Tagged with Billy May

Ultimate Christmas Cocktails collection cover image

Ultimate Christmas Cocktails – Various Artists

Half the fun of the holiday season is throwing (and/or attending) holiday parties! Here’s a great collection to serve as a soundtrack to your shindig.

In fact, its usefulness as background music might be its best selling point. If you try to pay close attention to the music as you listen, you might grow tired of it by the time the first disc is halfway finished. The music is quite repetitive in sound, partially due to the fact that the same artists are featured and repeated several times over.

Aiming to set the mood for gin-laden cocktails and vodka mixers, it’s no surprise the music is carefully selected to have a mid-60s “ultra mod” feel. Featured artists include the soulful Lou Rawls (someone who doesn’t get the airtime he deserves on HPZ), the sultry Julie London, and famed bandleaders such as Billy May, Guy Lombardo, and Les Baxter. June Christy, Wayne Newton, Peggy Lee, Johnny Mercer, and Al Martino also come together to add to the Christmas spirit. And it would be an utter tragedy if this collection didn’t include Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby.

This is a great collection from which to build a holiday mix tape of your own. When I created mine for friends and family, I yoinked the following tracks (all available on Disc 2):

  • “Warm December” by Julie London
  • “Frosty the Snowman” by The Ventures
  • “Santa Claus’s Party” by Les Baxter
  • “Happy Holiday” by Peggy Lee

And there’s much more to choose from as you build your own holiday playlists. 57 tracks on 3 discs? That’s good bang for your buck. Bring it out at your next holiday gathering to add an extra-cool vibe to your soirée. Surely your martinis will taste even better as these tunes help the gin work its magic.

Available for purchase here.

They came a long way from St. Louis

fancy

Fans of the Heavy Petting Zoo know that I have a special place in my heart for Rosemary Clooney. My friends know this too (how could they not?), and upon a recent stop in Chicago, two good friends surprised me with some finds from a local record resale shop. Among the treasures was Fancy Meeting You Here — an entire LP of duets recorded by Rosemary Clooney and her White Christmas co-star, Bing Crosby.

In her autobiography, Girl Singer, Clooney writes about how Fancy Meeting You Here was her favorite recording project of her entire career. Recorded in 1958, Clooney was six months pregnant with her fourth child when she stepped into the studio with Crosby.

Crosby, not at all pregnant, still suffered from the occasional mood swing. According to Clooney, when guests entered the control room during their recording session, Crosby turned his back to the glass and stared at the wall. Clooney approached and asked what was the matter.

“Do you want a break? Do you want a sandwich?” she asked.

Crosby responded, “I want those people out of the control room, and then I want a sandwich.”

Well, however cranky Crosby was, we cannot tell by listening to this fun collection of travel-themed ditties. On this record, you’ll find what are arguably some of the catchiest arrangements of a few of the well-known songs that made their way to the charts in the 1940s and 1950s.

Clooney and Crosby deliver a rendition of “On A Slow Boat To China” that blows anything the Andrews Sisters ever did right out of the Pacific. The number begins on a hyper note, but as it advances to the first verse, the song becomes a delicate vocal dance. The occasional stereotypical musical theme meant to depict the Orient, which today wouldn’t be considered politically correct, is a bit unfortunate.

Other quality tracks include memorable (and beautiful) arrangements of…

“I Can’t Get Started” (I. Gershwin/Duke)
“Love Won’t Let You Get Away” (Cahn/Van Heusen) — 2 versions!
“How About You” (Freed/Lane)

The orchestra supporting Crosby and Clooney is headed by Billy May (not to be confused with now-deceased TV pitchman Billy Mayes of OxyClean).

The liner notes alone are a selling point for this record. Written by Bing Crosby, you’ll learn his thoughts on the music within the album, as well as his thoughts on American society at the time. Even if he might’ve been expressing his thoughts with his tongue in cheek, it sounds like he truly didn’t have high opinions of young people at the time, nor their ability to read.

It’s likely these liner notes are unavailable nowadays unless you find the original LP version of Fancy Meeting You Here in a Dig ‘n’ Save somewhere. And that is too bad. Nevertheless, you can find this album on iTunes, if you so desire, and that means you can probably find the CD on sites like Amazon and half.com, too.

So what are you waiting for?  It’s time to cha-cha-cha… in Monterey!