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Christmas Greetings (album)
''Christmas Greetings'' is a studio album of phonograph records by Bing Crosby released in 1949 featuring popular Christmas songs. Background Crosby had recorded Christmas songs for the first time in 1935 and he had a huge hit with " Silent Night" that year. In 1942, he recorded "White Christmas" with the John Scott Trotter Orchestra and the Ken Darby Singers for Decca Records in just 18 minutes on May 29, 1942, and it was released on July 30 as part of an album of six 78-rpm discs from the film ''Holiday Inn''. In 1943, he recorded three more songs with a holiday theme – " Jingle Bells", " Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town", and " I'll Be Home for Christmas". All of these songs were huge hits and the issue of a 78rpm set called ''Merry Christmas'' in 1945 firmly cemented Crosby’s association with the Christmas season. The ''Merry Christmas'' album has been available in one form or another ever since 1945 and in 1949 Decca decided to issue the ''Christmas Greetings'' album to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a leader in record sales, radio ratings, and motion picture grosses from 1926 to 1977. He made over 70 feature films and recorded more than 1,600 songs. His early career coincided with recording innovations that allowed him to develop an intimate singing style that influenced many male singers who followed, such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Dick Haymes, Elvis Presley, and John Lennon. ''Yank'' magazine said that he was "the person who had done the most for the morale of overseas servicemen" during World War II. In 1948, American polls declared him the "most admired man alive", ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. In 1948, ''Music Digest'' estimated that his recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billboard (magazine)
''Billboard'' (stylized as ''billboard'') is an American music and entertainment magazine published weekly by Penske Media Corporation. The magazine provides music charts, news, video, opinion, reviews, events, and style related to the music industry. Its music charts include the Hot 100, the 200, and the Global 200, tracking the most popular albums and songs in different genres of music. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm, and operates several TV shows. ''Billboard'' was founded in 1894 by William Donaldson and James Hennegan as a trade publication for bill posters. Donaldson later acquired Hennegan's interest in 1900 for $500. In the early years of the 20th century, it covered the entertainment industry, such as circuses, fairs, and burlesque shows, and also created a mail service for travelling entertainers. ''Billboard'' began focusing more on the music industry as the jukebox, phonograph, and radio became commonplace. Many topics it covered were spun-off ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vic Schoen
Victor Schoen (March 26, 1916 – January 5, 2000) was an American bandleader, arranger, and composer whose career spanned from the 1930s until his death in 2000. He furnished music for some of the most successful persons in show business including Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Les Brown, Woody Herman, Gene Krupa, George Shearing, Jimmie Lunceford, Ray McKinley, Benny Carter, Louis Prima, Russ Morgan, Guy Lombardo, Carmen Cavallaro, Carmen Miranda, Gordon Jenkins, Joe Venuti, Victor Young, Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, and his own The Vic Schoen Orchestra. Schoen arranged and recorded with well-known artists such as The Andrews Sisters, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Irving Berlin, Marion Hutton, Betty Hutton, Perry Como, Dick Haymes, Ella Fitzgerald, Al Jolson, Maurice Chevalier, Enzo Stuarti, Lauritz Melchior, Mary Martin, Bob Crosby, The Weavers, Burl Ives, Eddie Fisher, Mildred Bailey, Peggy Lee, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters were an American close harmony singing group of the Swing music, swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews (July 6, 1911 – May 8, 1967), soprano Maxene Anglyn Andrews (January 3, 1916 – October 21, 1995), and mezzo-soprano Patricia "Patty" Marie Andrews (February 16, 1918 – January 30, 2013). The sisters have sold an estimated 80 million records. Their 1941 hit "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" can be considered an early example of jump blues. Other songs closely associated with the Andrews Sisters include their first major hit, "Bei Mir Bistu Shein, Bei Mir Bist Du Schön (Means That You're Grand)" (1937), "Beer Barrel Polka (Roll Out the Barrel)" (1939), "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" (1940), "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me)" (1942), and "Rum and Coca Cola" (1945), which helped introduce American audiences to calypso music, calypso. The Andrews Sisters' harmonies and songs a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oakley Haldeman
Oakley W. Haldeman (July 17, 1909 – December 17, 1986) was an American songwriter ("Here Comes Santa Claus"), composer, author and the general manager for a music publisher. He joined ASCAP in 1949, and his other popular-song compositions include "Brush Those Tears from Your Eyes", "I Wish I Had Never Met Sunshine", "Tho' I Tried", "Pretty Mary", "Texas Polka", "Honey Child", "Vic'try Train", "Last Mile", and "Texans Never Cry". Haldeman was born in California, the son of Catherine (Oakley) and Clarence Edward Haldeman. He was the head of Gene Autry Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American singer, songwriter, actor, musician, rodeo performer, and baseball owner who gained fame largely by singing in a crooning s ...'s publishing company, and it was while he was in this position that Autry asked him to write the music for Autry's song ''Here Comes Santa Claus''. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Autry
Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American singer, songwriter, actor, musician, rodeo performer, and baseball owner who gained fame largely by singing in a crooning style on radio, in films, and on television for more than three decades beginning in the early 1930s. Autry was the owner of a television station, several radio stations in Southern California, and the Los Angeles/Anaheim/California Angels Major League Baseball team from 1961 to 1997. From 1934 to 1953, Autry appeared in 93 films, and between 1950 and 1956 hosted ''The Gene Autry Show'' television series. During the 1930s and 1940s, he personified the straight-shooting hero—honest, brave, and true. Autry was also one of the most important pioneering figures in the history of country music, considered the second major influential artist of the genre's development after Jimmie Rodgers. His singing cowboy films were the first vehicle to car ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angels We Have Heard On High
"Angels We Have Heard on High" is a Christmas carol to the hymn tune "Gloria" from a traditional French song of unknown origin called "", with paraphrased English lyrics by James Chadwick. The song's subject is the birth of Jesus Christ as narrated in the Gospel of Luke, specifically the scene outside Bethlehem in which shepherds encounter a multitude of angels singing and praising the newborn child. Tune "Angels We Have Heard on High" is generally sung to the hymn tune "Gloria", a traditional French carol as arranged by Edward Shippen Barnes. Its most memorable feature is its chorus, " Gloria in excelsis Deo", where the "o" of "Gloria" is fluidly sustained through 16 notes of a rising and falling melismatic melodic sequence. In England, the words of James Montgomery's "Angels from the Realms of Glory" are usually sung to this tune, with the "Gloria in excelsis Deo" refrain text replacing Montgomery's. It is from this usage that the tune sometimes is known as "Iris", the na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
We Three Kings
"We Three Kings", original title "Three Kings of Orient", also known as "We Three Kings of Orient Are" or "The Quest of the Magi", is a Christmas carol that was written by John Henry Hopkins Jr. in 1857. At the time of composing the carol, Hopkins served as the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and he wrote the carol for a Christmas pageant in New York City. It was the first widely popular Christmas carol written in America. Lyrics Composition \header \layout global = chordNames = \chordmode soprano = \relative c'' alto = \relative c' tenor = \relative c' bass = \relative c verse = \lyricmode verseR = \lyricmode chordsPart = \new ChordNames choirPart = \new ChoirStaff \score \score :Source John Henry Hopkins Jr. organized the carol in such a way that three male voices would each sing a solo verse in order to correspond with the three kings. The first and last verses of the carol are sung together by all three as "verses ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Good King Wenceslas
"Good King Wenceslas" is a Christmas carol that tells a story of a Bohemian king who goes on a journey, braving harsh winter weather, to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (December 26, the Second Day of Christmas). During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king's footprints, step for step, through the deep snow. The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (907–935). In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale translated the lyric from a Czech poem by Václav Alois Svoboda , in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore, and the carol first appeared in ''Carols for Christmas-Tide'', published by Novello & Co the same year. Neale's lyric was set to the melody of the 13th-century spring carol "Tempus adest floridum" ("Eastertime Is Come") first published in the 1582 Finnish song collection ''Piae Cantiones''. Source leg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I Saw Three Ships
"I Saw Three Ships (Come Sailing In)" is an English Christmas carol, listed as number 700 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The earliest printed version of "I Saw Three Ships" is from the 17th century, possibly Derbyshire, and was also published by William Sandys in 1833. The song was probably traditionally known as "As I Sat On a Sunny Bank", and was particularly popular in Cornwall. Lyrics The modern lyrics are from an 1833 version by the English lawyer and antiquarian William Sandys, and consist of nine verses. The lyrics mention the ships sailing into Bethlehem, but the nearest body of water is the Dead Sea about away. The reference to three ships is thought to originate in the three ships that bore the purported relics of the Biblical magi to Cologne Cathedral in the 12th century. Another possible reference is to Wenceslaus II, King of Bohemia, who bore a coat of arms "Azure three galleys argent". Another suggestion is that the ships are actually the camels used by the M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Away In A Manger
"Away in a Manger" is a Christmas carol first published in the late nineteenth century and used widely throughout the English-speaking world. In Britain, it is one of the most popular carols; a 1996 Gallup Poll ranked it joint second. Although it was long claimed to be the work of German religious reformer Martin Luther, the carol is now thought to be wholly American in origin. The two most common musical settings are by William J. Kirkpatrick (1895) and James Ramsey Murray (1887). Words The popularity of the carol has led to many variants in the words, which are discussed in detail below. The following are taken from Kirkpatrick (1895): Variants Almost every line in the carol has recorded variants. The most significant include the following: * Verse 1, line 1: The earliest sources have "no crib for his bed". "No crib for a bed" is found in Murray (1887). * Verse 1, line 2: The earliest sources have "lay down his sweet head." "Laid" is first found in "Little Children's Book ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deck The Halls
"Deck the Hall” is a traditional Christmas carol. The melody is Welsh, dating back to the sixteenth century, and belongs to a winter carol, "Nos Galan", while the English lyrics, written by the Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant, date to 1862. Lyrics The English-language lyrics were written by the Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant. They first appeared in 1862, in volume 2 of ''Welsh Melodies'', a set of four volumes authored by John Thomas, including Welsh words by John Jones (Talhaiarn) and English words by Oliphant. The original English lyrics, as published in 1862, run as follows (later variants are discussed below): The phrase " 'Tis the season", from the lyrics, has become synonymous with the Christmas and holiday season, 'tis being an archaic contraction of "it is". Variants A variation of the lyrics appears in the December 1877 issue of the ''Pennsylvania School Journal''. This version, in which there is no longer any reference to drinking, runs as follow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
