Tag Archives: christmas songs

25 Days, 25 Songs — Day 7: “What Christmas Means to Me”

An often covered R and B Christmas song by Anna Gaye, Anna Gordy, Allen Story and George Gordy, “What Christmas Means to Me” was first recorded by a 17 year old Stevie Wonder in 1967 on Someday at Christmas under the Tamla imprint.  Backed by the The Funk Brothers, this cut has that signature Motown Sound. The lyrics touch on all the things that make Christmas special to the singer while at the same time expressing his love for an unnamed person who he wants to spend a few minutes with under the mistletoe. Of all the versions this still stands as the best and provides a little toe tapping soul to the often over produced R and B Christmas lexicon.

Other notable versions:

  • Paul Young (1992) on A Very Special Christmas 2 
  • Hanson (1997) on Snowed In 
  • Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen with Sean Holt (1999) on Cool Yule: A Christmas Party With Friends 
  • En Vogue (2002) on The Gift of Christmas 
  • Holiday Express (2002) on Live 
  • Jessica Simpson (2004) on ReJoyce: The Christmas Album 

25 Days, 25 Songs — Day 4: Zat You Santa Claus

Louis Armstrong recorded 6 Christmas songs for Decca in three sessions between 1952 and 1955. The first two sides, a couple of standards, “White Christmas” backed with “Winter Wonderland”, were recorded in 1952 with Gordon Jenkins’ and His Orchestra. The next year, Satchmo took to recording less traditional songs and we were introduced to “Zat You, Santa Clause?” backed with Steve Allen’s “Cool Yule” on a release by Louis Armstrong With The Commanders. Then in 1955 it was “Christmas In New Orleans” backed with “Christmas Night In Harlem” as Louis Armstrong With Benny Carter’s Orchestra. All are available on the compilation album What a Wonderful Christmas and the second two sessions produced some of my favorite Christmas songs.  I chose “Zat You, Santa Clause?” because of the menacing groove The Commanders lay down coupled with Jack Fox’s fantastic lyric that has the singer going back and forth between anticipation of a visit from everyone’s favorite fat man and a sense of paranoia that someone is creeping around outside his house

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsCB0-dDa60

25 Days, 25 Songs — Day 3: The Merriest

23: “The Merriest” — June Christy

When vocalist record a Christmas album, you often get an album of covers and standards, but hipster June Christy bucked that trend in 1961 with her ‘This Time Of Year’ album. She chose instead to record a whole album of new compositions by the team that wrote her hit “Night Time Was My Mother,” Arnold Miller and Connie Pearce Miller.  She also engaged her fellow Stan Kenton alumni Pete Rugulo to conduct. “The Merriest” is my favorite from this often overlooked singers contribution to the Christmas genre, combining a swinging track and June’s cool Christmas wishes for the hipsters, beats and other bohemian types.