Main Street at midday

Main square at dawn

This is Dón Antonio Gil y' Barbo, known of as being "the father of Nacogdoches." The statue is located near the spot where y' Barbo's home, the Stone House/Stone Fort, once stood. I could easily imagine him really standing there on his front porch, as he might have many times on similar, cold early mornings, master of all he surveyed.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

1963 Beatles fan club Christmas recording

Perhaps a little early Christmas cheer??

Information and picture from the Wikipedia entry for The Beatles' Christmas Album

"Each year from 1963 to 1969, The Beatles had recorded a short Christmas message for their fans, comprised of carols, skits, jokes, and thanks to the loyal "Beatle People". Each recording was pressed onto a 17.5 inch flexi disc and mailed free to the British members of the Fan Club.".

The Island of Misfit Toys

The "The Island of Misfit Toys" segment from the 1964 Rankin-Bass special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, is like some sort of strange, soft and colorful hybrid of Freaks (1932) and The Misfits (1961) (imagine if you will: Clark Gable's character is Yukon Cornelius, Marilyn Monroe's character being Hermy...). From the Wikipedia entry:

The "Island of Misfit Toys", another canonical addition to the original story, is an island sanctuary where defective and unwanted toys are sent. Among its inhabitants:

King Moonracer - a winged lion who acts as the island's ruler. He lives in a large castle atop a hill on The Island of Misfit Toys.

The Freaks The Misfits

Charlie-In-The-Box

Spotted Elephant

"A Dolly for Sue (as she calls herself)" whose problem was psychological, caused from being abandoned by her mistress and suffering depression from feeling unloved.

Oh, come on now! Marilyn Monroe

Bird Fish

A misfit cowboy who rides an ostrich

Clearly Montgomery Clift...

Trainer, a train with square wheels on its caboose

A toy boat that sinks rather than floats

a squirt gun that shoots grape jelly

an airplane that can't fly, a bear that rides a bike, and "a scooter for Jimmy".


Viewers were so taken by these forlorn characters that many complained Santa was not seen fulfilling his promise to include them in his annual delivery. In reaction, a new scene for subsequent rebroadcasts was produced with Santa, with Rudolph in the lead, making his first stop at the island to pick up the toys.

Top 10 Christmas Song Performances

That kookoo cat over at Retro Hound has presented me with a challenge I can't ignore or take for granted. See, the way it all works is, this dude challenged Retro Hound to come up with a list of 10 favorite Christmas performances. Retro Hound then in turn challenged my brethren of the blog: My Retrospace and The Dino Lounge, as well as I Love Retro Things and Dad's Dish Retro Blog, in addition to Exquisitely Bored in Nacogdoches. Hey, when anyone even tries to spell the name of my blog (not an easy task, I know), I make a noble effort to reciprocate. This probably isn't what I would describe as being a list of "top 10 Christmas song performances of all time," but they certainly are ten of my favorites. This is more stream of consciousness than anything. I've tried very hard not to look at what they've put so as to have a blank slate, but it's possible I have chosen exactly what everyone else has chosen, which in this case, will be entirely coincidental. Ho, ho, ho.

"Silver and Gold"
I love everything from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. So I guess one of choices would have to be the entire soundtrack to that classic 1964 Rankin & Bass special. I have no doubt some of my first memories, period, are of watching this show for the first time. I have memories from very early childhood intertwined and echoing around in those musical notes and lyrics.
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"Wonderful Christmastime"


If the comments after my first post about this McCartney and Wings tune are any indication, this song is almost universally hated, by everyone except me. I love Paul, so I love "Wonderful Christmastime." The following was expunged from the Wikipedia entry for this song around the time I did the post, back in 2006:

In Japan, there have been numerous attempts to ban the "Wonderful Christmastime" due to the song being directly attributed to 143 separate cases of suicide. In 1987, one Osaka radio station reportedly played the track back-to-back for three days straight, in the lead up to Christmas. Tokyo Police Department reported 57 fatalities during the 1986-87 period alone. A Japanese government spokesman was popularly quoted as saying that "the syncopated synthesizer appears to send people scrambling for the fish knife."

Yikes!
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"Christmastime Is Here"
Another one (like the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer soundtrack) embedded in my chromosomes is Vince Guaraldi's music for A Charlie Brown Christmas. I hear stuff like this and I'm two years old and at my Grandparents (all of who are gone) for Christmas again. It's funny, but I get memory flashes of Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and even ZOOM when I hear this music. I think they all must have the same kind of 1960s/1970s era New York City street vibe or something, but it's also because those would have been the shows I was watching when I saw A Charlie Brown Christmas for the first time.



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"Sleigh Ride"
This one always makes me think about Christmas.

From the Wikipedia entry:
"Sleigh Ride" is a popular light orchestral piece composed by Leroy Anderson. The composer had the original idea for the piece during a heat wave in July 1946; he finished the work in February 1948. Lyrics, about a person who would like to ride in a sleigh on a winter's day with another person, were written by Mitchell Parish in 1950. The orchestral version was first recorded in 1949 by Arthur Fiedler and The Boston Pops Orchestra. The song was a hit record on RCA Victor Red Seal (78 rpm) and has become the equivalent of a signature song for the orchestra. The 45 rpm version was originally issued on red vinyl.

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"The Christmas Waltz"
Recorded in Hollywood during July of 1957 for A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra, I think it's a gorgeous tune. Written by pallies Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne especially for Frankie.


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"Little Saint Nick"

Being a Galveston boy, I've got to represent. From 1963:

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"The Snow Miser Song/The Heat Miser Song"
I'm not sure I'd say this is a "favorite performance," per se, but I sure have a lot of memories tied to The Year without a Santa Claus, the Rankin & Bass Christmas special from 1974. Now that was a Christmas. I would have been eight years old (prime time for Christmastime!) and life was grand. I can remember the Snow Miser/Hear Miser segment frightening me, fascinating me, and amusing me, all at the same time.


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"Penny Lane"
It was released in February 1967, but I know that The Beatles began working on "Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever" during the previous December. So "Penny Lane" generally make me think about Christmas. It's also possibly my favorite Beatles song, but that changes from time to time. And because most Beatles albums/singles were released around that time of the year, I think a lot of people associate Beatles music with the holiday season. I have a fairly thorough post about their Christmas, Fan Club recordings too, by the way.


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"Put One Foot in Front of the Other"


Cheesey beyond all get up, but OMG, how I used to love and look forward to watching these Rankin & Bass specials! How different my childhood would have been without them. From Christmas 1970, when I was four, Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town triggers so many sensory memories of Christmas. I'm reminded of my father's mother with this one for some reason. I must have seen this while I was at her house one Christmas or something.

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"I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm"
Newly released from Capitol Records after a decade of making legendary music there, Sinatra was now the CEO and main artist for Reprise Records in December of 1961 when he recorded , "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" for his debut Reprise album, Ring-A-Ding-Ding!.

At the Sands, early '60s:

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Well, I think that's ten. And I'm sure I'll think of songs I should have added to this later on, but there you have it - my top ten Christmas song performances. Merry Christmas to my bloggin' brethren. Live long and prosper. Na noo, na noo. Klaatu barada nikto.

A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra

Cover by Nick Volpe
From Sinatra! The Song Is You: A Singer's Art by Will Friedwald:

Old-fashionedness was exactly what Sinatra and Voyle Gilmore (Sinatra's Capitol Records producer) were looking for when they assigned Jenkins the task of orchestrating A Jolly Christmas with Frank Sinatra. The twelve tracks on this seasonal set fairly hang from the chimney with simplicity. That's because Jenkins has chosen to wait before letting his cat of high, moaning strings out of his Santa sack. "I'll Be Home for Christmas" contains the sole discernible glimmer of the patented Jenkins string sound, and even there it's audible only for a brief instrumental passage.

Christina (Tina), Frank, and Frank, Jr.
Intriguingly, the most distinctive chart is the least Jenkinsy of them all: the opening "Jingle Bells" commences with the chorus cooing a jivey "Rag Mop" version of the ancient tune, over which Sinatra swings lightly and politely.

Whether he's tossing off references to "baby" or "Jack" with Billy May or ever so sincerely intoning "Merry Christmas" at the end of Sammy Cahn's "Christmas Waltz," Sinatra is never less than convincing. He even seems to have talked himself into believing that it was really Christmas--after the third and final date. Sinatra traded in his "ring-a-ding ding" for a "ho! ho! ho!" when he threw a Christmas party for the musicians, chorus, and engineers in the middle of July. (pp. 337, 338)

My two cents worth and humble onion is, even I, a committed Sinatra-phile, have a difficult time taking him seriously on several of these. It's particularly hard to accept him singing some of the more "sacred," almost hymn-like, things such as "Silent Night," "Adeste Fidles," or "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem," especially knowing as much about his private life and personal philosophy as I do. But, I absolutely adore a few of them, particularly "Mistletoe and Holly" and especially "The Christmas Waltz" (man, that's pretty). Enjoy:


Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas
may your every New Year dream come true!

"Sleigh Ride"

From the Wikipedia entry:
"Sleigh Ride" is a popular light orchestral piece composed by Leroy Anderson. The composer had the original idea for the piece during a heat wave in July 1946; he finished the work in February 1948. Lyrics, about a person who would like to ride in a sleigh on a winter's day with another person, were written by Mitchell Parish in 1950. The orchestral version was first recorded in 1949 by Arthur Fiedler and The Boston Pops Orchestra. The song was a hit record on RCA Victor Red Seal (78 rpm) and has become the equivalent of a signature song for the orchestra. The 45 rpm version was originally issued on red vinyl.

The Boston Pops, as lead by John Williams, although I far prefer the Fiedler version which was probably the first one I ever heard, and so it is therefore imprinted on my brain:

The Elvis room

Antique store in Rockdale, Texas
On a related note, I heard on Elvis Radio yesterday that the nativity scene at Graceland is the same one used since 1969, and the Christmas lights out front are as they were in 1957.

Like a Sears catalog cowboy

Jezebel has an amusing and entertaining look at the spring, 1972 Sears catalog's children's clothing section. This reminded me of how every winter during the 1970s, I anticipated, and then consumed (at least the toy section) the annual Sears Wish Books. I look at examples of them now, and the amount and clarity of sensory memories I receive is almost too much to bear. As I scrolled down the Jezebel post, I saw just this, and thought it seemed vaguely familiar:

An odd sense of déjà vu continued, and then, this:

My parents got my sister and me sets like the red one with chaps, for what must have been the Christmas of 1972. I had a green version, and she had the red one. They came with a hat, frilly, plastic-like gloves, chaps, pants, a belt, a bandanna, and a matching checkered shirt. I remember going to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo the following February (probably in the Astrodome) with my parents, and my sister and I wore them (of course!). My little sister got kicked by a calf, behind which she had unfortunately stood, so her memories of that day may not be all that good. For whatever reason, my parents held on to those little Sears cowboy outfits, and a couple of years ago, they had them framed. Here's what was left of my sister's (the picture I took of mine was blurry, so I deleted it):

Primed for jazz

If you are like I am (born in the mid to late '60s, raised on '70s TV), you were primed to be a fan of jazz. Did it work on you? Probably not, but "they" sure tried. It worked on me. Gen X-ers would become as familiar with the sound of brushes softly brush-a brush brushing (that's what you call alliteration) on a snare drum and the tinkling ivories of a well-played jazz piano as they would the sound of their mother's voice. Witness a few of the jazz-inflected contributors to our generational zeitgeist. Maybe you didn't realize the conspiracy as it unfolded:

First, one of the nicest and most genuine men to have ever walked the face of this imperfect planet, Fred Rogers (I cried like a baby the day he died, as did you). Fred Rogers was of course an accomplished pianist and composer. It seems like he was always taking his viewers on a trip to Negri's Music Shop. Thank you for that, Mr. Rogers!


That theme sure is jazzy!


At about 3:50, and things get really jazzy at around a minute from that.




"The Music of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood"


Vince Guaraldi and Trio did the music for many of Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" cartoons, with the most obvious perhaps being the wonderful music for A Charlie Brown Christmas (damn I love "Skating"! I could listen to that all year long):



"Mah-Na Mah-Na," originally from Sesame Street(?) and later The Muppet Show:



HONORABLE MENTIONS
I would have caught these in rerun form some years after their introduction.
The first season theme music to I Dream of Jeannie was an instrumental jazz waltz written by Richard Wess. From the second season on, however, it was replaced by a new theme entitled "Jeannie," composed by Hugo Montenegro.



And of course that leads to:


The Bewitched theme by Warren Barker
Peggy Lee did a great version of this tune, complete with the lyrics:

Primed for Jazz (One More Time)