The many mixes of "White Christmas"

[davidgra]

Hi all.

I've been rearranging my playlists on iTunes to switch off anything that falls into the "holiday" genre, and I got to thinking about all the different versions of "White Christmas."

We have:

1978 version from CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT -- segues from "Silver Bells," has almost no reverb on the lead vocal, then segues into "Ave Maria" using an electric piano solo.

1984 version from CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT: THE SPECIAL EDITION -- essentially the same as the 1978 version.

1990 version from FROM THE TOP -- clean start, no segue from "Silver Bells" (as "Silver Bells" isn't on the album), reverb has been added to the lead vocal, and no piano solo at the end, hence, no segue to "Ave Maria." This is the only stand-alone version of the song.

1992 version from CHRISTMAS WITH THE CARPENTERS (Time-Life) -- clean start, as it does not follow "Silver Bells." Reverb on lead vocal. New "electric piano"-sounding solo segue into "Ave Maria" at the end.

1996 version from THE CHRISTMAS COLLECTION -- back to the segue from "Silver Bells," and keeping the reverb on the lead vocal from later mixes. Yet another new piano solo at the end, this time a "real" piano sound, to create the segue into "Ave Maria."

(The version from THE ESSENTIAL COLLECTION box set is the same as the 1990 version on FROM THE TOP.)

So what do you think made Richard want to tinker with this particular track so much? Is it a favorite of his? Most of the CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT tracks have the same mix on the Time-Life CHRISTMAS WITH THE CARPENTERS and on the CHRISTMAS COLLECTION (with the exception of "Merry Christmas Darling"), so what prompted Richard to do additional re-recording for the 1996 version?

David

 

[Harry]

You know, after all these years, I don't think I ever consciously noticed the "clean" versus "segued" "White Christmas" versions. Thanks for pointing that out, David.

Harry

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

David, interesting post. I always considered "from the top" a really special set. I also never really picked up on the different segues on this track. I just re-listened to White Christmas on FTT set and it's pretty neat to have this stand-alone version only appear on this set and you hear everything to the very last bell ring. I'm so use to hearing it segue into Ave Maria.

Another interesting version appears on the Carpenters single Christmas Japan 3" disc version. On that disc contains 1. Christmas Song, 2. Winter Wonderland/Silver Bells/White Christmas. I'm not sure if you have that but if you don't, when the end of White Christmas plays you hear the start of Ave Maria, kinda weird too cause it's almost like you feel cheated cause it starts that intro for Ave Maria and then it just fades out.

 

[davidgra]

I think most of us are guilty of not really knowing the Christmas songs on FROM THE TOP -- since it's not a Christmas album, I bet most of us skip right over the Christmas tracks much of the time.

Chris, have you listened to the version of "Ave Maria" on a Japanese 3" CD single? It fades in at almost exactly the same point that "Winter Wonderland" fades out on the single you described.

David