The Instrumental Parts on the Xmas Albums

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

On the Carpenters Xmas Albums there are some tracks that Karen & Richard do not have vocals on. I call them the Instrumental tracks. Exactly how would they have been recorded? Would Richard & Karen have been in the recording studio for that?

I know that some instrumentals Richard did for fill in on the 2nd album An Old Fashioned Xmas cause he didn't have enough of Karen singing to make a whole album right?

But Karen would have been alive when Xmas Portrait was released and on Portrait it says Karen was Associate Producer, What did she associate? Did she help with the Instrumentals? Did she play drums, maybe?

 

[mr J.]

Chris-your terminology needs to be corrected-the word is "Christmas",not "Xmas"! Karen and Richard wanted to include some overtures and instrumental tracks on the Christmas albums,to add more zest and distinctiveness to the albums.(They didn't want they're Christmas albums to sound like everyone else's Christmas albums).In the 70's,Karen took part in some of the production chores,so she was credited on the album as "Associate Producer".But,it was actually the work of veteran arrangers Billy May and Peter Knight that made the Christmas albums sound so good.

Incidentally,the "Nutcracker Suite" on OLD FASHIONED CHRISTMAS was recorded in 1978.

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

Just typing fast & shortened it but right or not everyone here know what I am talking about by typing Xmas.

I found this on the web, I knew I had heard this before you might find it helpful Mr J.

Xmas VS Christmas

I was going to call this "Let's get rid of the X!" and plead a case for putting "Christ" back in and using "Christmas" instead of "Xmas". But I changed my mind after checking a dictionary. According to Webster's New International Dictionary, the "X" in Xmas does really mean "Christ". In fact, I learned something completely new and found that there are more abbreviations where the X is used instead of Christ, without changing the meaning. I learned that "xn" means "Christian" and "xnty" means "Christianity". And when looking up just the "X" as a letter, I found it to also mean "Christ", even without the connection with the word Xmas.

Also found:

The X is from the Greek alphabet and stands for Christos which means Christ

N.P. Christmas (Xmas) Portrait

 

[Jeff]

Way to go Chris and Merry X-mas!

Jeff