Main Street Christmas Music Loop
I get the same e-mails every year about this time (and yes, almost always in
all-caps) usually requesting/demanding/begging an immediate response:
AL! BUDDY! MY PAL! DO YOU KNOW WHAT ALBUMS THEY USED TO MAKE THE
DISNEYLAND MAIN STREET
CHRISTMAS MUSIC LOOP??? MY (insert name of relative here) WHO IS (insert
rather unpleasant medical condition of said relative here) WANTS TO GET A COPY OF
THIS BEFORE THEY (insert usually bleak future state of said relative
here).
Since I get a LOT of e-mail (way beyond Viagra offers) I really don't get the chance to respond personally to them all.
But I do try and keep in mind the many requests and try to provide some
kind of an
answer eventually here in the column.
For the original run of this
piece I did some Googling on the above demand,
plea, request to see what I could find. Part of the answer was
easy thanks to a wonderful resource out there, but the real devil laid in finding
all the missing details.
If you haven't visited
Kirsten
Wahlquist's Disney Music Loops website yet you should, as she has done
an outstanding job of rounding up this unusually hard to get information. She has listings for 49
of the music loops at the Disneyland Resort and if you click
on the Main Street link there you can find the page
for the Christmas version, which as I understand first played in the
park in
1972.
She'd found an amazing amount of information, but her original listing was incomplete.
We completed the list, showed you all the albums the songs came
off of, and Kristen finally had a finished set of titles for her
site.
This is how I would package it
for sale at the park.
I finally located the last few hardest to find
tracks, copied them onto my iPod and was able to compare them as
I was sitting in the park's hub during the loop's playback. Everything
checked out except for a few trimmed intros. Talk about reverse
engineering!
Disneyland's Main
Street Christmas
Loop
(1972) |
No. |
Song Title |
Artist |
Label |
1. |
The Christmas Tree |
David Rose |
Capitol |
2. |
Twelve Days of Christmas |
David Rose |
Capitol |
3. |
The First Noel |
A Music Box Christmas |
Columbia |
4. |
Toyland |
David Rose |
Capitol |
5. |
Do You Hear What I Hear?
|
Ed Sullivan Presents Music of
Christmas |
Columbia |
6. |
I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas |
Ed Sullivan Presents Music of Christmas
|
Columbia |
7. |
Zu Bethlehem Geboren
|
A Music Box Christmas |
Columbia |
8. |
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer |
Ed Sullivan Presents Music of Christmas
|
Columbia |
9. |
The Christmas Song |
David Rose |
Capitol |
10. |
Silver Bells |
Raymond Lefevre |
Kapp/4 Corners of the World |
11. |
Jingle Bells |
Raymond Lefevre |
Kapp/4 Corners of the World
|
12 |
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing |
A Music Box Christmas |
Columbia |
13. |
Caroling, Caroling |
Hollywood Pops Orchestra |
Capitol |
14. |
Deck the Halls |
Felix Slatkin |
Liberty |
15. |
O Tannenbaum |
A Music Box Christmas |
Columbia |
16. |
Petit Papa Noel (Little Father Christmas)
|
Raymond Lefevre |
Kapp/4 Corners of the World |
17. |
Jingle Bell Rock |
Hollyridge Strings |
Capitol |
18. |
Jingle Bells |
A Music Box Christmas |
Columbia |
19. |
Christmas Waltz |
David Rose |
Capitol |
20. |
The First Noel |
Ed Sullivan Presents Music of Christmas |
Columbia |
21. |
Carol of the Bells |
Hollywood Bowl Symphony
Orchestra |
Capitol |
22. |
Ihr Kinderlein Kommet |
Felix Slatkin |
Liberty |
23. |
Ihr Kinderlein Kommet
|
A Music Box Christmas |
Columbia |
24. |
White Christmas |
Lawrence Welk |
Dot |
25. |
I'll Be Home for Christmas |
Lawrence Welk |
Dot |
26. |
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer |
Lawrence Welk |
Dot |
27. |
Still, Still, Holy Melody
|
A Music Box Christmas |
Columbia |
28. |
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing |
Lawrence Welk |
Dot |
29. |
Deck the Halls |
Lawrence Welk |
Dot |
30. |
Lobe Den Herren |
A Music Box Christmas |
Columbia |
First, here's the little that is available on CD: The Lawrence Welk version of "Rudolph" can be found on the
"Christmas Memories" CD, his "Deck the Halls" and "Hark"
tracks can be found on the "22 Merry Christmas Favorites" disc, both from Ranwood. All eight of the music box selections can be found on
Rita Ford's Columbia CD "A Music Box Christmas" and the lounge version
of "Jingle Bell Rock" can be found complete on a Collector's Choice CD. I've included links below to all
them:
One previously very hard to locate track, "Caroling, Caroling" by the
Hollywood Pops Orchestra, was finally available a few years ago as an
89-cent WMA download from Wal*Mart's online music store, but the store may no
longer be available.
Now comes the hard part - finding all those other albums. (Younger folks may not remember we used to listen to music by
dragging a needle over a spinning slab of vinyl. Some people, like Bette Midler,
even made dapper hats out of them.)
One LP in particular was very difficult to get any information on, "Ed
Sullivan Presents Music of Christmas." This is the
cover of Columbia Records number CS 9543.
John Gregory arranged and conducted it, and it was produced by Teo
Macero.
It isn't easy to find on ebay (only promo singles from this LP seem to
pop up), but if you look hard enough out there online (really hard!) you
can probably find it.
No. |
Song Title |
Artist |
5. |
Do You Hear What I Hear?
|
Ed Sullivan Presents Music of
Christmas |
6. |
I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas |
Ed Sullivan Presents Music of Christmas
|
8. |
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer |
Ed Sullivan Presents Music of Christmas
|
20. |
The First Noel |
Ed Sullivan Presents Music of Christmas |
While Lawrence Welk's "Rudolph," "Deck the Halls" and "Hark" tracks made it to CD, the
other two songs from the original
Dot catalog number DLP 25397 "Silent Night and 13 Other Best Loved Christmas
Songs" can only be found on LP. (The album was later repackaged with the
same title on the Ranwood label. Below is the original cover.)
eBay does offer some listings for this.
The
Lawrence Welk Christmas Website has terrific pages
on the available CDs and also has a very complete listing of all the
different versions of the many Christmas songs that were recorded by Welk and his
performers over the years
and what albums they landed on.
No. |
Song Title |
Artist |
24. |
White Christmas |
Lawrence Welk |
25. |
I'll Be Home for Christmas |
Lawrence Welk |
26. |
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer |
Lawrence Welk |
28. |
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing |
Lawrence Welk |
29. |
Deck the Halls |
Lawrence Welk |
Here's the listing for Raymond Lefevre from the
SpaceAgePop.com website:
Raymond Lefevre gave Paul Mauriat a run for his money
in the easy listening instrumentals biz, as the two kept pushing tunes into
the Top 40 charts in the late 1960s. Mauriat grabbed the only #1
instrumental of the period with "Love is Blue," but Lefevre beat him out in
several Eurovision song contests and had several other big hits with "La La
La (He Gives Me Love)," "Soul Coaxing," "Puppet on a String," and "A Whiter
Shade of Pale." Lefevre's easy listening version of Gilbert Becaud's "The
Days the Rain Came" briefly hit the U.S. Top 40 list in 1958, but most of
the time, Lefevre was focused on French audiences. He arranged and conducted
nearly as many albums for the French label, Barclay, as Percy Faith did for
Columbia/CBS in the U.S. Unlike Mauriat and Franck Pourcel, Lefevre stuck
for the most part to standard easy listening orchestrations, and he was less
likely to incorporate rock rhythms or rhythm sections.
His 1968 "Merry Christmas" album was originally released on Kapp/4 Corners of
the World catalog number FCS 4257 (the rather frisky cover above), and then reissued
a few years later on Budda Records BDS-5099 with two songs removed. Of course one of the two songs removed on the Budda album was "Petit
Papa Noel" (French singer Tino Rossi had the original vocal hit) which makes getting the
Budda disc moot. Fortunately
ebay's listings for this album let you see which is which for the most part.
There is an almost identical arrangement of "Petit Papa Noel" by
Paul Mauriat, which generates a lot of email each year from readers
who feel that is the correct track. To my ears (after comparing them
both with the actual loop) the Lefevre track still seems to me to be
the one used.
No. |
Song Title |
Artist |
10. |
Silver Bells |
Raymond Lefevre |
11. |
Jingle Bells |
Raymond Lefevre |
16. |
Petit Papa Noel
(Little Father Christmas)
|
Raymond Lefevre |
From
Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia we learn about David Rose:
David Rose was a British-born American songwriter,
composer, arranger, and orchestra leader known as "one of the most popular
and distinctive mainstream instrumental pop composers" of the 20th century.
He was famed for compositions such as "The Stripper," "Holiday for Strings,"
and "Calypso Melody," and he also wrote music for the television series
"Little House on the Prairie" (of which he was musical director) and
"Bonanza."
I can confirm the
album shown above (from Capitol Records) has the correct songs on it. ebay does have listings for it occasionally. Do note there's
also an earlier MGM LP listed sometimes, but it's a different recording
entirely. Like the Ed Sullivan LP if you look hard enough out there online (really,
really, hard!) you can probably find this title.
No. |
Song Title |
Artist |
1. |
The Christmas Tree |
David Rose |
2. |
Twelve Days of Christmas |
David Rose |
9. |
The Christmas Song |
David Rose |
19. |
Christmas Waltz |
David Rose |
From the
Felix
Slatkin webpage:
FELIX SLATKIN was an arranger, conductor and violinist.
He was active in Hollywood during the 40's, 50's and early 60's. During his
career he won wide acclaim and respect for his innovative and inspired
contributions to many recordings. In the 40's, Slatkin was the concertmaster
of the 20th Century Fox studio orchestra. He later conducted the Hollywood
Bowl Symphony Orchestra and also formed the Concert Arts Orchestra,
recording with both ensembles. He was Frank Sinatra's concertmaster and
conductor of choice during the Capitol years of the 50's. Also during the
50's, Slatkin produced and conducted two outstanding albums of military
music on the Capitol label.
He later recorded several albums for Liberty leading
the "Fantastic Strings" at the height of the "Stereo Action" period. Like
many studio musicians, he was also virtuoso performer in his own right. He
recorded as a classical violinist, and he and his wife, cellist Eleanor
Aller -- also a studio regular for whom John Williams wrote a prominent part
in the score of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"-- founded a legendary
American classical group, the Hollywood String Quartet. Felix Slatkin and
Eleanor Aller had two sons. Leonard Slatkin is Conductor Laureate of the
St.Louis Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the National Symphony
Orchestra. Frederick Zlotkin (Fred uses the original Russian spelling of the
family name) is Principal Cellist for the New York City Ballet and is the
cellist for the Lyric Piano Quartet.
The 1961 "Seasons Greetings" red album shown above (Liberty LMM-13013/LSS-14013) has an
interesting history,
detailed
on the following webpage:
The graphics on the album cover show the song "I Heard
the Bells On Christmas Day." I have a copy of an abridged reissue of that
album which references the original and has the same song listed on both the
cover and the label. However, the actual song on the album is "O Come Little
Children" or "Ihr Kinderlein Kommet". I'm curious as to whether the original
issue of the album has the correct song or the mistake. If it has the
mistake, it would be fascinating to know the history of how it was made. If
the original is correct, then we know that more than twelve songs were
recorded and only a partial release issued, making the album with the error
a neat collector's item.
Incidentally, if you wanted to add the information
to your site, the reissue that I have is from 1980, titled "Seasons
Greetings, The Fantastic Strings of Felix Slatkin (not the "Holiday" Strings
as on the Sunset reissue), contains ten cuts and carries the catalog number
of LM-1070. (It eliminates "O Holy Night" and "Away in a Manger" which were
listed on the original). The reissue is stereo even though it has the "LM"
number which could be interpreted as "mono" for the "M".
eBay usually has
both albums listed.
No. |
Song Title |
Artist |
14. |
Deck the Halls |
Felix Slatkin |
22. |
Ihr Kinderlein Kommet |
Felix Slatkin |
Finally, the last track "Carol of the Bells" by the Hollywood Bowl Symphony is
on "The Music of Christmas" album. It's available from
ArkivMusic in a licensed CD-R release, or via an out-of-print CD on Amazon,
link below.
No. |
Song Title |
Artist |
21. |
Carol of the Bells |
Hollywood Bowl Symphony
Orchestra |
One thing I learned from this project is that Google is only half the search
- you gotta use eBay for the rest of it.