The Fornabaio Essential Christmas Album
The REAL essential Christmas album, of course, is the Phil Spector release
on Philles Records, A Christmas Gift to You, featuring the
incomparable Darlene Love and Ronnie Spector along with their groups and
The Crystals. And a big ''yes'' to the young'ns (or at least the ignorant
ones, since I'm sorta a young'n myself), that's Darlene Love on
''Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).'' from Gremlins.
But these are the 14 tracks--British standard :-) --that you NEED to have.
All rolled up inna one.
SIDE ONE:
"White Christmas," Darlene Love (it opens ACGTY)
"Blue Christmas," Elvis Presley
"Please Come Home For Christmas," The Eagles
"Sleigh Ride," The Ronnettes
"The Chipmunk Song," The Chipmunks (with David Seville)
"Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me," Elvis Presley
"Happy Christmas (War is Over)," John Lennon and the Plastic Ono
Band
SIDE TWO:
"Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," Darlene Love
"Snoopy's Christmas," The Royal Guardsmen
"Santa Claus Is Back in Town," Elvis Presley
"Bye Bye Thou Little Tiny Child," Kingston Trio
"Merry Christmas Baby," Otis Redding
"White Christmas," The Drifters
"Feliz Navidad," Jose Feliciano (Remember
Christmas Eve on Sesame Street? Great stuff.)
*--Okay, maybe it isn't precisely a Christmas song. But it's on their Christmas album, and the events it represents happened right after the good ol' Nativity in the Bible.
Available on vinyl, 8-track and cassette...though the damn record
companies will probably insist on CD, too.
All right, it's imperfect (a little too secular, but who does a good
recording of O Holy Night?) (a little too comical, but that's the fun).
Just missing the cut: "Christmas at Ground Zero" (Weird Al Yankovic); "Dominick the Donkey" (Lou Monte);
"The Christmas Song" (Nat King Cole); "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," by Little Miss Dynamite, Brenda Lee; Ray Stevens's "Santa Claus is Watching You"; "Holly Jolly Christmas" (Burl Ives--can you say Rudolph?). And we're getting a little soft spot for No Doubt's "Oi to the World" from A Very Special Christmas 3 (it has to be the best song ever written about a Christmas-Day rumble).
So anyway, have a Merry Christmas. And be on the non-lookout for the eventual release of the Fornabaio Non-Essential Christmas Album, featuring Connie Francis's "Baby's First Christmas," The Carpenters' "Merry Christmas, Darling," that "Chrissy the Christmas Mouse" song, and any non-Elvis versions of "I'll Be Home For Christmas" we can find.
