Category: blues

While botanically speaking, take a minute for a cut from an album about flowers. Let me say that again: every song is about a flower! Tulips! Orchids! Mulberries! Rhodo-frickin-dendrons! Self publishing never smelled so good! The Farley Flower Band need a bouquet! But hearken to “The Best Mistletoe Song Ever Made” first. Beware–these guys tell it like it is!

Not all party-goers are cowboys, but are those other Christmas mixers more fun? You be the judge!

For instance, the celebratory song may not be danceable. In yet another musical of A Christmas Carol, the ghost of past out delights Scrooge with his memories of “Mr. Fezziwig’s Annual Christmas Ball.” It’s declamatory and baritone-deaf.

Modernistically, Ringo Starr makes new sound old with his folksy “The Christmas Dance.” I happen to like this unpresupposing little number about getting up the nerve. But i can’t see anyone getting to their feet here. (Listen for the outro symphonic play out, but watch out for that last note…!)

Coy and playful, Iam Whitcomb has brought us a 1920s sweetmeat: “The Candyland Christmas Ball.” The accordion makes it too sinister for me to party.

Considerably worse is a throw-away cartoon kiddies’ crapshow i found in the 1$ bin at Target: “Cinderella’s Christmas Ball.” It’s got a boogie-woogie pianer banging out the better half of the song. Will the Prince search to see who fits the discarded Christmas stocking…?

Considerably gross is Ren and Stimpy crooking an ankle for the Muddy Mudskipper’s Ball with their “Happy Holiday Hop.” It’s gross to the mass.

Now that i’m bummed, let’s follow Bessie Smith from her party at the Darktown Strutters’ Ball to arrive fashionably “At the Christmas Ball.” It’s slow and low feeling, but i can close dance to it. Real good, i can. Leon Redbone updates this to the “Christmas Ball Blues.” But i like that 1920s’ authenticity.

Shopping for Christmas means parking for Christmas.

Sad news show filler “Parking Around the Shopping Mall” features Barry Mitchell and an accordion. You can probably imagine funnier.

Nearing the bottom of the barrel is more overproduced Bob Rivers. “Parking Spaces” is another sneaky squeeze of humor from the old grandmaster. At least it takes music from ‘Wenceslas,’ which few enough caroldies do.

Better than last-minute rush stress, parking lots are suited for loitering. Cut the deck on Mark Tolstrup and Dale Haskell singing the aitch out of the blues in “Christmas Eve in a Liquor Store Parking Lot.” Money makes dreams come true….

Grey is not simply indistinct and neutral: it’s camouflage.

“Combat Grey (A Christmas Song)” by Weekend Duty tells how Santa’s flying in an F-16 because that’s cool and ‘Merican and stuff.

The Not Marys equate the grey with urban insignificance in their “Grey Christmas (Christmas in the City Vol. 2).” It’s alt punk/folk with a whispery female vocal (Allison Craig) that trails around the scales like an acid trip.

I attempted to avoid the Blues when we covered the color blue, but here i’m drawn to King Coleman screamin’ down the Blues with “Blue Grey Christmas.” Now i don’t suppose this harkens back to the Civil War… so i guess i’ll admit that it ain’t white, it ain’t black, and it IS the blues! Wild, man, wild.

1951.

The Catcher in the Rye, ‘The King and I,’ I Love Lucy, the 22nd Amendment (Pres. term limit), color TV, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still,’ Truman fires MacArthur, Dennis the Menace, Perry Como and Tony Bennett….

Yes… music’s all over the place as much as the USA is. Les Paul and Mary Ford break into the top ten and country music gets a boost. That Hank Williams guy is hittin’ it with ‘Hey, Good Lookin” and ‘Cold, Cold Heart.’ It starts to sound a little raucous in fact, with ‘The Shotgun Boogie’ (Tennessee Ernie Ford) and ‘Hot Rod Race’ (placing in Billboard’s Country Top Ten by four different artists). Ernest Tubb continues his ‘Blue Christmas’ sales from last year (the song first came out in 1948–no Elvis version until 1957). But may i include the first recording of Benjamin ‘Tex’ Logan’s “Christmas Time’s A-Comin‘” by Bill Monroe in full High Lonesome mode?

Country music honored the po’ white folks. For black ‘uns, gotta have the blues. Jimmy Witherspoon really spells out the problems with being poor and not white in “I Really Hate to See Xmas Come Around.” Guy can’t even pawn a radio.

Alex Ford (Aleck Miller) piggybacked off John Lee Curtis Williams’s harmonica howling in Chicago back in the ’40s by taking the same stage name: Sonny Boy Williamson (no ASCAP helping out then). Our SBW survived into the ’50s and went on to back up The Yardbirds and The Animals in the ’60s. This is Sonny Boy Williamson II with “Sonny Boy’s Christmas Blues” (and the flipside ‘Pontiac Blues’ as well). Hey now.