🎄 Holidays! Herb Alpert Singing a Holiday Classic!

[alpertfan]

Last year, my dad bought a CD copy of Herb Alpert and the TJB's CHRISTMAS ALBUM. Among a few others, one of my favorites is their version of "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)". While Herb Alpert is certaintly not one the best singers in the world, this one's pretty good and I've often wondered with the many versions of the track out there, why won't radio play this one? When this album was out as an LP, did pop and/or easy listening stations ever play it or any of the other cuts?
This album is one of my favorites of the many Christmas CDs my family and I own, and we're going to play it this year. My dad purchased it from CD Universe on the Net and was at first, a bit unsure about buying it, but I said, "Yeah, why not?" My mom unfortunately doesn't care for it, but my dad and I love it.
I notice people have been talking about Christmas music on the radio. Same here in the cold northeast. I live in Connecticut, but I can pick up a station from Long Island, New York, 97.5 FM WALK and since Thanksgiving Day, they've been playing some of my favorites. CD 101.9 played Nat King Cole's version "The Christmas Song" yesterday, another fav of mine!

Happy Holidays to you all!
-alpertfan...joyously awaiting the holidays, online!
P.S., To Captain Bacardi, Neil, and Rudy: I like what you've done with the design! Very festive.

 

[Captain Bacardi]

While Herb Alpert is certaintly not one the best singers in the world, this one's pretty good and I've often wondered with the many versions of the track out there, why won't radio play this one?

I think you answered your own question - there's a zillion versions of this song. I imagine it got some airplay when it first came out (it was the flipside of the "My Favorite Things" 45), but it's probably been lost in the shuffle since then.

P.S., To Captain Bacardi, Neil, and Rudy: I like what you've done with the design! Very festive.

Well, thanks for the thought, but the credit goes to Neil (who is "Rudy", incidentally). He's the design king here. I'm just a loyal underling! I also like the holiday theme. I believe that falling white stuff is called "snow". We don't get that much in these parts.


Capt. Bacardi

 

[Harry]

I've always felt that "The Christmas Song" was one of Herb's best vocal performances, and it's too bad that it's such a common song on Christmas albums that his version gets overlooked. Heck, even Karen Carpenter's rendition doesn't get all that much airplay on radio, when compared to a song that she's known for like "Merry Christmas Darling."

Harry
...back from Thanksgiving in Chicago, and playing catch-up, online...

 

[bob knack]

I must be older than all you guys! When the TJB Christmas LP came out, it was played a whole lot by the many MOR (middle-of -the-road) radio stations around the country.

"Favorite Things" and "Jingle Bell Rock" seemed to be the most played, followed by the vocal on "Christmas Song" and then "Winter Wonderland" and "Jingle Bells".

It was a much anticipated release and the radio stations wore it out.

If memory serves, and remember I'm an old guy, Herb also sang "Christmas Song" on the Ed Sullivan Show that year.

But listen to the guy who wrote it, Mel Torme. Concord Records has a Christmas CD out that has a live version of Mel. He and his partner, Bob Welles, wrote it on the hottest day in July to help them cool off. But everybody knows that story, right? Maybe you could buy it through this web site!

Why don't we have an icon wearing a Santa Hat?

 

[Paulie]

I've been looking for a Herb Alpert Christmas CD - this is a pure nostalgia trip for me as my dad used to play the album when I was a kid (mid 70s). I've seen the cover of a Christmas album on the web - but it doesn't look like the one I remember (Herb dressed as santa sitting legs apart playing merrily ???). I live in the UK, could this be a different version? I'd love to buy the CD in the UK. Anyone help...?

 

[Rudy]

Paulie--the original cover is in the TJB discography, which was just a full-head shot of Herb in his santa suit. The newer US reissues shrunk the image down and put a white border around it. The back cover has usually had the band standing around the fireplace.

Haven't heard of any other different covers, but you're right in that it could have been different in other countries.

The CD is officially out of print. About the only thing i could ask is, do you know if the CD or US LP has the same tracks you remember? I just wonder if another trumpet player may have had a similar album you might be remembering...?

 

[DAN BOLTON]

Sometimes I think the real reason that the Christmas Song doesn't get played very much [if at all] anymore is because it isn't available...you can't find the album in stores, so why should the radio stations or sattellite networks play it? It's not hard to find Nat King Cole records or Sinatra records in the stores, but Herb Alpert/TJB albums are a rarity.

The Tijuana Brass played escapist music to a large percentage of the public, I think...if you wanted to escape from your troubles, you put on a TJB record and went to Mexico or Brazil and had a fiesta or a siesta, depending on the mood of the song. Today, if you want to escape, there's cable TV, Pay-Per-View, DVDs and the X Box...none of these were around in the mid- to- late '60's.

Nat King Cole and Sinatra had another decade or two to develop a following that Herb Alpert didn't have before this onslaught got underway...so, more people know their music NOW, because more knew it THEN...and there was more THEN to begin with...each generation passes on it's culture to the next, like Rudy's mom and dad did for him with their records when he was little[just an example...].


But...who wants to pass on the '60's? I mean there's a That '70's Show, an a That '80's Show, but no That "60's Show...and don't count The Wonder Years, because most of it took place in the early '70's.

It's too bad, really and kind of ironic, because Christmas is a time for reminiscing, more so than any other...and The Christmas Song epitomizes that fact better than any other, and Herb Alpert's version is the definitive version for my generation...so you'd think there would be a market...especially after DEFINITIVE HITS...but I guess not.


Dan, also remembering a study done several years ago that concluded that the average person has significantly LESS leisure time today than he/she did 30 years ago...and there's a lot more out there vying for that leisure time...you can wear yourself out deciding what you want to do with it...and fall asleep doing whatever you decide to...

 

[DAN BOLTON]

Yes, I was really proud of that last post....actually, what happenned was that I kept trying to send it, and kept getting a WEBSITE NOT RESPONDING message...so, I figured that the Gremlins were attacking again, and I'd have to keep sending, hoping to get through. Well, I guess I did. TAKE THAT, MOGWAI !!!!!


Dan, whose breakfast is also repeating itself...

 

[Rudy]

No, I just thought you were in a "Groundhog Day" type of time-warp or something. Regardless, I've just deleted the extras for ya. :santa:

It's interesting they won't play the Alpert version of the song, and yet they played Al Jarreau's, which probably has more promotional copies in circulation than legitimate 'for sale' copies. I never could find Jarreau's lone track in any store I ever looked in, and yet Herb's LPs and CDs filled the bins of the stores at Christmas time.

I've given up trying to figure out radio. It just makes my head hurt.

 

[DAN BOLTON]

No, I just thought you were in a "Groundhog Day" type of time-warp or something. Regardless, I've just deleted the extras for ya. :santa:

It's interesting they won't play the Alpert version of the song, and yet they played Al Jarreau's, which probably has more promotional copies in circulation than legitimate 'for sale' copies. I never could find Jarreau's lone track in any store I ever looked in, and yet Herb's LPs and CDs filled the bins of the stores at Christmas time.

I've given up trying to figure out radio. It just makes my head hurt.

I just heard Aaron Neville's version last night at Wal-Mart...THAT made my head hurt...


Dan

 

[jimac51]

A couple of thoughts. Radio does not care what they play as long as they do what they are supposed to do -Sell,Sell,Sell. Oldies stations that have a '60s format(an ever-decreasing format that will be explained further down) always play Chubby Checker's "The Twist" for a good reason-you can't buy the original anymore(thanks to Allen Klein)and it keeps you from button hopping and listening to the next commercial. Radio cares so little about music that many stations syndicate an geezer talking dirty in the morning(Howard Stern) and,in the afternoons, a right wing know-it-all who only started voting when he found the holy grail of talk radio(Rush Limbaugh). Some Infinity-owned stations are actually simulcasting the Letterman show,not because it works on radio(it doesn't)but becasue parent Viacom already owns the show and its one less hour to pay anyone to play music . It's crap,just like the music played on radio-the only difference is that (sometimes)the music stations have crap with a beat. A major reason why there is so little '60s material in pop culture right now is that anyone who cares about that time doesn't buy what media is selling. To have any sense of living in the '60s you had to have been born at least by 1962. You're 40 and media can't get you to buy anything they sell becuse you are on to their scam. Notice that VH-1 started investigating the '80s this week-a gesture clearly aimed at adults 25 to 40-people that can still be swayed by a car commercial. As far as they are concerned-even the '70s are dead(not a bad thing). It's the Rule of 20- whatever is popular right now(Harry Potter,Justin & Britney,Bush Jr.)will be looked upon with nostalgia 20 years from this moment-guaranteed. Mac