I've always been a big Beatles fan — whether the exuberant innocence of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," the trippy psychedelia of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," or the long medley on the second side of "Abbey Road," I love them all. I like most of their solo stuff, too, with the one sad exception of Paul's "Wonderful Christmastime," which I find utterly unlistenable. In fact, not only do I love everything by The Beatles, I like songs that feature Linda McCartney's vocals. And I'll do you one better. I'm a big fan of Yoko Ono.
I figure most people think I'm joking when I make that claim but it's the God's honest truth. Unfortunately, Ono has been ridiculed and slandered almost constantly since she first became famous worldwide as John Lennon's lady, To some, she's the dragon lady who broke up the Beatles. To others, she's a talentless social climber who used Lennon's wealth and fame to promote her inferior art and atrocious "music." In fact, Ono was a highly respected conceptual artist before she ever met Lennon and her work has long been celebrated in avant gard circles for its originality, insight and wit. She certainly isn't responsible for the disbanding of the Beatles. And while some of her music can be an acquired taste, much of it is profoundly moving and meaningful. You can dance to a lot of it, too. From 2003-2016, remixed versions of 13 of Ono's songs topped the Billboard Dance Club chart. Not bad for a woman who turns 90 years old in February.
Anyway, Track 22 is a short parody purporting to be a commercial for a Yoko Ono holiday album. Clips of the various holiday standards are played and they all consist of a woman screaming indecipherably for five or six seconds. Terrible. So why did I include this track? Well, for one thing it gives me a chance to sing Yoko's praises and I like such opportunities. It's also sort of funny if you're aware enough to see through the preposterous claim that her music sounds alike and sounds awful. Finally, I know Yoko's got a sense of humor and likes to deal with criticism head-on. I doubt she'd be offended.
Track 21 I Want a Beatle for Christmas, The Fans (1964)
One measure of the size of the cultural tidal wave that hit with the arrival of the Beatles in February 1964 is the number of holiday novelty songs about the group that were released later that same year. I've featured half a dozen on my previous mixes as listed a bunch more in previous posts about the phenomenon, and I've got two more on this year's compilation.
Track 21 is by a London-based duo called The Fans, which is made up of two friends named Gita Renik and Jeanette Ross. I haven't been able to find out much more about the song or the group than that, however — the song can be found all over the internet but it typically appears with nothing more than the song, artist and year of release.
Track 20 Christmas Song (A John and Yoko Parody), Guppy Pie Productions (2014)
I don't have much of anything to offer about this track either. It's a clip I found on YouTube featured on The Great Movie Channel page. According to the clip itself, it was created by Guppy Pie Productions, which is apparently affiliated with a North Hollywood outfit called Pie Town Productions. I don't know that the singer sounds or looks too much like John Lennon, but it's a cute little clip that suggests both the movie industry and the Bush family are impediments to world peace and I think that's something John and Yoko would probably endorse.
Track 19 (I Want) a Beatle for Christmas, Patty Surbey and The Canadian VIPs (1964)
The last of this year's four Beatles-related tracks (actually the first of the four since we list each day's tracks in reverse order) is by Canadian Patty Surbey, who has been described by the Canadian music website Canuckistan Music as a "perky amalgam of Connie Francis and Brenda Lee, with maybe a bit of Annette Funicello or Cathy Carroll thrown in for good measure." The website gives high marks to this record, too. "Buoyed by a rollicking backbeat supplied by the Canadian V.I.P.s and peppered with Surbey's hiccupy vocals, "(I Want) a Beatle for Christmas" is a fine record on its own and could probably have done well enough without the Xmas or Beatles references."
The song did well in some parts of Canada, but delays in mailing the production master prevented a timely pressing in the United States and Christmas arrived before the record caught on in this country.
Surbey followed-up this record with another single recorded with The Canadian VIPs called "Hey Boy" that was released in early 1965, but that was pretty much the end of Surbey's music career. She eventually resurfaced in Ontario as an active member of a born-again Christian church.
I'll be back sometime soon with the start of the second half of this year's mix. How's your holiday shopping going?
While this isn't a Christmas or holiday tune, strictly speaking, I believe Andy's right when he calls this rendition of the beautiful bluegrass song "There Is a Time" the prettiest thing he's ever heard. It's sung by Maggie Peterson, who played Charlene Darling on The Andy Griffith Show. Maggie died this past May at the age of 81. She also appeared on a number of other television shows including The Odd Couple, Green Acres, Mayberry R.F.D. and Love American Style; and she played and toured the country with several music groups including the The Ernie Mariani Trio. That group used to open for Andy Griffith when he performed live.
I can't say I know much about bluegrass music, but I understand it's extraordinarily difficult to play. This tune is hauntingly beautiful and, of course, the lyrics convey great meaning. I love the moment around 1:24 when Andy stops playing his guitar and just looks on in wonder.
Today's post looks at the next four tracks on my latest annual holiday mix and offers a bit of background on each.
Track 18 Holiday Greetings, Shirley Jones
Shirley Jones in 1960
Shirley Jones is one of those legendary entertainers who seems to have been around forever and worked and excelled in nearly every corner of the industry. But there's one other thing about this star that sets her apart from most others — everybody likes her. Just this morning, as it happens, a tweet from her son, singer and former teen heartthrob Shaun Cassidy, appeared in my Twitter feed that reads:
Took both my wife and mother to dinner tonight and we all ordered martinis. As it turns out, only one of us learned to imbibe with the likes of Sinatra, Bogie and Bacall. Well played, Mom. Well played.
That's a sweet note for a celebrity to write about his 88-year-old mother, to be sure, but what I found amazing is the flood of replies from fans and folks who know her personally all attesting to what a wonderful person Jones is and how kind and generous she is to those around her. My faith in humankind was at least somewhat restored and I'm grateful.
Born in rural Pennsylvania, Jones began to sing in her church choir and studied singing throughout her school years. After winning the Miss Pittsburgh contest in 1952, Jones was spotted at a Broadway audition by the casting director for Rodgers and Hammerstein who, quickly put her under contract. After several minor Broadway roles she was cast in 1955 as the lead in the film adaptation of Oklahoma! Other film roles followed, including leading parts in Carousel and The Music Man. In 1961, she won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her role in Elmer Gantry.
Jones is probably best remembered for her role as Shirley Partridge on the ABC musical sitcom The Partridge Family. In the show, Jones played a single mother who formed a popular singing group with her four children. In addition to the situational comedy, each episode featured a song or two purportedly performed by the talented family band, two of whom — Jones and her real-life stepson, David Cassidy, playing Keith Partridge — were actually performing. by the family group. The Partridge Family were soon topping the music charts in addition to the Neilson ratings, and Jones added pop sensation to her stage, film and television credits.
Unfortunately, Jones' success with The Partridge Family limited her ability to land other roles once that series went off the air. While she's continued to work, particularly on the stage, The Partridge Family will likely remain her biggest hit.
Of course, Jones has kept busy with a variety of other activities. She raised the three sons she had with her former husband, the late actor Jack Cassidy. She also has ten grandchildren, and she spent considerable time with the actors who played her children on TV. She also keeps busy with industry and charitable work, particularly on behalf of PETA. By all accounts, Shirley Jones is one terrific lady.
Track 17 Christmas Time Is (Comin' Around Again), The Mavericks (2017)
I love running across bands whose holiday spirit is palpable and evidenced by specific holiday activities. Some artists perform special holiday shows, for example. Others — like the Beatles, R.E.M. and The Killers — famously release special holiday singles each year. The Mavericks, a Grammy Award-winning, genre-defying band from Miami, Florida, seem to do a little bit of both these things. In 2018, they released a popular Christmas album called Hey! Merry Christmas!, which included eight original holiday songs. Further, they are currently on their "2022 Very Merry Christmas Tour," which will include a stop right up the street from me at the Ace Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, December 17. Give these guys a jolly "Ho! Ho! Ho!"
The Mavericks
The band was founded by guitarist Raul Malo and drummer Paul Deakin in 1989. Robert Reynolds (bass guitar) and Ben Peeler (lead guitar) joined soon after. They started playing local clubs in the Miami area almost immediately and in 1990 they produced their first album independently. The record's success led to the band being invited to a country music showcase in Nashville at which they were signed by MCA Nashville. There were problems describing The Maverick's style of music right from the start. They were signed as a country western act, but Malo's Cuban heritage and the fact they came from Miami complicated things. The band itself understood that they couldn't fairly be put in any particular category.
No matter what label you use, The Mavericks have had 11 hit albums since they signed with MCA. They've been nominated for eight Grammy Awards and won one in 1996 for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group for their album Here Comes the Rain. The group disbanded for several years in 2000 but since reforming in 2003 they've continued to tour and release new albums.
I selected "Christmas Time Is (Comin' Around Again)" for this year's mix, but any of the tunes on their holiday album would have also worked well. Here, for example are The Mavericks performing the title song from that album, "Hey! Merry Christmas!
Track 16 Santa's Got a Brand New Bag, Jim and Cathy (1965)
The third and final version of "Santa's Got a Brand New Bag" on this year's mix is by a group called Jim and Cathy. While this seems to have been the only record Jim and Cathy ever recorded under that name, the duo resurfaced in 1967 under the new name Friend and Lover, and promptly released a new album called Reach Out of the Darkness. The title track of the album was released as a single inn he Summer of 1967 (the fabled "Summer of Love") and became a Top 10 hit. I don't recall ever reading or hearing about Friend and Lover or "Reach Out of the Darkness, but I recognized the song immediately when I played it a few minutes ago and I'm sure you will, too (see link, below). Over time, according to the Song Facts website, the song has become "one of the canonical Flower Power songs, almost to the point of being a stereotypical parody of itself." Because of its strong association with the San Francisco hippie scene of the late 1960s, it was been used as background music in numerous films to conjure up a 1960s feel.
Jim and Cathy
Friend and Lover and its earlier incarnation, Jim and Cathy, was made up of singers Jim Post and Cathy Conn. The couple married in 1966, and Cathy Conn became Cathy Post. Unfortunately, neither the marriage nor the band lasted too long after their first album's chart run. Jim continued to record and perform through the 1970s and '80s, though he never equaled the initial success of Friends and Lovers. He died just this past September at the age of 82. Cathy died in 2019 at the age of 73.
Track 15 O Come All Ye Mindless, U.C. Berkeley Free Speechniks (1964)
Tracks 13, 15 and 23 are short variations on traditional Christmas carols repurposed by the Free Speechniks of the University of California at Berkeley as part of their Free Speech Movement (FSM). The story of the FSM is briefly described in the summary of Track 13, below.
The lyrics to the tune at Track 15 are as follows:
Hang on until our third of these little ditties, which will appear as Track 23 in a few days.
That's all for now. I'll be back next week with more.
For this week's SNL Holiday Flashback we had to dig way down in the vault all the way back to Season 2 and a sketch that ran on December 11, 1976 featuring guest host Candace Bergen as a stoic consumer reporter interviewing toy company executive Irwin Mainway (Dan Aykroyd). It seems some of the toys Mr. Mainway's company produces have been found to be just a little unsafe:
The principal raison d'être for this blog is to provide background on the various tracks on each of my annual holiday mixes. The current business at hand is a review of the 42 tracks on my latest mix, which is titled Hey! You! Get Off of My Roof! It's currently available to one and all on my holiday music website under the Tab marked "Latest." If you'd like to hear mixes from previous years, there are 17 of them available under the "Archive" Tab. Feeling adventuresome? Be sure to check out the tab marked "Extras."
Now, back to the task at hand:
Track 14
Christmas in New England, The '60s Invasion (2015)
The '60s Invasion
I grew up in a house where music was almost always playing, and the first music I remember getting excited about was the stuff I heard coming out of my AM transistor radio in the late 1960s. Popular music in those days was exciting, novel and diverse. Stations weren't hyper-focused on narrow demographics as they are today — you'd often hear songs by such disparate acts as the Doors, the Temptations, Herb Albert, Cream and The Lemon Pipers one after the other on the very same station. To this day I'm not sure there's ever been a time when there was better music coming over the radio airwaves. Small wonder then that I was immediately taken by the sounds of a New England-based covers band called The '60s Invasion when I first heard them several years ago. I was even more excited to learn that they'd recorded an entire album of holiday songs based on various '60s classics. The album, released in 2012, is called Incense and Chia Pets, and it features 13 clever holiday take-offs on popular '60s hits that even most Millennials are sure to know. I've used two selections from this great album on my 2022 mix, the first of which, "Christmas in New England," is a holiday version of the Mamas and the Papas smash hit "California Dreaming."
The '60s Invasion consists of Gino DiMaio on keyboard and vocals; Jack Little on bass and vocals; Artie Shannon on drums and vocals; Rich Ranalli on guitar and vocals; and Jake Smith on guitar, keyboard and vocals. The guys are primarily based in Massachusetts and Maine, and you can find out more about each of the members on their website, HERE.
Another song from the '60s Invasion pops up as Track 34 of this year's mix, which still leaves 11 other holiday-themed songs from the '60s to mine from their album. I have to confess, they're all great songs, so picking even two tracks to feature was no easy task.
God Rest Ye Free Speech, U.C. Berkeley Free Speechniks (1964)
While it didn't really start off this way, the 1960s also became known as a time of increasing activism and political protest, and one of the first major protests to attract widespread and serious attention was the so-called Free Speech Movement (FSM) that began at the University of California's Berkeley campus in 1964. Historians have noted that the FSM was the first significant protest to utilize some of the tactics developed in the civil rights movement on a university campus.
Prior to the Fall of 1964, the corner of Bancroft and Telegraph in front of the southern entrance
to the Berkeley campus had served as an informal gathering place for students to distribute political information and set-up tables for petitions and the distribution of literature. With increasing numbers of students becoming active in off-campus causes, however, the area had become somewhat unruly. In addition, increasing numbers of the activists who gathered there had no connection to the university. In late September, the school administration announced that tables would no longer be permitted in the area and collecting money or distributing information for or about outside causes would no longer be allowed.
Mario Savio Addresses Protestors
On September 30, students set up tables for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality.(CORE) in violation of the new rules. The students staffing the tables were referred for formal discipline by the school. The next day, a former student named Jack Weinberg who was staffing a table for CORE was arrested when he refused to take down the table. Hundreds of students mobilized in response to these actions and the FSM was born.
Describing the events that played out at Berkeley that Fall would require hundreds of pages and obviously take us far from the focus of this blog. Suffice it to say that while it took until the Christmas vacation, the forces that opposed the school's crack-down ultimately gained the upper hand. But it was a difficult fight that required the hard work of many committed participants. One of the most forceful and articulate of these was Mario Savio, whose remarks on the steps of Sproul Hall on December 2, 1964, are often cited as among the most powerful orations of the 20th century.
As events neared their climax in December, a group of students who called themselves the Berkeley Free Speechniks reworked the words to a number of Christmas carols to press some of the points they were arguing in their struggle against the administration. I happened to discover a number of these short clips this year and I've included three of them in this year's mix. Each clip lasts only about 30 seconds, and I thought it would be useful to have these short snippets from history to remind us of what a dedicated group of students was able to accomplish against a powerful university administration 58 years ago.
It may be worth noting that the Free Speechniks released the following statement at the time their short carols were released:
In the spirit of farce, and of Christmas, these songs were written and sung. We of the FSM are serious, but we hope we are still able to laugh at ourselves, as well as those who would restrict our Constitutional freedoms.
The first clip is based on the familiar carol "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," and while the name of this clip strikes me as odd, it really is titled "God Rest Ye Free Speech." The lyrics are as follows:
Track 12 Santa's New Bag, Rudi and the Rain Dearz (1966)
As noted in yesterday's posting this year's mix includes three different versions of "Santa's Got a Brand New Bag," and that count does not include "Santa's Got a Bag of Soul," at Track 4, or this number at Track 12, "Santa's New Bag," by Rudi and the Rain Dearz. In fact, a close listen to this tune reveals that it seems to be based more on "Jingle Bells" than anything by James Brown.
This tune
appears on Volume 3 of the terrific compilation series "Santa's
Funk and Soul Christmas Party," released on the Tramp Records
label in 2015. Unfortunately, Rudi and the Rain Dearz appear to have released
only this one tune before calling it quits. They didn't even record the B side
of their own single — that
went to a song called "I Stole Away on Christmas Day," by a group
called Pretty Polly Pinecone.
I'll be back with more before too long. Only 24 more
shopping days until Christmas!
