John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

The skin you love to touch

I try to catch The Age of Persuasion when I can, but I'll cop to this: I've been very, very happy since Terry O'Reilly & Co. launched the show as a podcast. Copyright issues, until now, complicated things.

The most recent episode involved women in advertising history, including the fascinating story of Mary Wells, a Sixties maverick whose story I'm predicting will become influential in the next season (if there is one) of Mad Men.

You can read more, and see more (as in examples of the commercials cited), in this blog posting.That ad above? Quite the groundbreaking for its day.

 

 

Sculpting a Peugot

This commercial is called The Sculptor, and was made in 2006 for Peugot. Very clever.

 

My musical advent calendar for 2009

I tried something new this month: a day-by-day list of some of my favourite Christmas songs and albums. It was far from a list to end all lists; I still have a batch of things that may get carried over to next year. It was fun to do, and evidently struck a (no pun intended) chord with a good few of you, with the Advent2009 label easily topping the

24. The Chieftains: The Bells of Dublin. Sparkling collaborations with a wonderfully cool bunch of singers, from Nanci Griffith to Marianne Faithfull to Elvis Costello and more. Crucial for a good house party.

23. The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl: Fairytale of New York. Profane, poignant, heartbreaking and soaring, all at once, this is my pick at the ultimate Christmas song. 

22. Chris Isaak: Christmas. A little retro, a little cool, a little hipster, a little sincere. And something for the whole family.

21. Greg Lake: I Believe in Father Christmas. How many songs are embraced by atheists and Christians alike? Lake's song about the inevitable sadness that comes with growing up has seen a recent revival, thanks to a U2 cover.

20. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin: It's a Marshmallow World. This live rendition from a Dean Martin Christmas special features a pair that may well have been sloshed, and shamelessly tearing their way through a kiddie tune. Click through on the above link for the video.

19. Band Aid: Do They Know It's Christmas? Bob Geldof wanted to raise attention and a modest chunk of change for victims of famine in Ethiopia. The 1984 single, for good and bad, changed how music and charities mix. The song still holds up.

18. Sackville All Star Christmas Record. A gem of a recording, with three (now long deceased) American jazz masters playing with Canadian Jim Galloway for a one-off Christmas recording for the small Toronto-based label Sackville. Christmas kicks into gear into our house when this album plays: it's that good.

17. Amber Christmas. Produced and led by Figgy Duff's Pamela Morgan, Amber Christmas is one of the finest recordings to come from Newfoundland, Christmas or otherwise. Look for the masterful recordings of two songs: the Cherry Tree Carol and The Holly and the Ivy. 

16. Joni Mitchell, River. Somehow, a song about a romantic breakup in Los Angeles has become a Christmas staple, albeit a melancholy one. Mitchell included River as part of the 1971 classic downer album Blue; it's since been recorded by many others, notably Linda Ronstadt, Sarah McLachlan and James Taylor. Click on the above link to see Corner Brook's Allison Crowe's rendition.

15. A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector. Out of print for a while, this 1963 album has been cleaned up and remastered, and proves why it landed (fairly high at that) on Rolling Stone's survey of the best 500 albums of all time. With Darlene Love and Spector's stable of groups, it set the template for Christmas pop and rock albums since ... whether or not the performers even knew it.

14. The Waitresses: Christmas Wrapping. Made quickly in 1981 (with dated lyrics, less), the post-punk outfit's single about a year's worth of romantic missteps topped by "a very happy ending" has become evergreen with age.

13. Rufus Wainwright: Spotlight on Christmas. A relatively recent song, but a clever comment on the spirit of Christmas, how all the gifts in the world won't make you happy, and unconditional love. And I lik the tale about "a mensch, a virgin and a god."

12. White Christmas. Bing Crosby turned the Irving Berlin song into the best-selling recording of all time, and a Christmas perennial, but I think I prefer the Drifters' take on it, thanks.

11. Eartha Kitt: Santa Baby. It seemed oddly fitting that Kitt died on a Christmas Day (in 2008), as her sultry voice - and kittenish sense of humour - makes this song a favourite every holiday.

10. Kate Bush: Home For Christmas. A B-side released in 1993, this short, sweet song was largely unavailable for years, until it turned up in an anthology. It's worth seeking out. (Time, though, is less kind to her bigger, earlier Christmas tune, December Will Be Magic Again.)

9. Great Big Sea: Seven Joys of Mary. From Newfoundland, a lively interpretation to a song that member Bob Hallett knew through family connections. A hearty singalong that ties into the religious side of the season.

8.Tony Bennett: My Favorite Things. Leave it to Tony Bennett to take a song from the Sound of Music and turn it into the coolest thing for the coldest season. 

7. Crash Test Dummies: The First Noel. An early single from the Winnipeg group, first produced for the snarkily-titled Lump of Coal compilation, this version features the blend of Brad Davis and Ellen Reid on vocals.

6. Aretha Franklin: Joy to the World. The Queen of Soul rocks a very old hymn. Wicked good. 

5. Leon Redbone: Christmas Island. A gem of an album, featuring the best-ever version of Frosty the Snowman, in a duet with Dr. John.

4. Louis Prima: Shake Hands With Santa Claus. Fun, saucy, sly and celebratory, all at once; a swinging Christmas song for the grown-ups. 

3. Sufjan Stevens: Songs For Christmas. A package of five discs, consisting of four EPs Stevens made for friends and family with a disc of specially recorded material.

2. Vince Guaraldi Trio: A Charlie Brown Christmas. For my generation, the Peanuts Christmas special is an essential part of our DNA. No other album makes our house feel quite so instantly Christmassy; it's only been as an adult that I picked up on the melancholic strands in Guaraldi's music. 

1. Ella Fitzgerald: Wishes You A Swinging Christmas. Recorded in 1960, the album features Ella Fitzgerald in her prime, and sparkling arrangements by Frank DeVol, particularly on the horns. Some bits sound dated, but most of it - like Fitzgerald's honey-smooth voice - is timeless.

Musical advent calendar: The Chieftains, The Bells of Dublin

The Chieftains made a whopper of a Christmas record in 1991, recruiting some distinct voices (who else would seek out alt-country pioneer Nanci Griffith and Elvis Costello and Marianne Faithfull ... and even Burgess Meredith) and compiling a setlist of seasonal music from well beyond their native Ireland. Credit The Bells of Dublin for introducing us to a modern classic, Jackson Browne's The Rebel Jesus, not to mention a respectful nod to ancient carols and hymns. The album is also the only recording I have that mentions the Wren Boy tradition, which is personally important as my dad was such a child growing up in Bacon Cove, Conception Bay, in the 1930s.

I like a lot on the album. Getting Marianne Faithfull to sing I Saw Three Ships A Sailing (as they title it here) was inspired, and the harp arrangement makes you realize what the world lost some years ago in the death of Derek Bell. Elvis Costello and St. Stephen's Day Murders is glum subject matter, maybe, but a compelling song.

Here are a couple of other songs. First, Rickie Lee Jones singing O Holy Night, which steers clear of the operatic stylings often associated with the powerhouse song; instead, this version is all about being vulnerable:

Here's Jackson Browne's Rebel Jesus, which ages well.

This is the last instalment in a musical advent calendar I worked on through December. It's been fun, and I think I'll try it again next year. I'll post the full list in a couple of days.

Musical advent calendar: Fairytale of New York

In the interest of a green Christmas, I'm recycling, almost entirely, a post from 2008, in which I suggested Fairytale of New York is the ultimate Christmas song. An odd choice, but I stick by it; read on to find out why. And it's today's entry in my musical advent calendar, in which I've been picking some of my favourite songs and albums. It winds up tomorrow. Here's the original post:

Fairytale of New York is - hard to believe - more than two decades old. The 1987 collaboration between the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl has come a Christmas classic, in spite of itself. It's dark, serious material (the famous opening lines of the lyrics, after all, are "It was Christmas Eve babe/ In the drunk tank"), yet I'd put it up as an ultimate Christmas song: it's full of emotion, and isn't Christmas sometimes also about wistful thoughts of ruined, piercing self-reflection as anything else? 

I'm not alone. In 2004, the song topped a British poll of favourite Christmas songs. The Wikipedia entry notes that the song has come out on top on other surveys, and has been identified as a Christmas favourite of everyone from Cliff Richard (!) to Ricky Gervais.

The song has been re-released in recent years, largely to draw attention to MacColl's family's campaign to investigate her 2000 death in Mexico.

I think the song has become evergreen because it's kind of timeless; it's clearly set in the past (the reference to Sinatra has sparked at least two debates I've been privy to, pertaining to the era in which the song is set), but that doesn't really matter too much.

Here's an excerpt from a piece Alan Connor wrote for the BBC Magazine in 2007, on the history of the song:

The songs of the Pogues are populated by incorrigible rakes and ne'er-do-wells with bad language and worse behaviour who are more celebrated than condemned. In a smaller way, when Christmas gets a little intense, there may be a comfort in hearing Fairytale Of New York and thinking: at least everyone else is rowing as well.

The video, which features Matt Dillon in a cameo in its opening moments, is a gem. Here it is. 

Musical advent calendar: Chris Isaak's Christmas

There are some other recent Christmas albums that are better (Diana Krall's Christmas Songs, Aimee Mann's One More Drifter in the Snow), but I picked Chris Isaak's album, named just Christmas, as today's pick for the musical advent calendar I've been putting together this month.

Maybe it's because Martha and I saw Isaak and his longtime band perform here in St. John's last year; the man not only has a great voice, but has charm coming out of his pores. I bought Christmas last season, and it's been on a lot lately. Like a lot of Isaak's music, it covers the bases: a little edgy, a little retro, a little rock and roll, a bit of kitsch and humour tossed into the blender. A few of those elements come through in his rendition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which he performed in the clip below on the Leno-era Tonight Show, when the album came out in 2005:

 

Musical advent calendar: I Believe in Father Christmas

Not too many songs of the season are embraced by atheists and Christians alike, are denounced by born-again Christians, have been described as both cynical and optimistic, have been played annually for almost 35 years, and have been given a new life from the biggest band on the planet.

Amid it all, its creator and singer says the song is what it is, and that the title is true.

That is, Greg Lake, who released I Believe in Father Christmas in 1975 as his one and only solo hit during a hiatus from Emerson Lake and Palmer, insists to this day that he does, indeed, believe in Father Christmas. (Or Santa, as we say over here.)

I Believe in Father Christmas has engendered a lot of controversy. The tune's lyrics reference the shift in perspective from a child to an adult; what seems to set some people off is whether Lake is denouncing Christianity, Christmas, the spirit of the season or all of the above. To get a sense of the debate, just look at the comments on this page alone. Perhaps the nub comes down to how you interpret these words, written by Lake and longtime collaborator Pete Sinfield: "And they told me a fairy story/
Till I believed in the Israelite." Is Lake saying that the Christian story is an extension of the stories parents tell children (he uses the word "sold" in the previous couplet), or is he saying that he was told fairy stories until he came to understand greater matters of faith? 

Lake may not have the greatest amount of time for organized religion, but I have come across several interviews where is clear on his love and admiration for the values that Christmas represents, while dealing with that inevitable sadness that adolescents feel when they learn the fantasies and wonders of childhood are not quite true. In other words, he's standing by the title. Click here to see a page on his site which includes streaming interviews on just that. As well, here's a video of an interview with Lake and Sinfield on the song and how it came to be.

I do have a problem with the lyrics, primarily the last words. "Hallelujah, Noel, be it heaven or hell/
The Christmas you get, you deserve." (A lot rests on that comma.) I have an affinity for karmic justice, and I do believe that bad deeds eventually do go punished, but I don't agree that all people get the Christmas they deserve ... especially children who are caught in terrible family circumstances beyond their control.

What I think Lake was getting at, though, was a literal world view, which seems to be the case in the video, which Lake chose to shoot in Israel. To accompany the orchestral bombast of the final bars (which accompany words that I believe are sincere and hopeful), Lake's video includes bombings and napalm attacks in Vietnam. Karmic, indeed, but let's remember that 1972 Christmas bombings in Cambodia were still a strong memory.

Here's the video:

I Believe in Father Christmas went to No. 2 in the UK. Interestingly, the song that stopped it from getting to the top was another that experimented with the then-novel video format: Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. The song was not at all a hit in North America, where Father Christmas is a meaningless phrase for many people. That hasn't stopped it from getting airplay, although it's really difficult to get Lake's original copy. A redo, with much less orchestration, was released later through ELP itself. (The melody still, of course, was based on Sergei Prokofiev's Troika, from the Lieutenant Kijé suite.)

A new spotlight came last year, when U2 covered the song as a fundraiser for Project Red, to combat AIDS in Africa. 

This is the 21st of 24 instalments in a musical advent calendar I'm writing this year, on songs, albums and music of the Christmas season.

Musical advent calendar: Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, It's A Marshmallow World

I spent many years not being particularly fond of It's A Marshmallow World, which struck me as kind of sappy and, well, silly. Maybe it's a function of getting older, and having a kid, but the song gets more charming with the years.

This version, with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin from a Sixties Christmas special, appeals to me, largely because it reminds me of what TV specials were like when I was growing up: hokey, canned laughter, and what my dad would call fakey-fakey. Yet, it makes me laugh. The song appeared on the Christmas with the Rat Pack compilation that was produced seven years ago, to tie in with the resurgence of all things Frank that came with the Ocean's 11 franchise.

Musical advent calendar: Band Aid, Do They Know It's Christmas?

A few people I know really loathe this song. Or, I suspect, they loathe what they believe it's come to symbolize: rock stars earning brownie points through charitable singles. They have a point on that score, but on its own, Do They Know It's Christmas? still works, 25 years after its release, and long after the Ethiopian drought and famine of 84-85. 

The video for the original recording is below; I agree with my friend Joan, who at the time noted that what she loved about the video was that it looked like they were hauling strangers in off the street. Never mind the fact that protagonist Bob Geldof and his collaborator Midge Ure (who cut the backing tracks the day before the voices were all recorded) recruited the top shelf of the English pop scene of the time, as well as a chorus of lesser-knowns who chipped in for the chorus.

Do They Know It's Christmas? happens to be a favourite of our son. He responded to it early on, when he was two or three and in the backseat of the car, and around this time of the year would call for the song he knew as Feed the World. (Are there many other songs that can be boiled down to such a powerful imperative?)

There have been subsequent remakes. A 1989 redo by the shallow production team of Stock Aitken Waterman can be safely forgotten. Geldof himself participated in the Band Aid 20 production five years ago; it's not bad, but the first one is much more powerful. I've seen grown men tear up over it, even years after its release. (The Band Aid 20 video is worth watching, if only to see Birhan Woldu, whose image as an emaciated, near-death child shocked the world, appear before the singers as a healthy, fully grown adult who remains active in the issues that Band Aid sought to publicize.) 

There's a new version this year, produced by the Canadian band F***d Up (aka, the band whose name can be said aloud on CBC Radio 3, but not on 1 or 2). They recruited alt-scene luminaries, like Tegan and Sara, Bob Mould and Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, to sing the parts. It's a fun version, and all of the proceeds are going towards three Canadian groups that are fighting violence against women. You can buy it from iTunes for 99 cents right here, and stream it here.

Here's the video for the original. A trivia note: the opening lines, sung on the record by Paul Young, were meant to be handled by David Bowie, who coudn't get to the studio in time (he's heard with a spoken passage on the 12" single version). Bowie, though, opened the song during its rendition at the close of the Wembley leg of Live Aid.

Musical advent calendar: Sackville All Star Christmas Record

If there's one Christmas record I've encouraged people to buy, this would be it. In our house, for more than 20 years, this has been the album that has most defined the season. A few notes of this, and I'm fine. (A good drink doesn't hurt, either.)

The Sackville All Star Christmas Record was released by Toronto's Sackville Recordings, and features some jazz luminaries having a ball with some Chriistmas standards. Canadian Jim Galloway, who plays soprano sax, was joined by three Americans, including legendary bass player Milt Hinton. The album was recorded over two days in March 1986; I'm not sure when we first learned about it, but I remember how: the late Clyde Gilmour talked about it ecstatically on his show. I ordered a copy - one of the first CDs I ever bought, I'm sure - and have pulled it out every Christmas since.

The musicianship is exemplary, which makes sense given that most of the players had had four decades or more under their belt. A reunion, alas, will never happen; Hinton died in 2000 (Saturday actually makes the anniversary of his passing), while pianist Ralph Sutton and frequent collaborator drummer Gus Johnson have also died. Galloway, who was a few decades junior to the seasoned sidemen who played with him, is still active.

You can still find the album, and indeed can buy it or download it here from Amazon. If you heard CBC Radio's adaptation a few years back of Kevin Major's House of Wooden Santas, you may already know the wonderful music all came from this album. I'd recommend the whole thing, but if I had to pick a couple of favourites, I'd go with At The Christmas Ball and Good King Wenceslas.

Thanks, Clyde Gilmour, wherever you are.

This is the 18th instalment of a musical advent calendar I'm working on this month. Come back tomorrow for a whole new item!

Musical advent calendar: Amber Christmas

There's a sizable amount of Christmas-themed music from Newfoundland and Labrador, but Amber Christmas shines brightest of the bunch. I've been recommending it to friends since it came out in 1997; the above cover art is from the original pressing, and new editions have featured the blue, more religious cover featured here.

Pamela Morgan of Figgy Duff produced the record, recruiting collaborator Anita Best, some terrific musicians and singers (including a pre-Rasa Erin Best), and a sprinkling of kids who, among other things, make some of the songs sound like a great Christmas party. The album, named after Morgan's Amber Music Ltd., is far from informal and ragtag, though, and features top-shelf arrangements and musicianship. (And some wit: the credits include "various wenches, rogues, beggars, minstrels, fakirs and thieves.")

It also includes the best versions (for me, anyway) of two Christmas songs: The Cherry Tree Carol and The Holly and the Ivy. Until this album came out, I found the Cherry Tree Carol a bit cloying, mainly because it seemed to be done by high-pitched singers. Morgan's version is completely different, and makes the story - about Joseph's petulance and (understandable, really) mixed emotions over his wife's pregnancy - compelling. Dave Panting's mandolin is wonderful. Anita Best sings The Holly and the Ivy with gusto, livening up the Christmas carol most closely tied to the pagan roots of the season.

I still see Amber Christmas in local stores like Fred's, and it appears to be still available from Morgan's own site. For online shoppers, the album is not, unfortunately, on Amazon or Chapter's. If you don't have a copy, find a way of buying one. 

This is the 17th entry in a musical advent calendar I've been putting together this month. Click on the link to see the rest.

Musical advent calendar: Joni Mitchell's River

River is just one song of several classics on Joni Mitchell's 1971 masterpiece, Blue; somehow, it's transcended all of them because it gets played so much each year in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Which is interesting, because the song - about someone dealing with a broken heart and the guilt of breaking someone else's, not to mention coping with career anxieties and feeling alienated in California - is far from the warm and fuzzy stuff people love at this time of the year. 

All the same, people love River; the idea of wishing for "a river I could skate away on," and one "so long
I would teach my feet to fly." 

Like almost everything on Blue, it's an intensely personal song; just listen to the audio below, of a concert performance Mitchell gave in England, when River was still a fresh song. It's visceral. Even so, many other singers (how many? check out the long list on the Wikipedia entry) have covered it over the years, pretty much cementing its standing as a staple song at Christmas ... even when the subject cannot connect to "the songs of joy and peace" in the air. One of the inspired bits is giving a few bars from Jingle Bells a downbeat tone.

As mentioned, there are plenty of covers of River. I've long admired Linda Ronstadt's version; as per usual, Ronstadt has a way of making the song that much more poignant. Here's another cover with a little local flavour, from Corner Brook resident Allison Crowe.

This is the 16th instalment in a musical advent calendar I've been working on this month. To see the preceding 15, click on the link; check back every day through Christmas Eve for the rest.

Musical advent calendar: A Christmas Gift For You

Let's deal with the elephant in the room: the full title of the album, as you can see above, is A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector. For some reason, likely Spector's then-pending murder trial, this record had been pulled from the marketplace, and was becoming a bit of a collector's item.

In October, though, Sony reissued the album, warts and all in the title, and we're all better for it. Regardless of the murderer that Spector became, this record is rightly regarded as not only one of the best Christmas recordings ever, but one of the best pop albums ever, period. (It ranked relatively highly on Rolling Stone's 2003 survey of the 500 best albums of all time.) The reissue is great, and features a booklet that puts the importance of the album in context.

Released in 1963 (and with a slightly different title, ... From Philles Records), A Christmas Gift For You is stacked with recordings that at least a couple of generations know by heart, whether or not they know they all came together in Los Angeles in a summer recording session. First, there's Darlene Love's orginal, unbeatable recording of Christmas (Baby Please Come), which was written by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, with an assist from Spector. On top of that, iconic Wall of Sound recordings of Santa Claus is Coming to Town (the Crystals), Frosty the Snowman (the Ronettes) and White Christmas (Love again), plus many others. These versions, anchored by arrangements by Jack Nitzsche, have essentially been recreated again and again by various other singers; even Bruce Springsteen lifted the Crystals for his own wonderful version of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. You could look at it another way: I bet every Santa Claus parade since the Sixties has had a dance school marching to a tune put down first on this record. (A trivia note: Sonny Bono is one of the musicians playing layers of percussion on the album.) 

If you're a David Letterman fan, you probably know he closes his broadcast year with a Christmas episode, featuring Darlene Love singing Christmas (Baby Please Come Home). Love is booked to perform on the show this Dec. 23; here's a performance from four years ago.

Largely because of her performances on the album, Love has developed a further niche as a Christmas singer over the years, recording the under-heard All Alone on Christmas for the Home Alone sequel (with no less than the E Street Band backing her up). More recently, former Saturday Night Live animator Robert Smigel recruited Love to sing lead for his Spector spoof/tribute Christmas Time For the Jews, which combined the Wall of Sound with another Sixties entertainment staple, claymation, albeit with a tone that only Smigel could pull off.

I snapped up a copy of A Christmas Gift For You when it appeared. I heartily recommend it.

This is the 15th instalment in a musical advent calendar I'm putting together this month. Check back every day for something new.

Musical advent calendar: The Waitresses, Christmas Wrapping

The Waitresses had one of the best-ever record titles (I Could Rule The World If I Could Only Get The Parts, for the EP that gave us today's tune, and their retro-aware album Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful wasn't shabby, either) and an indelible single of the new wave era in I Know What Boys Like, and picked up some cred for doing the theme for the funny, smart TV sitcom Square Pegs. But the Ohio band, which flourished briefly in the early 1980s, has currency to this day because of a Christmas song. 

Christmas Wrapping is one of those songs that stays funny no matter how many times you hear it. And though it's from the era of skinny ties, sneakers and fedoras (I know of which I speak), it doesn't feel dated at all, even though it is one of the rare Christmas records to precisely date itself ("most of '81 passed along those lines"). It's a tale of cynical moderns finding love and the Christmas spirit, in a supermarket, no less. 

While Christmas Wrapping has endured, the band itself has not. Indeed, I remember how sad I felt when I read that singer Linda Donahue (that's her on the bottom right, next to bassist Tracy Wormworth) died of lung cancer in 1996. She was only 40. 

The song has become a staple, providing an annual bit of income for former Waitresses leader Chris Butler (read his blog here), who wrote the song fairly quickly. Click here to read the story behind the song. 

While it would be fun to see the band do the song, you can at least hear it in this video, accompanied by a choreographed lighting show.

This is the 14th entry in a musical advent calendar I've been working on this Christmas season. Another 10 days to go, so check back daily. 

Musical advent calendar: Rufus Wainwright, Spotlight on Christmas

Some years ago, one of my friends commented that he figured Christmas albums would eventually peter out, because "all the good songs have already been written," with the implication that future records would basically just be retreads of the same canon of several dozen songs. It does indeed feel that way sometimes, but new songs do pop up, and sometimes they astound you.

Rufus Wainwright's Spotlight on Christmas is a good example. It's a song with universal themes (money doesn't buy happiness, etc.) but with a call to set aside differences during Christmas - all 12 days, thanks very much.  The lyrics are a prize, like this set:

Don't forget Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Running from the law King Herod had imposeth
And they were each one quite odd:
A mensch, a virgin, and a God

The next lines spell out the song's real meaning: the unconditional love families (and everyone) need to survive.

The song has already been anthologized a few times, although a great place to buy it is on the McGarrigle Christmas Hour, a holiday album from 2005 produced by his mother and aunt, Kate and Anna McGarrigle. The family has been doing annual Christmas extravaganzas, this year in London at the Royal Albert Hall. 

Below is a video of Wainwright performing it solo on U.S. television a few years ago.

This is the 13th entry in a musical advent calendar I'm compiling this year. Click on the link to read the rest, and check back each day through Christmas Eve.

Musical advent calendar: White Christmas

What do you say about a song that was an absolute classic for years and years ... and then was given a whole new life because of a kid putting on after shave? Well, quite a bit: White Christmas is not only consistently ranked highly among people's most favourite Christmas songs, it's been recognized as one of the best popular songs ever written, period. Bing Crosby's original, Academy Award-winning version of the Irving Berlin tune (that's the two of them, in a Wall Street Journal illustration published this month) remains the best-selling record of all time.

I have 26 versions of White Christmas in my laptop's iTunes library, and those are just the ones I've burned; there are doubtless others in the stack of Christmas records I've accumulated over the years. The versions range from Darlene Love's soul waltz of the early Sixties to Dean Martin's croon to Esquivel's batchelor-pad-ready martini mix to Aimee Mann's dirge to ... well, the list goes on.

But the version I like best is from the Drifters, and is one of their earliest and best singles, with doo-wop harmonies, a bass part that everyone wants to imitate, and Clyde McPhatter soaring above everything. The song got a whole new lease in life in 1990's Home Alone, thanks to the famous aftershave scene, in which Macaulay Culkin sings along to the song while using his dad's grooming products, resulting in the iconic hands-on-cheeks scream. 

A while back, this animated version of the Drifters' version showed up on online. Still makes me laugh; my thanks to Russell Bowers for reminding me of it this week.

Musical advent calendar: Eartha Kitt's Santa Baby

Eartha Kitt died on Christmas Day in 2008, but even without that coincidence, her name has long been associated with the Christmas season because of Santa Baby. She was the first to record the song, in 1953, although a second version, recorded a decade later, is also in circulation. Plenty of other people (including Madonna, whose 1987 arrangement is lifted right from Kitt) have had a crack at the sarcasm-drenched song, but no one has come close. How could they? When it comes to sables being slipped under the tree, and the rest of the parade of luxury goods, Kitt had just the right blend of timing and tone. [The video below is titled New Faces of 52, a misnomer involving a stage revue Kitt appeared in.]

Kitt recorded another Christmas song I like to play around this time of year: a grown-up version of the 50s novelty tune Nuttin' For Christmas, in which "poor little Eartha is sad" because she "didn't want to be bad."

This is the 11th part of a musical advent calendar I'm putting together this season, of Christmas songs and albums I happen to like. Working backwards, the previous selections were Kate Bush's Home For Christmas; Great Big Sea's Seven Joys of Mary; Tony Bennett's version of My Favorite Things; the Crash Test Dummies' The FIrst Noel; Joy to the World, with  a special nod to Aretha Franklin; Leon Redbone's album Christmas Island; Louis Prima's raucous Shake Hands With Santa Claus; indie genius Sufjan Stevens's multi-disc Songs For Christmas; the Vince Guaraldio Trio's evergreen soundtrack for a A Charlie Brown Christmas; and, starting the list, Ella Fitzgerald's timeless 1960 album Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas.

Musical advent calendar: Kate Bush, Home for Christmas

Kate Bush has released one great song about Christmas, but unfortunately not as a properly launched single. She did, many years earlier, release a proper Christmas single, but it, well, is a bit of an acquired taste, which is par for the course with the British singer, who has done things her way throughout her career (including taking a dozen years - 12! - to make her last record).

The good song is Home For Christmas, which was released in 1993 ... as a B-side, to the single Moments of Pleasure. Most people were not able to get the song commercially until the 2005 compilation Plugged In For the Holidays. (Interestingly, a cover version, by Diamond Jim Greene, was included, at almost twice the length, too, on the 1998 tribute album, I Wanna Be Kate.) 

I love the song. It's short, charming, like a strummed gem perfect for late on a pre-Christmas night. I have a different reaction to Bush's one and only official Christmas-oriented single, December Will Be Magic Again, which was released in time for Christmas 1980, but was recorded a year earlier, as she set out to make songs like Babooshka and Army Dreamers. The song has that feeling, and the video below doesn't help it.

Here's the video (well, actually, it's just the audio) for Home For Christmas:

Almost for fun, here's the video from a much earlier, loopier time, and December Will Be Magic Again:

This is the 10th posting in a musical advent calendar I'm compiling this year, consisting of songs and albums I'd recommend. I'll have another one tomorrow, and each day through Christmas Eve.

Musical advent calendar: Great Big Sea's Seven Joys of Mary

One of the better-known Christmas tunes from Newfoundland and Labrador is Great Big Sea's rendition of The Seven Joys of Mary. I wasn't aware of the song until the boys recorded it 15 years ago,when they were still a quartet, but have noticed it in various settings in the years since. It's often sung gently and quietly ... which of course makes the GBS version, which has a rollicking instrumental break, pretty different. (You can find another version by Kate and Anna McGarrigle, as well as a classical setting by St. John's-raised soprano Meredith Hall, performing with La Nef, among other renditions.)

I wrote to Bob Hallett, Great Big Sea's wizard of many instruments, to learn more about how they came to record the song. It was to be their contribution to Atlantic Standards Christmas, a compilation album first released in the fall of 1994.Their version appears on at least two other Canadian Christmas compilations.

"The arrangement was something we came up with ourselves," Bob wrote back. "We did not have a traditional version as such, but I knew that the song was sung by traditional carolers [in] Green's Harbour, TB, from family sources. I dug around and found lyrics in an old carol book which came from England. We adapted the lyrics to a more local dialect."

Bob says the band pulls the song out occasionally, usually for shows at Christmas. The video below shows an almost a cappella version, accompanied only by bodhran, from a program hosted by Wayne Rostad.

This is the ninth entry in a musical advent calendar I'm writing this year, leading up to Christmas Eve. Check back every day for something new.

Musical advent calendar: Tony Bennett, My Favorite Things

My Favorite Things (I'm sticking with the spelling of the song as published, forsaking my inclination to stick a U in there) is of course from The Sound of Music; somewhere along the line, the Rodgers and Hammerstein tune became part of the Christmas canon. (Admittedly, the lyrics do reference things like snowflakes and mittens.) I think a big factor in that transformation was Tony Bennett, who recorded a jazzy, brassy version of the song in his 1968 Christmas album Snowfall. (The album was re-issued in 1994, with the above cover art and an extra tune.)

I have an enormous amount of time for Tony Bennett, and am always impressed with his phrasing, his respect for his musicians, his ability to reinvent a song, and especially how he carries himself. He has a wonderful sense of humour and modesty; those elements came through in his appearance on Elvis Costello's Spectacle.

Here's one of Bennett's performances of My Favorite Things:

This is the eighth part of a musical advent calendar I'm putting together this season, of Christmas songs and albums that are really worth listening to. Working backwards, the previous selections were the Crash Test Dummies' The FIrst Noel; Joy to the World, with  a special nod to Aretha Franklin; Leon Redbone's album Christmas Island; Louis Prima's raucous Shake Hands With Santa Claus; indie genius Sufjan Stevens's multi-disc Songs For Christmas; the Vince Guaraldio Trio's evergreen soundtrack for a A Charlie Brown Christmas; and, starting the list, Ella Fitzgerald's timeless 1960 album Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas.

Musical advent calendar: Crash Test Dummies, The First Noel

What happens when a hipster band makes an unabashedly straight-up Christmas classic? That's pretty much the tale of Crash Test Dummies and their splendid version of The First Noel, which they cut for a 1991 compilation record called A Lump of Coal. That kind of title suggested winking and irony, and the video for the cut below shows an appreciation of cheese. (Ellen Reid's smile at the start of the song says it all, but then just listen a little while later to her harmony vocal, which gives a lump in the throat, and not of coal.) The key to the track, of course, is Brad Davis's deep, rich voice.

You can also find the track on the Dummies' own 2002 Christmas record, Jingle All The Way (the cover is above), which is a bit of a mixed bag. It's packed with cheeky wit, but - again - the band confounds you with two cuts that are as unironic as can be: Reid singing lead on both In The Bleak Midwinter and O Little Town of Bethlehem, which is rendered with an alt-country kind of vibe.

Here's the video:

This is the seventh entry in a musical sort of advent calendar I'm writing this year. Check in every day until Christmas Eve for more.

Musical advent calendar: Joy to the World

Which Christmas hymn is the most popular? In North America, at least, it's Joy to the World, which dates back to the mid-18th century, and has been republished hundreds and hundreds of times. (It's also the sixth pick in my musical advent calendar; click on the link to see other albums and songs I've picked for the season.) Not surprisingly, it's been adapted every which way: in my iTunes library, which I'm skipping through right now, I have the languid take that Aaron Neville recorded five years ago with the Blind Boys of Alabama for the latter's Christmas album. There's a bluegrass version by Darrin Vincent, the full-battle treatment from both the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the St. Paul's Cathedral Choir, and a 45-second treat from Bruce Cockburn's guita. Also instrumentally, and from my own home base here in St. John's, I recommend Gordon Quinton's guitar version (from From A Christmas Guitar) and Dave Panting's (from Mandolin Christmas). 

But the standout in our house has been Aretha Franklin's version, which has this way of grabbing your attention and not letting go. It was recorded about 15 years ago and has been variously anthologized since, including on this import. (A consumer warning: you won't find it on This Christmas, a boring CD Franklin released in 2008, and which can be safely skipped.) Franklin "sang" Joy to the World at the Rockefeller Centre Christmas tree lighting just last week, as long as you define "sang" as "lip-synched." In any event, it's a wicked performance, with Franklin rocking - no exaggeration - a very old hymn.

Musical advent calendar: Leon Redbone's Christmas Island

I tip my hat to this day to my friend Ted Blades for pointing me toward Leon Redbone's Christmas Island, which somehow escaped me when it was released in 1987. More than a decade later, I caught up, and it's been a Christmas staple since.

Christmas Island - the fifth entry in a musical advent calendar I'm compiling this year, with a list of great Christmas music - is a treat because so it sounds so relaxed and happy; you can imagine Redbone, who brings in his trademark retro arrangements from the ragtime and Tin Pan Alley eras, and his friends having a hoot as the tape rolled.

The highlight: a rollicking two-minute duet with Dr. John on Frosty the Snowman, which ends with Redbone doing a little yodel. When my son was younger, we played the song over and over, just so he could howl along. As Redbone has spent much of his career raking over standards, it's not a surprise that most of his choices here are pretty traditional, but have that raspy flavour of his voice: there's the strum of Let It Snow, a sincere croon on White Christmas (take that, Bing Crosby), and a sprightly take on Winter Wonderland.

Here's that video of Redbone's duet with Dr. John, on my favourite version of Frosty the Snowman. It always makes me smile.

Musical advent calendar: Louis Prima

A lot of the Christmas music I have is pretty sombre. I realized that a few years back when I was sifting through the songs I wanted to put on the annual CD I knock off for the family, and realized there wasn't much there to really get the blood pumping.

The best exception to the rule is this: Louis Prima's terrific Shake Hands with Santa Claus, which is fun, saucy, sly and celebratory, all at once ... not to mention about the lengths that people will go to, just to make someone happy at Christmas.

This is the fourth entry in a musical kind of advent calendar I'm putting together, through Christmas Eve. Check in daily for a new item on a Christmas album or song that's really worth listening to.

Musical advent calendar: Sufjan Stevens, Songs for Christmas

This is the third instalment in a musical take on an advent calendar. Each day through Christmas eve, I'll be picking an album or song I like. You can follow the thread here.

It's not often that a Christmas album seems audacious, but that's how I recall reacting when I bought Sufjan Stevens' Songs for Christmas three years ago. It comes in a box, and consists of five separate CDs, each in its own sleeve. The project began as an EP that Stevens recorded for his friends in 2001; he made three others that way, before recording the fifth to serve as the complement for the commercially released album.

What an eclectic mix to be found on the album (all of which, incidentally, can be streamed for free on Stevens's website until Christmas). As usual, Stevens goes for the unusual with his arrangements, using a wide mix of instruments, including banjos, vibraphones, horns, whistles and pianos. Some of the songs have an improvised feel - he recorded most of them quickly, sometimes with friends and colalborators - while others are polished. There's also a blend of the sacred and the secular, which might have caught some alt-rock fans a bit off guard. Stevens is dead sincere with song choices that are more often found with choirs. The results, though, can be amazing: an instrumental, keyboard-driven version of Once in Royal David's City is hypnotically lovely, even for just two minutes of music. (There's a more conventional and sung version of the tune on another disc.)

Stevens also shows a sense of humour. Just the title of Get Behind Me, Santa is enough for a smile. A favourite in our house is the peculiarly titled Come On! Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!, which can be heard below, via a (very literal) slideshow a fan created. It's a song written from a child's perspective - the real kind, not necessarily the idealized version adults often craft.