Holiday (Modern/Classic) Jinglebell Rock

Tanner Patrick: Jinglebell Rock
[It's at SoundCloud]

I grew up in a household where Christmas music meant Handel’s “Messiah”, played on my dad’s new stereophonic record player back in the ‘60s and we sang it in the choir (and orchestra) he conducted.  Hardly modern.  But … how do you define “modern”? Being of an age where certain folk call me a “dinosaur”, I am sensitive to definitions and interpretations of the term “modern”.
 

Trite as it may be, to me, “modern” Christmas music is unequivocally associated with a late ‘50s rock – no – they say it is rockabilly – hit that has maintained its status/stature as an “all time favorite” [wait a minute – all time since when?] that gets plenty of airplay during the Christmas season: Jinglebell Rock.

Popularized by Bobby Helms in the late ‘50s, we have here a SoundCloud “modern” rendition of Jinglebell Rock by Tanner Patrick, who generously shares (in the Xmas spirit) his efforts. Tanner’s got various online links you can trace to learn more: here is the FB URL: https://www.facebook.com/TheTannerPatrick

Holiday (Modern and Sad): Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

Darlene Love: Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
[purchase]

If the Band song I wrote about earlier isn’t my favorite holiday song, then maybe “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” is. And I’m not the only one—in 2010, Rolling Stone chose it as the greatest rock and roll Christmas song of all time.

There are many things about this song that are remarkable. First, unlike the Band song, it is a wholly secular song. Yes, it mentions church bells, but it is not about anything religious. It is about the sadness of being separated from one’s love during the holidays. Yet despite its sad message it has become a true Christmas classic because of its exuberance. (There is a totally secular version of the song, titled “Johnny (Baby Please Come Home)” which is perfectly fine, but lacks the extra emotion squeezed out of the holiday setting).

Another remarkable thing about the song is the vocal performance by Darlene Love.  It was written for a Phil Spector produced Christmas album by legendary songwriting team Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, and it was intended for Ronnie Spector. But she reportedly failed to give the song the emotional punch that it needed, and instead, Spector turned to Love, who nailed it. One of the best movies that I saw in 2013 was 20 Feet From Stardom, about the difficulties that face backup singers, including Love. One of the most poignant parts of the film is Love’s story of hearing this song come on the radio while she was cleaning a bathroom in someone else’s house. According to Love, she realized that music was her calling, which the world can be thankful for. Although Love never became a superstar, she became a well-respected singer and actress and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.

Love appeared in a revue, Leader of the Pack, featuring Greenwich's songs, which, in its early, pre-Broadway, incarnation, included Paul Shaffer as Spector. This relationship led to Love performing the song on the last pre-Christmas episode of Letterman’s show each year since 1986 (except for 2007, when a writer’s strike resulted in the showing of a rerun of the 2006 performance). Here’s a video from this year’s show featuring the 72-year old Love belting the crap out of the song, with a band of what looks like hundreds.

Not only did Love give an incredible performance on the original, the backing musicians are amazing. Spector’s trademark wall of sound is clearly in evidence, with massed background vocals from The Blossoms, The Crystals and The Ronettes, as well as a teenaged Cher. The band included members of the legendary Wrecking Crew, including drummer Hal Blaine, Leon Russell on piano, guitarist Barney Kessel, along with Sonny Bono on percussion. “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” is one of the most popular holiday songs to cover, by artists as diverse as KT Tunstall, Joey Ramone, Death Cab for Cutie, Jon Bon Jovi, Michael Bublé, Anberlin and Lady Antebellum, to name but a few. Maybe the most famous cover, though, was by U2, which fittingly included Darlene Love as one of the background singers.

Holiday (Modern): Christmas Must Be Tonight

The Band: Christmas Must Be Tonight
[purchase]

So many “modern” original holiday songs are arch or ironic, or are novelties or are overly treacly. To my mind, it is easy to tire of these types of songs, and since the holiday season comes up every year, I appreciate songs with staying power.

I make no bones about the fact that I’m an atheist, and I have discussed here and elsewhere that I was raised Jewish, so it might be surprising that I picked this song to write about. It is a simple, beautiful, low key song with a strong Christian message. Not only that, but I’m willing to bet that no member of my family—who have listened to holiday music with me over the past quarter century plus—would guess that I’d pick this song to write about.

I’m not sure if I should admit to this in public, in a blog where I purport to opine about music, but when I listen to music, lyrics are not as important to me as the overall feel of the song. I suspect that some of that comes from the fact that with many rock songs, you can’t actually understand the lyrics, and when you do, often they are less than stellar. I mean, is “Louie, Louie,” less amazing because the lyrics are impenetrable? And I know that “Stairway to Heaven” still rocks, despite the fact that it exhorts me not to be alarmed by the bustle in my hedgerow, because it is just a spring clean for the May queen. And what exactly is an American aquarium drinker, anyway, Mr. Tweedy? Which is not to say that I don’t appreciate a good lyric, which adds to my enjoyment of pretty much any Richard Thompson or Bruce Springsteen song. Just a few weeks ago, when my son and I saw Lucero, I was struck for the first time by one of Ben Nichols’ lyrics—“It was Texas, it was Tennessee/It was exes and some wannabes.” Not deep, but clever and fun.

Maybe what I like about “Christmas Must Be Tonight,” is that it just sounds like a good Band song. Written by Robbie Robertson with lead vocals by Rick Danko backed by Levon Helm and featuring Garth Hudson’s organ, it works on its own. Robertson wrote it after the birth of his son Sebastian, and it can’t be a coincidence that the song describes how a little baby boy could “bring the people so much joy.” He intended it to be a Christmas single in 1975, but the record company wasn’t interested, so it languished until the Islands album, a collection of unreleased songs and outtakes. When The Band was good, their music had a timelessness to it, and this song fits that mold, with a gravitas that never crosses the line to overly reverent (although I have seen it referred to on another blog as “kitsch.” But what do bloggers know, anyway?). There is a “rehearsal” version that was later released as a bonus track to the Northern Lights, Southern Cross album which is faster and rocks more, and is missing the organ part. It is ordinary. (Robertson also recorded a version for the movie Scrooged with himself on vocals and a synth driven backing track that is really disappointing.)

The Band never performed the song live, but Danko, who coincidentally died 14 years ago today, did at some solo shows, and based on a few versions I’ve heard on the Internet, he played it well. But there is still something about the original version that strikes a chord, and if it doesn’t pop up on my iPod during the holidays, I make sure to throw it on my computer so that I hear it a few times.

Holiday (Modern): Toyland

R.E.M. Toyland

[From the Fan Club Only Single]

   Starting in 1988 R.E.M. rewarded its fan club members with Christmas singles. Some of them contained cover songs originally recorded by such bands as Television ("See No Evil"), The Vibrators ("Baby, Baby") and Flipper ("Sex Bomb"). Most of the time they let bassist Mike Mills handle the vocals, but in 1992 Michael Stipe sang the 1903 nugget "Toyland", popularized by the adorable Doris Day in 1964.

Holiday (Modern): Folsom Prison Christmas

For the past few years, I have been the glad recipient of postings from Santastic. Although the mashup genre may not be your bag, it certainly seems to fit the theme of "modern holiday".

Granted, most music is built on "the shoulders of others" (Isaac Newton), but the Mashup genre brings the style to the fore: take a collection of other people's songs and mash them together to create something new. This is a topic I covered at least once in my own (sadly neglected) blog >> see the right side list, but the subject of mashups deserves a re-visit at this time.

My favorite of the collection this year: banabul.com/muzik/fpc.mp3
It's a mashup of "Mr President" and Johnny Cash called Folsom Prison Christmas

[I suspect you will have to right click copy/download the file even though it is Creative Commons]


See this link for much more of this genre:http://www.christmash.com/