I have a Christmas stocking from the central Texas area that needs a home.
You have a favorite holiday song to share with my bad self.
Why a holiday song, you ask? Y’all…
I’m a music whore. I admit it. I had to buy a separate hard drive just for iTunes music. No, really. I have 455 Christmas songs and I’m always looking for that new favorite arrangement.
Now, I can tell you that Mahalia Jackson’s version of Go Tell It on the Mountain is my eternal favorite. My mom had this album when I was little (yes, kiddies, once upon a time, people had these magical machines called record players and they played these circles called record albums. They were a little twitchy and, in my recollection, if you made your daddy have to replace the needle, you weren’t allowed to put the records on yourself. Also, playing Angry Gorilla next to the record player was bad.) At any rate, this album was a double and the cover opened to a pop up Christmas scene complete with baby Jesus and gigantic dangling star hanging over hippie Mary. I loved it.
Loved it.
It had Andy Williams and Steve and Edie. Bing Crosby. But for me, it was Mahalia Jackson. That voice meant Christmas.
Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t love the newer stuff. Merry Christmas from the Family by Robert Earl Keen, Oklahoma Christmas by Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison. Please Come Home for Christmas by the Eagles. This year it’s the Baby It’s Cold Outside arrangement from Glee.
So, tell me your favorite. I want to know, and I might need to hear it.
I’ll let Julia pick a random number to win ye olde Christmas sock.
Texan to the bone and an unrepentant Daddy's Girl, BA Tortuga spends her days with her basset hounds and her beloved wife, texting her sisters, and eating Mexican food. When she's not doing that, she's writing. She spends her days off watching rodeo, knitting and surfing Pinterest in the name of research. BA's personal saviors include her wife, Julia Talbot, her best friend, Sean Michael, and coffee. Lots of coffee. Really good coffee.
5 comments:
I have to tell you that Mahalia Jackson's version of "Go Tell It on the Mountain" is second only to Jim Nabor's (yes, Gomer Pyle); however it is not available on ITunes. Some of my favorites (I too can't have enough Christmas music) are: "I Need a Little Christmas" from Auntie Mame sung by Angela Lansbury, "Believe" by Josh Groban, "Christmas Wrapping" by the Waitresses, "A Soldier's Story" by Kenny Rogers and "The Bells of St. Mary's" by Andy Williams. I could go on and on, but that should give you just a few.
K
Being the reformed Scrooge that I am, as a kid, I HATED Christmas, Christmas music, trees and everything else.
However, when the Bill Murray movie Scrooged came out, I thought, well, I will watch it and not bitch....and then, at the end, when they sing "Put a Little Love in Your Heart"...my life literally smacked me in the head and I bawled like a baby as I listened to the lyrics....Annie Lennox and Al Green? Perfection! Even the original Jackie DeShannon version rocks my soul! The only other song that I can say even remotely got me in the Christmas spirit? Is entirely ridiculous but totally true: The Coca-Cola commercial where all the kids stand on the hilldside and sing "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing"...they always used to show it during the Holidays when I was a kid, and I wanted to sing it with them! Now I am sniffling and off to youtube to get a little happy :)
I love Glenn Miller christmas music, the recent Glee version of Baby It's Cold Outside I thought was fantastic and who could forget the hilarious Bob Rivers 12 Pains of Christmas
For me it's O Holy Night by John Denver and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Judy Garland. We had John Denver's Rocky Mountian Christmas album on vinyl (yeah, I remember those too) and the first listen of the seasonbwould come as we were decorating the tree. And Meet Me in St. Louis is a Christmas MUST for me - Judy makes me bawl my eyes out every time. :)
How cute, BA! I still love the Williams Brothers and Andrews Sisters' Christmas albums from when we had them on vinyl! And more recently friends have turned onto the Glee Christmas set--very fun, including their version of Santa, Baby ;)
Hope you find some new favorites for your play list!
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