[Note: Right after bragging about the credibility of my information about the history of Christmas music yesterday I messed up badly by accidently saying that the study into the origins of Silent Night had been commissioned by the Austrian government when I should have said that it was done by the German Confederation. That explains the confusion when I said that I assumed they were disappointed when it revealed that the song had been composed by an Austrian priest and choirmaster. I’ve fixed that now. Thank you Erik for bringing that to my attention.]
There are a lot of Christmas songs that I just plain don’t like, and Blue Christmas is one of them. Actually, in general I don’t like Christmas love songs. (I developed my anti pop love-song bias when I was a pre-teen and noticed that almost all of the songs on the radio were about a topic that I had absolutely no interest in.) But I do like this called square-dance version of it. I got this from fellow Christmas music collector Rob Martinez’ 2017 compilation CD. Rob scrounges for used albums the way that I do but he mainly looks for vinyl ones.
Rob has been collecting and issuing annual compilations longer than I have and he takes it a few steps further. His annual compilation CDs are professionally burnt and packaged, and goes on WBOI radio with Christmas music specials during the run-up to the holiday. In fact, 10 years ago that got him a weekly gig as a DJ for that station.
Last year on the notes for his annual compilation he reported:
2022 has been a very productive year. I was able to reorganize my entire physical Christmas Music collection (3000+ albums / 50,000+ songs). Every 33, 45, 78, and CD has been inspected, alphabetized, and re-catalogued, rejuvenating my love of Christmas music to new levels. The U.S. Post Office may continue to raise postage… and no one under 35 has a CD player anymore. But I am undaunted and will keep this holiday tradition going for several more decades. Or unless Ann says otherwise. Enjoy this CD, a great 2023 to you all, and I hope no one has Twitter stock in their portfolio – Rob
This track was recorded by the musician-and-caller team of Tony Oxendine and the late Jerry Story. In his attributions Rob doesn’t give an album name so I presume that it is from a Royal Records 45rpm single. It is undated but he estimates that it is from the 1980s.
The amazing thing about this version of Walking in the Air is that it was sung by pop music star Jackie Evancho when she was only eleven years old! I had planned to include it in one of my not-only-for-kids sets but musically it didn’t seem to fit in there. I suppose that makes this hodge-podge the right place for it.
Jackie Evancho was a child singing prodigy. She first got national attention at the age of ten by making it to the finals of the fifth season of the America’s Got Talent TV show and getting second place. Later that year her O Holy Night EP album made her the best-selling debut artist of the year, and the youngest American solo performer ever to release a platinum album. Her concert tour for this album included an appearance at the Lincoln Center in New York City making her the youngest person ever to give a solo concert at that venue.
I didn’t know all that when I bought this album, which has mostly covers of the Christmas standards. I had never heard of her and was certainly expecting a more child-like voice.
Walking in the Air was written to be the theme song for the 1982 animated film The Snowman, which is based on Raymond Briggs’ 1978 picture book by the same name. If you haven’t read the book or seen the animated short the lyrics might not make a lot of sense. Here is a 3:45 YouTube clip from the movie so you can see what you have been missing.
The set finishes with Ha’e Yersel’ a Canty Wee-Bit Christmas, translated and sung by Scott Messer, the frontman and lead singer of the Portland, Oregon duo/band Darby O’Gill. I didn’t get this 2004 album from a thrift store. I bought it from Scott himself many years ago when I was in Long Beach, Washington for a kite-flying festival and they were playing at a local pub. It wasn’t Christmastime. They were playing Irish and other styles of folk music but they had this Christmas album among their CDs for sale.
If the name Darby O’Gill seems familiar to you it is probably because of the 1959 Disney movie Darby O’Gill and the Little People, or the writings of the early 20th century Irish author Herminie Templeton Kavanagh who invented the fictional character. In this context it was intended to be the name of the band. But many people began to call the front-man and lead singer by that name and he didn’t correct them so it stuck to him and not the group. So Darby is really the Oregon singer-songwriter and musician Scott Messer. Besides Scott, Ken “Kendo” Andresen was a regular when they performed as Darby O’Gill. and there were three or four other semi-regulars who would join them for bigger gigs and recordings.
I had a lot of trouble finding any up-to-date information online about Scott or the band. I did discover that as of 2007 they had released five albums, and I followed a research trail that turned out to be a different Oregon-based musician of about the same age named Scott Messer. Finally I found this Reddit discussion that began with a question posted two years ago by one of their fans who had also been unable to find up-to-date information about them. Among the responses I learned that Scott is still alive but the band Darby O’Gill died in 2018 when Kendo passed away.
Dec 19 – A Christmas song hodge-podge