Year-round Yuletide oddities
Here’s something odd. That last song has nothing to do with this song with the same title.
Marva Wright, the Blues Queen of New Orleans, adds her special gospel touch to her blues. This entry “Stocking Full of Love” is heartbreakingly, desperately, hopefully full of love.
’80s Pittsburgh R+B smoove daddy pranksters The Flashcats put out fan club Christmas special singles for decades. Since the ’80s got over somewhere around 2001 and their bassist passed 2013, they are aught but legends now.
Hop a sock to their 1985 extra “Stocking Full of Love.” That’s the sax o’ love!
Some songs earworm you into submission.
I can’t tell you much about the alt rock band Big People. I know this song appears on a great collection entitled Yuletunes: A Collection of Alternative Pop Christmas Songs (love it). Oddly it also appears on Trailer Trash Christmas, and Redneck Christmas Party (say whu–?)
I can tell you it’s about wanting more than peace on Earth, more than a new bike, more than a mistletoe mwah… but this sadly earnest complaint (“Piece on Earth“) bypasses the creep factor (barely) with its catchy whininess (and the dogs acting out the bits from Lulu’s Christmas Pudding).
Now that Valentine’s is past us, let’s get weird.
Matthew Meadows (wow, that name takes me back to those George R.R. Martin 1990s twisted superhero story collections Wild Cards… but that was Mark Meadows… until you see this guy and go–yeash, like that) is a self described ‘bipolar polymath.’ He also moonlights as blues wailer, Rango the Dog. Guy can’t pick a key and stay with it, but his heart’s in his voice.
Try out his “Ticket for Two (A Christmas Romance).” Love’s hard, at Xmas or anytime. But especially when you’re all poetically worked up like this. Scratch your heart, but hold onto hope.
After WWII young men began to take nothing for granted, but find their own way… you know the greatest or next to generation or sumpin. Doo wop grew out of this pushiness. Jazz and blues came together in perfect harmony, keeping time on the downbeat. It’s a leader of musical styles, the grampa of R&B.
I’d tell you more about the Ebonaires if i could. Their song “Love for Christmas” will speak for them. It’s from the early ’50s.
Well, it’s a major holiday in my household, Oregon Statehood Day.
Kidding, we live on love here, my babies. And the little woman likes the candles lit, the clothes a bit formal, the cuisine impeccable, and the music mysteriously sensual. (She calls it ‘belly rubbing music.’ That’s a slow dance reference, y’all.)
So here, to set your mood aflame, is Pamela Hines with “Christmas Love.”
Eleanora Fagan was a teenager smack in the middle of the Harlem Renaissance. Her friends called her ‘Lady Day,’ but we loved her as Billie Holiday. She was a jazz icon of the XX Century. If you don’t know who she was (you may even mistake her for Diana Ross) or her sadly typical fate, shame on you.
Here is a Christmas classic, though hardly a carol: “I”ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.” Everybody does this. Kay Starr has a weird remix, Ella powers it, Frank snoozes through it, Dean-o copies that, Tony B. mugs it, Doris D. vamps it (really!), Judy G. stomps on it, Bette M. sounds more like Billie, and the Mills Brothers croon it. Sure there’re more. Who cares? I’ve got my Billie to keep me warm.
(There’s a better Billie Holiday hi fidelity recording from 1955, but this 1937 torch burning gives you a better hint of her siren’s power.)
Russ Crowley duoed up with Kenny Hausmann in ’09. They have gone onto form In2it, and are a bit more rock. And i feel the rock here, but this is toe tapping’ finger snapping’ bubble gum. Tell me you love me!
Tommy James was plucked from obscurity when DJs started playing his ‘Hanky Panky.’ He went on to produce, like the Shondells (‘I Think We’re Alone Now’).
But he couldn’t stop. In the ’70s he tried country (didn’t everyone?). In 2008 he tried a comeback with the surviving members of the Shondells. The album was I Love Christmas. And our less than listenable tune here is “I Love Christmas.” Sometimes the love of the season is amor qua amor.
One aspect of love in the New Testament affection, wherein Baby J embodies The Holy Head-Guy’s love for all us’n. Christmas is thus the introduction of perfect love. Amen.
“Love Came Gently,” penned by Marty Funderbark only a dozen years ago (from aught i can tell), poetically plays out this personification through the Nativity. It’s pretty.
Many a congregational choir has comforted seekers with this balm/psalm. My fave-o is the hold-it… hold-it… hold-that-note rendition by Christmas Blessing (featuring the Salvation Army Band).
You can ‘tube the other soloists to compare nuances… they are all cut from the same orchestration machination to me. I’ll encore with Mrs. Ricky Skaggs. That family gives good Christmas album. So here’s Sharon White Skaggs with “Love Came Gently.”