Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Happy Holidays!
Seasons Greeting!
Wishing You The Merriest of Christmas Memories!
I'm a little late to the party this year. I haven't even made my Christmas Music Mix yet. I haven't done any PR for the Christmas Potato either. Not sure what the deal is. At least I've got all the shopping done for gifts that must travel through the postal system. I'm not sure why I've not transitioned into full-on, full tilt, full figured holiday mode. We all love excuses so I'll blame the rampant nativism that's sweeping our country and the divisive negativism that many cheer and applaud as if it is patriotic. Seriously, do folks really think anything is gained by turning away those in need, attacking others because of religious beliefs, or not lending a helping hand to those in need. The version of the Christmas story I was raised on stressed those positive behaviors. My folks never turned away anybody on a Christmas Eve. I still remember times when last minute guests showed up and there were presents and a stocking in the morning for them. I also blame the, real or imagined, global climate change. It just doesn't get as cold lately as my memory says it should.
Then last night the spirit bit me right in my rather ample Santa-ish posterior. Carson made it home from Baylor and even more importantly our neighbor across the street inflated his pageant of cold air inflatables and it dawned me why he does.
He just wants to be a dentist....like Hermie. Dr. D, DDS decorates his yard with a giant Clarice, Rudolph, Santa, and really giant Bumble. The Bumble is easily as tall as the real one that haunted my dreams back in 1964 when the special first aired. I was in third grade and probably a little old to be frightened by a fuzzy stop motion animated white teddy bear type creature. Complete disclosure it scared the living s...Christmas out of me. In the last 51 years I've watched it every year which took some planning in the days prior to video tape, VCRs, and DVRs. I can still imitate most of the voices well enough to at least amuse my own two adult children. Who ever heard of a Charlie-in-a box?
So now I'm in the spirit and having completed my mix last night I'm ready to share. I've also got links to the Spud video and the other blog entries have verbiage as well.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and have a swell New Year!
Click on link below for:
No
one is quite sure how the tradition of the Christmas Potato began. Many
believe it began in the later half of the 20th century when a young man
tossed seasonal greetings wrapped around uncooked potatoes into the
yards of houses decorated with Christmas lights. It was his way of
saying thank you and Merry Christmas.
Before
the advent of the Christmas Potato there was no way to easily thank
those who brighten our holiday season with their unselfish efforts. Now
each year children and adults alike look forward to the annual pitching
of the holiday spud. But why a potato? The young man grew up in a town called Topeka which means a good place to dig potatoes.
2015 Blue Light Special Christmas Mix
Recently I watched a documentary on the making of Springsteen's monumental album, The River. It got me thinking about records and songs that I just can't let go of. There has always been records that I can listen to in the same manner that Travis Bickle drives a cab, "any time..any place. I go all over." Albums like Working Man's Dead, Crazed Hipsters, Late For The Sky, London Calling, Rubber Soul, The Return of Doug Saldana, Sticky Fingers, The Jam's That's Entertainment, Tommy, and others I can play over and over never getting tired of them.
It is the same thing with Christmas music. There are some tunes you just don't get tired of. Christmas is the worst time of the year to be by yourself. That's why we have Christmas blues songs. So with that in mind I present a selection of songs concerning loneliness & lost love counterpointed by seasonal music that always makes me feel better. Enjoy...
Annotative notes follow track listings
Track 1: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen-Eddie Higgins Quartet
Track 2: Merry Christmas Baby-Johnny Moore's Three Blazers with Charles Brown
Track 3: Thirteen Years-Alejandro Escovedo
Track 4: The Christmas Song-Dexter Gordon Quartet
Track 5: Late For The Sky-Jackson Browne
Track 6: Christmas Time is Here-Vince Guaraldi Trio
Track 7: Alison-Elvis Costello
Track 8: Christmas Must Be Tonight-The Band
Track 9: It Makes No Difference-The Band
Track 10: Wild Theme(Local Hero OST)-Mark Knopfler
Track 11: Little Drummer Boy-Louis Bellson
Track 12: Hidden Bonus Track
Track 1: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen-Eddie Higgins Quartet
Track 1 is a perfect example of what this year's mix is all about. Beginning with a familiar holiday melody recognized as such the song gently shifts and glides as all four band members are given a chance to offer their own extrapolation of the song. It rings familiar and fits, but doesn't sound exactly as we expect. That's the driving theme of this year's mix. Songs of heartbreak( to amplify the notion of seasonal loneliness) followed by music that has always comforted me at Christmas time.
Track 2: Merry Christmas Baby-Johnny Moore's Three Blazers with Charles Brown
For my money the all time greatest Christmas Blues. Working in record stores you were forced to listen to the same records over and over in a work day. At those times when I was tired of the constant replay of the hit de jure I'd slip on a collection of Christmas blues to heal and calm the blues and blahs of a long day. The first notes of this song transport me to a cold lonely street with the snow beginning to fall at two a.m. on a Christmas morning. Last call has been called, seconded, and I'm on the street making the long walk to a chilled one room apartment with nothing waiting for me but a noisy radiator, a lonely single bed with just enough covers to keep me not quite warm and a pathetic twisted cast off remnant tree on the table. The eleven tarnished thrift shop ornaments reflecting the blue flamed stove top burners are the only lights this tree knows. Even as I make the long walk I smile knowing that when I wake up in the morning to whatever awaits, for at least a day, it will be Christmas and that makes everything right.
Track 3: Thirteen Years-Alejandro Escovedo
It might just be the saddest song I've ever heard. I ache and nearly cry when I hear the song, yet I can listen to it over and over. Told from the perspective of a rock n roll widow stuck at home while her performer husband traipses across the country from town to town. Sadly most of us don't know we're losing something important until it is already gone.
Track 4: The Christmas Song-Dexter Gordon Quartet
The Christmas Song and Dexter Gordon says all that needs to be said. I wasn't that familiar with Gordon until I heard his version of, "As Time Goes By," in 1976. I started listening to his older recordings and even if I'm no jazz aficionado I like him. That's the way it is with honest music. You know it when you hear it. Whether people admit it or not when you listen to a record we know if it is a genuine reflection of the artist or a song composed simply to soullessly make money and sell. works on Christmas songs too. It means Christmas(your own personal definition, subjective to the max) or it doesn't.
Track 5: Late For The Sky-Jackson Browne
Thank you, Abdel. Since high school I've liked the music of Jackson Brown. In the fall of '74 when I first bought the record I liked it, but it didn't make it into my constant replay pile. Back them I owned no more than 100 albums(all in mint condition) and at the time thought I had at my easy disposal a vast collection of sounds and aural treats. In those days an integral ritual of courtship was the, "Have you heard this one." Sitting in an apartment with the member of the opposite who you hoped to impress you carefully played albums you hoped would spark the "conversation," to the next "level." Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know whut I mean, know whut I mean!" If your choice didn't enhance or create the desired mood you had roughly 20 minutes, one side, to plan the next choice.
Abdel was the best record store guy I ever met. In Topeka the two good record stores for the longest time were Paul's and Mother Earth. Abdel started selling records because Paul made a rude comment when Abdel wanted to buy a copy of Love Sculpture's version of "Sabre Dance." Thank god for the diss. I had many records suggested and recommended to me by Abdel. Last I heard he was on an island off the coast of Sicily helping substance abusers rehab. So... I'm in the store one day and he asks what I thought about the latest Jackson Browne. My response was ill defined taking no position one way or the other. He eyes grew wide, he laughed, shaking his head and exhaling a cloud of Camel unfiltered, "No. I mean have you REALLY listened to it?" Later that day I did and...The track here expresses the emotion of trying and hoping to find someone to connect with while defeating yourself with pressure you yourself create. As cinematic as most songs get.
Track 6: Christmas Time is Here-Vince Guaraldi Trio
Nothing needs to be said other than Peanuts Christmas Special.
Track 7: Alison-Elvis Costello
Record store story. My Aim is True came out Christmas season 1977. I heard the promo when I made our order and said I'd take 25 or 30, whatever the a box was from Columbia. Small numbers for a small store but for us 25 up front on any title was a big deal. The rep was like, are you sure, most folks are getting like 10. I knew it would sell and it did and from the release through Christmas we sold almost 75 copies. The best part was Paul's ran out after he sold his first 3 copies. I hit with both Saturday Night Fever and the first Dire Strait's record too. We sold tons and never ran out. Thinking back about it the store probably only a buck or so on each one. Stupid story, stupid time, but the song that sold that record every time I played it in the store, "Alison."
Track 8: Christmas Must Be Tonight-The Band
Track 9: It Makes No Difference-The Band
Next we have two songs by The Band. During the Golden Years(live musically speaking 1970-1984) I was lucky enough to see most of the bands I wanted to live. I tried 3 different times to see the Band and each time they cancelled the show. Same thing happened with Waylon. There were other bands tacked on as opening acts by the labels I couldn't escape. The Last Waltz(about the Band's last show)might be the best rock and roll concert movie ever made. Supporting Dylan and on their own, The Band, and its various offshoots have had a far reaching impact on American music. Sadly for the last 40 years of infighting and various creative, financial, and personality conflicts kept the band from playing together as The Band and now with over half of the original members dead and gone it isn't ever going to happen. Me thinks there is a lesson there. "Christmas Must Be Tonight" and Steve Earle's "Nothing But a Child," are two of the best written and most Christmas-y contemporary holiday songs that also stand on their own as great songs. "It Makes No Difference" is the ultimate song of the frustration and defeat at the hands of a relationship." Stampeding cattle....they rattle the walls."
Track 10: Wild Theme(Local Hero OST)-Mark Knopfler
Go ahead ask yourself why this song is on here. It isn't Christmas music and it isn't about heartbreak, loss, or the bleak reality that is the tragedy of the human experience. I just like the song. It is from the soundtrack to the movie "Local Hero." In late 1983 and early 1984, I was putting a plan together, a scheme, that if successful would allow me to meet one of the life goals I'd set for myself. I'd always said that someday I wanted to live in Graford and work in my grandfather's grocery store. With the recent passing of my paternal uncle's widow I hoped to purchase her house in Graford whether I moved or not. I just wanted to own a house in Graford, a getaway of sorts. Growing up with both sets of grandparents in Graford it was where we usually went for a vacation, for Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas break/New Year's day and whenever my mother cratered, had a spell, or any other euphemistic term for dealing with manic/depression. I felt safe in Graford. As I've gotten older I've come to realize that the Couger house and more so Pump's house were the only two places I actually felt truly safe. I won't detail it here, but trust me, a kid in my shoes or the shoes of my brother or sister needed a place to feel safe. When one of my mother's brothers announced he was moving to Denver I called my uncle, Erwin, and proposed me coming to work in the store. It would mean leaving Austin and working for almost 1/3 of what the record store paid....while I thought it over I played the Local Hero soundtrack repeatedly. Local Hero, the movie, is why I moved. It taught me how to recognize what was really important. It is a move I will never regret and still ranks as some of the most honest purposeful work I ever did. I've lived in this area for all of the last 30 years except for a two year Quixote-esque journey into the west. I guess I've included it to represent the challenge and quest we all live trying to balance self centered notions and desires with our oft unfulfilled obligation to be kind and help others. I remain convinced it is possible by living a balanced life focused on the 14 precepts of inter-being taught by Thay Hahn and others along with the recognition of obvious ethical concepts almost all humans recognize in one form or another.
Track 11: Little Drummer Boy-Louis Bellson
If we all remember to create the best of all possible worlds by sharing our gifts with others, no matter meager or small they may appear(like el caganer behind the the mangers of Catalonia) a better life for as many as possible will exist. Working for that better world is what Christmas is about for me anyway. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Track 12: Hidden Bonus Track
Seriously...if I said anything or even gave clues it would defeat its own purpose.
