterday, I started posting a little background on the various tracks included on my latest holiday mix, Here Comes Santa Claus, and I'm hoping to continue with that until I've provided at least a little information about each of the 38 tracks on this year's CD. With that word of warning, let's press on!

Track 6 

Window Wonderland Stencils Kit Commercial, Gold Seal Glass Wax (c. 1963)
The sixth track on this year's CD is an edited version of a vintage TV commercial touting the use of Gold Seal Glass Wax with the company's holiday stencils kit to create decorative seasonal images on glass windows. Glass wax, which I vaguely remember, was a popular window cleaner in the 1950s and '60s. Many people disliked using spray or aerosol window cleaners such as Windex because they supposedly left streaks. Glass wax, by contrast, was applied to the glass with a sponge, and, once it had dried it could be easily rubbed off with a dry cloth leaving sparkling clear, streak-free windows. As this commercial explains, glass wax could also be applied with a stencil and left on the window in a distinctive pattern. Once painted on the window, it looked like etched glass or frost, and was easily removed after the holidays. I don't recall decorating our windows with this technique growing up, although I believe my cousins did. I vividly recall cleaning a whole mess of windows every spring, however: regular and storm windows at our home in Massachusetts, as well as the very old glass windows at our summer home in Maine, and at "the Studio" behind my grandmother's home on the Stroudwater River in Portland, Maine. Her home was previously owned by the impressionist painter Walter Griffin (1861-1935), to whom she was related by marriage, and "the Studio" was where he did a lot of his work. My cousins, my brother and I frequently slept there in the warmer months, and I lived there for two summers during college while working as a cook to earn money for school. That place had lots of windows, and over the years I'd guess we used pretty much every possible type of window cleaner on them.


Track 5
Three Blind Christmas Mice, The Bel-Airs (1962)

The Bel-Airs, c. 1961

I can't remember where I first ran across this bouncy little number, but I'm sure glad I did. It's by a group called The Bel-Airs, and it's a great example of the underappreciated surf rock genre that became popular in Southern California and certain other parts of the country in the early to mid-1960s. The Bel-Airs were among the earliest and most influential West Coast surf rock bands. Formed in 1960, they had their biggest hit the following year with an instrumental titled Mr. Moto, which was apparently based on the fictional Japanese secret agent created in the 1930s by author John Marquand. Three Blind Christmas Mice, also known as "The Three Blind Mice Make It to Santa's Village," was released in 1962 and appears to be the only holiday song The Bel Airs recorded. It's an instrumental mash-up of "Jingle Bells" and  the popular children's tune "Three Blind Mice," but it's the high-octane surf-rock beat that makes it great. Sadly, the surf rock scene pretty much fizzled out with the arrival of the British invasion, and by 1964 The Bel-Airs were gone. Happily, most of the members remained in music after the break-up. Guitarist Eddie Bertrand formed Eddie & the Showmen in 1964, while guitarist Paul Johnson joined Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys in 1970. Original Bel-Airs drummer Dick Dodd joined Bertrand in Eddie & the Showmen, and later joined the legendary Los Angeles garage band The Standells, playing drums and singing lead on their 1966 surf-style hit, Dirty Water, which is pretty much the national anthem of Boston rock. That's right, surf rock's always been big in Boston, and it doesn't come as easily to folks in Massachusetts as to residents of California. For proof, check out one of my favorite Boston rock classics, the Gremies' No Surfing in Dorchester Bay.  

Track 4
Holiday Greetings from the S.O.S. Band (c. 1987)

The S.O.S. Band

I've been using celebrity holiday greetings between songs ever since my very first holiday mix, although I use them less frequently with each successive mix.  They're an easy way to transition from one song to another, much as commercials were back in the days of Top 40 AM radio. It's hard to segue directly  from an uptempo song to something sad, for example, without some kind of bridge, and devices like the celebrity greeting allow you to make those transitions without a whole lot of thought. (Former American Top 40 host Casey Kasem addressed this topic in one of the most famous backstage rants to ever hit the internet.) Depending on who's involved, celebrity greetings can also add a certain cachet to a project, or at the very least a sense of recognition or familiarity. The ones I like best, however, are the ones from B-, C- or D-list celebrities -- the clips that leave you wondering "who the hell is this person and why do I care that he's wishing me a Merry Christmas?" Which brings us to the S.O.S. Band. Well – no, wait. That's not really fair to them. In fact, I really liked this band, back in the day. You may remember their first single, Take Your Time (Do It Right), which was a huge hit during the Summer of 1980. I was living in New York City that summer and had just discovered the club scene there, and I guess I'll always associate this song with a set of experiences and memories that have no place in an upstanding holiday music blog like this. If you want to know more about the S.O.S. Band, you can look them up on Google. I'm too busy right now enjoying the first rays of sunlight on a long-ago July morning, as I make my way up Eighth Avenue with the beat of the disco still thumping in my ears.

PS: Casey Kasem offers a snapshot of the top-selling records of that summer in the America's Top 10 broadcast that aired on August 17, 1980. The YouTube clip notes at 5:20 that "Take Your Time (Do It Right)" was the number three song in the country that week. What was #1? Olivia Newton-John's "Magic," God help us all. Incidentally, Newton-John and John Travolta recently released an album of holiday music that Travolta describes as "intimate," and "not [ ] too ostentatious or showy." Benefits from the album go to charity, which seems to be the record's one redeeming feature.

Stay tuned for more tomorrow.