White Christmas "radio edit?"

[convergingnow]

I heard White Christmas a couple weeks ago on the radio, and I could swear there was something different about the edit, and I've googled and googled and found nothing. On the 1990 version that's on From the Top, Essential Collection, and a couple lesser-known compilations, there is a "single edit" of White Christmas that isn't part of a medley with the Spike Jonesy Winter Wonderland and Silver Bells nonsense; it just goes straight into, "The sun is shining the grass is green..." That 1990 version has a sort of "unresolved" ending. But what I heard recently was different. After she finished singing White Christmas, the bells continued right up to the moment when the opening notes of Ave Maria begin, but instead of the opening notes of Ave Maria, the song ended in a more resolved-sounding, broken F chord.

Has anyone else heard this? Was I hallucinating or what?!

 

[Harry]

The original CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT album and its subsequent SPECIAL EDITION both feature the full medley followed by a stereo-wobble (left-right very quickly) electric piano that modulates down to the next song "Ave Maria".

In 1990, when "White Christmas" was remixed as a separate track for FROM THE TOP and later used in ESSENTIAL COLLECTION and READERS DIGEST, the ending was altered so that the descending bells led to just an orchestral chord ending that fades out properly. In all three of those cases, the next song was "Little Altar Boy".

In 1992, the separated "White Christmas" song was again changed at the end for CHRISTMAS WITH THE CARPENTERS (Time-Life). This time, the electric piano doesn't wobble in its stereo but once again modulates the key down for "Ave Maria". The extended electric piano part accounts for the extra length (2:41, vs 2:29).

The last time things changed was in 1996 when CHRISTMAS COLLECTION was put together. The medley of three songs is back together in a newly remixed version and "White Christmas" now ends with an acoustic piano extension - same notes as before, but newly recorded by Richard on acoustic, and again modulating down to the key of "Ave Maria".

I hope that helps.

 

[convergingnow]

Thanks for your very thorough response, Harry. Based on the possibilities you've detailed, I think it must have been the original album version with the first two songs of the medley skipped by the programmer. It definitely ended with an outro of the White Christmas melody, and that apparently was only done on the original version.

 

[Harry]

Most likely it was the SPECIAL EDITION version, since it's so commonly available. These days, bigger radio stations in the US subscribe to music services that send them their whole libraries digitally, which are then put on the station's server for use on air. Smaller stations might still do it the old fashioned way - sourcing the music from CD or LP as necessary and ripping it to their own local server. Really small stations might even still play CDs and tape cartridges right on-air.

 

[tomswift2002]

Of course some stations allow different local shows to use a mix of digital-CD and vinyl-tape for playback, especially if they are doing local groups. But I was just watching the 2013 documentRy 'Jingle Bell Rocks' and it showed the host of the doc doing a Christmas show on Chicago RADIO station WDCB where they played long forgotten 45's and unknown Christmas songs.

 

[Harry]

Of course. There are quite a few stations that feature a "vinyl hour" or show, or a "buried treasure" 45 every now and then. But with all of the segues on CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT, no radio station DJ or programmer in their right mind would attempt playing anything from that album on vinyl unless they were playing it straight through.

 

[tomswift2002]

Even on CD or Digital, CP is extremely difficult to pull from. Plus CPSE is also tricky to pull from because Richard reuses a lot of the sections from CP that were segued, but he also segued or set the songs extremely close for the stuff from AOFC into the CP stuff.

But if you see the special the CPSE makes a brief appearance at the beginning of the doc as the host searches through used CD's at Amoeba in LA.

 

[Harry]

I use Audacity to separate out the songs properly for use in personal portable players so that a random shuffle doesn't sound to weird.