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[ComicMike]

BTW 

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes - ROCKPALAST GERMANY - 1979

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdKoPTKiO44

[paw broon]

Back to Christmas songs.  The wonderful Darlene Love:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf4ZXBzbAio
With this one you also get Clarence Clemons:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbNFVSRET2c

[The Australian Panther]

Don't get me started on Christmas Music.

I go more for the tunes than the lyrics tho.   

Here are a few.

Prog.

TransSiberian Orchestra have made a thing out of Christmas concerts and Albums.
Here is an example.
Trans-Siberian Orchestra 11/19/17: 8 - Christmas Canon Rock -WilkesBarre 2:30p Georgia Napolitano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f03Ho0ERqtM

You will find more on that page. Bee-eutiful stuff!

Booker T & the MG's Jingle Bells
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr2gwjfdZdM&list=RDQM0VYMl4-maCs&start_radio=1

If that's not good enough for you,
Tommy Emmanuel - Jingle Bells - Live 2011 HD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9_DA7pQ97M

and Tommy's got more there too.

If you happen to like 'Lounge' and obviously I do, The UltraLounge series has 4 volumes of 'Christmas Cocktails' Here is Volume 1
Ultra Lounge Christmas Cocktails PART ONE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbw2VNF_cfU
Great Images in the video. Ever notice how many times Schultz had Charlie Brown outside at night stunned by the implications of the NightSky? [In the video] superb example of how to say a lot with a little, or how to stimulate the audience to think.     
 

[Robb_K]

Here's one of my Christmas favourites, The Drifters from 1954:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSWB_5JW2TQ

And here's another:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooc5eJc5SHA

And yet another The Gems, with Minnie Ripperton on lead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y8SNlHAO6Y

And still another, written and recorded by barely 17-yearold Stevie Wonder, only a year and a half after his records were still listed as by "Little Stevie Wonder":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y__tczZDkTo

And one that is extremely modern for me (by Donny Hathaway)- later by far, than any record in my collection:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrxvHpKI9-0

[The Australian Panther]

Robb, thanks for those.

[paw broon]

Robb, just for a minute there when I clicked your Poets link, I got quite excited.  I couldn't figure out how you'd know about them. I quickly realised your band wasn't this Scottish lot:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PM5-zF85LE

[ComicMike]

To everyone  A nice selection of nice songs, thank you very much. 

[bowers]

 I see nobody mentioned my very favorite- "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Vince Vance and the Valiants and featuring the luscious Lisa Layne. That woman can belt it out! Same title as the Mariah Carey hit but definitely NOT the same song! Christmas Cheers, Bowers        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8HWHd0EYJA

[Andrew999]

Great stuff - thanks

[Robb_K]

Robb, just for a minute there when I clicked your Poets link, I got quite excited.  I couldn't figure out how you'd know about them. I quickly realised your band wasn't this Scottish lot:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PM5-zF85LE 

Despite being a Chicago and L.A. "Ghetto child (at least teenager)", I traveled in Europe and The UK a lot.  I was in England and Scotland a few times each in 1965, 66, 67, and '68 (as I have been most years since 1965).  So, I knew about The Scottish Poets.  I even know about Leapy Lee, Helen Shapiro, The Two Ronnies, Tommy Cooper, Haggis, blood pudding, Coronation Street. Actually one of my great uncles was an MP from Essex, but several people in my extended family were born and raised in The East End and/or Golder's Green, and one of my uncles was a very good friend of Robert Briscoe (Mayor of Dublin), to whom he sent me to visit on my first trip to Ireland.

[Robb_K]

Here's one by The Miracles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVYEd4JFM_g

And one from Boston's Tuneweavers from 1956:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BvubDvlHds

[crashryan]

With Christmas coming up and all these happy Christmas songs being posted I confess that this year I'm feeling less celebratory than I've felt in many decades. Christmas has always been an up-and-down experience with me. Parties with my family good but sometimes strained, with my wife's family chaotic affairs filled with blasting noise, drunks, and backbiting. Frankly it was a relief to both of us when the family kicked us out. This year, with all our parents gone, locked down for safety, holding my breath praying my country will dodge a fascist coup, the most positive feeling I can conjure up is gratitude for having survived 2020. Now when I look back upon those raucous, drama-drenched Christmases of yore, I think...

I think that they still sucked, and I'm happy that I'll never have another one.

It is to commemorate them that I offer this cynical Christmas ditty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OPIK98CCEM

[Robb_K]

With Christmas coming up and all these happy Christmas songs being posted I confess that this year I'm feeling less celebratory than I've felt in many decades. Christmas has always been an up-and-down experience with me. Parties with my family good but sometimes strained, with my wife's family chaotic affairs filled with blasting noise, drunks, and backbiting. Frankly it was a relief to both of us when the family kicked us out. This year, with all our parents gone, locked down for safety, holding my breath praying my country will dodge a fascist coup, the most positive feeling I can conjure up is gratitude for having survived 2020. Now when I look back upon those raucous, drama-drenched Christmases of yore, I think...

I think that they still sucked, and I'm happy that I'll never have another one.

It is to commemorate them that I offer this cynical Christmas ditty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OPIK98CCEM

[paw broon]

YES crash!!!!!
And as a counterpoint, this features hundreds of musicians (incl. one of the blokes from our French group - he's a flautist) The Virtual Scratch Orchestra:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezuXkZ0tg8M&list=RDezuXkZ0tg8M&start_radio=1&t=0

[Robb_K]

YES crash!!!!!
And as a counterpoint, this features hundreds of musicians (incl. one of the blokes from our French group - he's a flautist) The Virtual Scratch Orchestra:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezuXkZ0tg8M&list=RDezuXkZ0tg8M&start_radio=1&t=0

EXCELLENT!   

[Robb_K]

THIS SHOULD BRIGHTEN ANYONE'S DAY:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJIxmD3hPJI&list=RDiwxaySyrOvI&index=18

[Captain Audio]

 

(incl. one of the blokes from our French group - he's a flautist)

Have him try "Beano".

[Drahken]

For xmas songs...

Jingle bells in japanese ftw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6kOaciWQJs

All I want for xmas is to kick your ass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrZdvW6BBkc

I am santa claus (Iron Man parody): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRW2poUfJ34

A fav from my childhood, Thistlehair the Christmas Bear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJxUehRecJI

As for non-holiday songs;

Sturgill simpson - sing along: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpSMoBp8awM

Beast in black - crazy mad insane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbFpDJsLYOU

[ComicMike]

A traditional version of Silent Night, beautifully played on the guitar, by a young swedish girl, with the typical swedish name Gabriella Quevedo. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anaFaOetlLk

[ComicMike]

Wonderful !

Simon and Garfunkel - Go Tell It On The Mountain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LitQp6-JARY

[ComicMike]

Merry X-Mas everybody. 

The Highwaymen - Michael (Row The Boat Ashore) 1961

https://youtu.be/jRv-fgfLFTk

[profh0011]

One of my favorite singers is a guy from Kasel, Germany, Karsten Kohler.  He's had several bands over the last 30 years-- Crazy Cats, Silver Surfer, Torpedo 4.  Here he is some years back with the Voodoo Rockets, doing a very rockabilly cover of "Tainted Love" (a song which, although it got famous via a "new wave" cover in the 80s, actually started life as a "Motown"-style B-side in the early 60s-- NO KIDDING).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3ML_WF8aeM

[Robb_K]

One of my favorite singers is a guy from Kasel, Germany, Karsten Kohler.  He's had several bands over the last 30 years-- Crazy Cats, Silver Surfer, Torpedo 4.  Here he is some years back with the Voodoo Rockets, doing a very rockabilly cover of "Tainted Love" (a song which, although it got famous via a "new wave" cover in the 80s, actually started life as a "Motown"-style B-side in the early 60s-- NO KIDDING).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3ML_WF8aeM

It's really a small World!  The lady who sang the original version of that song (Gloria Jones) was an acquaintance of mine, and a very close friend of one of my ownership partners of our record company(Airwave Records), and she wrote a few songs for us,too.  She was also a singing artist for Motown Records when I worked there in the 1970s.

Here's the original recording:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJKe2j9Wjh4

[profh0011]

It's really a small World!  The lady who sang the original version of that song (Gloria Jones) was an acquaintance of mine, and a very close friend of one of my ownership partners of our record company(Airwave Records), and she wrote a few songs for us,too.  She was also a singing artist for Motown Records when I worked there in the 1970s.

Here's the original recording:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJKe2j9Wjh4

That is wild.

A while back, my home care client brought up the new wave version on his laptop, then the Voodoo Rockets version, and after 15 seconds, stopped it and said, "EHH, didn't care for it."  (OY)

A really cool site I found was "SECOND HAND SONGS".  It's a database for cover versions. It would probably blow some people's minds to learn HOW MANY versions there are of some songs.  If a video is posted on Youtube, they also have links to them, so from that one site, you can listen to multiple versions of the same song one after the other.

I either found Gloria Jones there, or, just on Youtube in their reccomended column.

Apparently, her song, being "only" a B-side, was mostly unknown.  But oddly, in the early 70s, some radio station in Europe began playing it, and it became popular THERE.  Weird, huh?  But it took another 10 years before someone else recorded a "new wave" version, and THAT became a huge hit, 20 years after-the-fact.  Since then, I believe there've been HUNDREDS of recordings.

Karsten Kohler did it as the 1st song on his 1st CD, way back in 1991, Crazy Cats: TIME OUT.  I never knew this existed until about 2 years ago, when I found out about it, and found a stoire in Germany had a copy to sell.  The live Voodoo Rockets version from 2013 was way better, though. I'd been a fan of his for 20 years before I ever saw him play live (but, only online-- I doubt I'll ever get over to Germany to see him in person).

Before this, my first exposure to the song (funny enough) was by another rockabilly band, Danny Dean and the Homewreckers.  I love "new" bands playing "older" styles.

https://secondhandsongs.com/

[Robb_K]

It's really a small World!  The lady who sang the original version of that song (Gloria Jones) was an acquaintance of mine, and a very close friend of one of my ownership partners of our record company(Airwave Records), and she wrote a few songs for us,too.  She was also a singing artist for Motown Records when I worked there in the 1970s.

Here's the original recording:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJKe2j9Wjh4

That is wild.

A while back, my home care client brought up the new wave version on his laptop, then the Voodoo Rockets version, and after 15 seconds, stopped it and said, "EHH, didn't care for it."  (OY)

A really cool site I found was "SECOND HAND SONGS".  It's a database for cover versions. It would probably blow some people's minds to learn HOW MANY versions there are of some songs.  If a video is posted on Youtube, they also have links to them, so from that one site, you can listen to multiple versions of the same song one after the other.

I either found Gloria Jones there, or, just on Youtube in their reccomended column.

Apparently, her song, being "only" a B-side, was mostly unknown.  But oddly, in the early 70s, some radio station in Europe began playing it, and it became popular THERE.  Weird, huh?  But it took another 10 years before someone else recorded a "new wave" version, and THAT became a huge hit, 20 years after-the-fact.  Since then, I believe there've been HUNDREDS of recordings.

Karsten Kohler did it as the 1st song on his 1st CD, way back in 1991, Crazy Cats: TIME OUT.  I never knew this existed until about 2 years ago, when I found out about it, and found a stoire in Germany had a copy to sell.  The live Voodoo Rockets version from 2013 was way better, though. I'd been a fan of his for 20 years before I ever saw him play live (but, only online-- I doubt I'll ever get over to Germany to see him in person).

Before this, my first exposure to the song (funny enough) was by another rockabilly band, Danny Dean and the Homewreckers.  I love "new" bands playing "older" styles.
https://secondhandsongs.com/.

As far as I remember, The British Group, Soft Cell recorded the first remake of "Tainted Love" in late 1976 or 1977.  It had become a big hit on The British Northern Soul Club Scene, for a few years and made its way to some offshore pirate radio station, where they heard it, and liked it. 

I first bought Gloria's version as a DJ copy in a Salvation Army Thrift Store in Chicago in late 1964, about 3 months after it was released.  It never charted.  I like the "A" side ("My Bad Boy's Comin' Home") much better.  It is a lot more "Motownish".  Berry Gordy's Motown Records (for whom I later worked), opened an office in Los Angeles in 1963 for their music publisher, Jobete Music, to write songs for Motown's contracted singing artists back in Detroit.  They hired producers/songwriters Hal Davis, Marc Gordon, Frank Wilson, and several other L.A.songwriters to produce recording sessions on their written songs, to provide demo records for Motown's singers to use as a guide, and for proof of song copyright ownership.  They hired Gloria as a background singer, along with Pat Hunt, Brenda and Patrice Holloway, and Mary Love, to sing backgrounds, and demo recordings.  Gloria's producer there was Ed Cobb (who also produced the earliest Brenda Holloway recordings).  So, some of Gloria's earliest recordings were made for Motown.  But, Cobb quit Motown because
he was angry at Berry Gordy for refusing to give him producer credit and (perhaps) producer pay on Brenda Holloway's big hit, "Every Little Bit Hurts".  He then took all the songs he had planned to sell to Motown with him, and recorded Gloria and a few other singers singing them, and leased those recordings first to VJ Records' subsidiary, Champion Records, and Capitol Records' subsidiary, Uptown Records, where Gloria had her mega hit "Heartbeat" in 1965.  After graduate school at university, I moved back to my grandparents' home in Holland in 1972, because I started working for The UN in Africa and Asia.  I started importing US Soul records to The UK's Northern Soul scene from then through the early 1990s.