Bah, Humbug! Merry Christmas!

OK, now is about the time you start wishing the whole thing was over with already.  You know, they should have Christmas in January – that’s when they have all the good sales!  Ho, ho.

Here’s a Christmas blowout:

MP3: “Four Shopping Days Left Until Christmas” Ad jingle

MP3: “Stop Giving Me Crap For Christmas” by Bobby Gaylor

MP3: “Santa’s Too Fat For The Hula Hoop” by Thurl Ravenscroft with the Pixies

MP3: “Ho Ho F***ing Ho” by Kevin Bloody Wilson (Not Safe For Work!)

MP3: “This Time Of Year” by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones

MP3: “Don’t Believe In Christmas” by the Sonics

MP3: “Child Of Winter” by the Beach Boys

MP3: “Season’s Greetings” by Ozzy Osbourne

YouTube: “Winter Wonderland” by Ozzy Osbourne and Jessica Simpson

MP3: “Holiday Message” by Lou Reed

MP3: “Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12-24” by Savatage

MP3: “Christmas All Summer Long” by Deer Tick

MP3: “I Farted On Santa’s Lap” by the Little Stinkers

MP3: “Seasons Greetings” by the Fabulous Thunderbirds

MP3: “Merry Christmas Darling” by the Fabulous Thunderbirds

MP3: “Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin’ ” by Mack Rice

MP3: “Back Door Santa” by the Holmes Brothers

MP3: “Here Comes Santa Claus” by Bob Dylan

MP3: “The Holly and the Ivy” by Annie Lennox

MP3: “I Wish It Was Christmas Today” by Julian Casablancas

MP3: “Lord Of The Dance” by Arthur Brown

MP3: “I Believe In Father Christmas” by Emerson, Lake & Palmer

MP3: “Silver Bells” by Arlo Guthrie & Ed Gerhard

MP3: “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town” by the Crystals

MP3: “Silent Night” by Phil Spector & His Artists

YouTube: “Marshmallow World” by Dean Martin & Frank Sinatra

Bonus YouTube: “The Digital Story of the Nativity”

Review: “Going Back” by Phil Collins

Artists have been recording cover songs for years, and putting them out as singles, or b-sides. However, the trend recently has been to put out an entire album of hits recorded by others. Rod Stewart sold millions of CDs using this formula, and now Phil Collins is hoping to follow in “Big Nose’s” footsteps with his latest batch of Motown tunes titled, Going Back.

30 Days Out (From Christmas): Phil Spector

Day 28 – Before he became a murder defendant and a tabloid joke, Phil Spector was one of the best record producers ever.   In his heyday (1960-65) he produced 25 Top 40 hits, including “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” by the Righteous Brothers – listed by BMI as the 20th century’s most-played song on the radio.  His stable of artists included the Ronettes, Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, the Crystals, Ike & Tina Turner, the Righteous Brothers and the great Darlene Love.

In 1963 Spector gathered some of these artists to create A Christmas Gift For You, an album of holiday songs with his patented “Wall of Sound” production style.  It is, quite simply, the greatest rock and roll Christmas album of all time.  The Crystals’ atomic-powered “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town” (the blueprint for later versions by Bruce Springsteen and many others) and Darlene Love’s amazing “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)” are towering classics that only slightly stand above the rest of this great music.

We’re only going to post a few selections from A Christmas Gift For You – if you do not own this masterpiece, do yourself a favor and give it to yourself for Christmas.

MP3: “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town” by the Crystals

MP3: “Frosty The Snowman” by the Ronettes

MP3: “Here Comes Santa Claus” by Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans

MP3: “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love

MP3: “Silent Night” by Phil Spector and His Artists

BONUS: We’ve also included a version of “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” by Ronnie Spector and Darlene Love, from 1992’s A Very Special Christmas 2.

MP3: “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” by Ronnie Spector and Darlene Love

Sampler Daze: The WB/Reprise Loss Leaders, Part 8

There was no denying that, by 1975, popular music was undergoing another change.  The advances of the late 1960s had sunk in, and rock had already gotten over the Beatles by introducing bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Foghat.  The second wave of hard rockers were honing their chops in 1975, and names like Aerosmith, Boston and Van Halen were waiting in the wings.

But the pop charts were showing a different shade: black.  Black artists had always been a part of pop music, of course: names like Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and Diana Ross regularly appeared on the Top 40, as did Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and the Staple Singers.  By 1975, soul music and R&B had been influenced by psychedelic guitar music, and the new music born from that was called funk.

Curtis Mayfield

One of the big artists of the early Seventies was Curtis Mayfield, who soldiered through the 1960s as the mastermind behind the Impressions and their groundbreaking hits like “People Get Ready,” “Keep On Pushing” and “We’re A Winner.”  Mayfield left the group in 1970 and as a solo artist he helped put black music on the top 40 with his classic soundtrack to the blaxploitation movie Superfly.   In 1975 Mayfield took his own label, Curtom, to Warner Bros., and he anchored the first sampler from that year, All Meat.  In 1990 Mayfield would be seriously injured by falling stage lighting, and he was paralyzed from the neck down.  After nearly a decade in this condition, Mayfield died in 1999.

Ellie Greenwich, R.I.P.

Ellie Greenwich, one of the greatest pop songwriters of the 1960s, has died at the age of 68.  She is responsible for co-writing (with her partner/husband Jeff Barry) songs like “Be My Baby” for the Ronettes, “Da Doo Ron Ron” and “Then He Kissed Me” for the Crystals, and “Chapel of Love” for the Dixie Cups.  She was also one of the rock era’s first female producers, helping to shape Neil Diamond‘s first songs as a performer including “Cherry Cherry” and “Solitary Man.”  A true giant in the music field.

Los Angeles Times obituary on Ellie Greenwich

MP3: “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes

MP3: “Then He Kissed Me” by the Crystals

MP3: “Leader Of The Pack” by the Shangri-Las

MP3: “Do Wah Diddy” by Manfred Mann

Ellie Greenwich official website

YouTube: The Crystals, “Da Doo Ron Ron”

Phil Spector’s Prison Playlist

Music producer and all-around whack job Phil Spector is going to prison, apparently, for causing the death of actress Lana Clarkson in 2003 .  A jury in Los Angeles found him guilty yesterday of second-degree murder, a verdict that could mean a long prison stay for Spector.  Unless he appeals and wins, of course. 

Wait, this just in:  Guilty on one count of murder and one count of not using enough conditioner.  (Thanks, Randy.)

Anyway, here’s the story and here are some of Spector’s productions that he might wisely keep in mind once he hits the “big house.”

MP3: “He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)” by the Crystals

MP3: “Every Day I Have To Cry” by Ike & Tina Turner

MP3: “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” by the Righteous Brothers

MP3: “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes

MP3: “Baby, I Love You” by the Ramones

MP3: “Then He Kissed Me” by the Crystals