|
The 20 Greatest Christmas Songs
''The 20 Greatest Christmas Songs'' is a compilation/remix album by Boney M. In 1986 producer Frank Farian took the master tapes from 1981's ''Christmas Album'', added six recordings by Liz Mitchell, Reggie Tsiboe and two session singers from 1984, remixed them and created ''Die 20 schönsten Weihnachtslieder der Welt'', internationally released as ''The 20 Greatest Christmas Songs''. The 1986 version of the Boney M. Christmas album has since been re-issued as ''The Most Beautiful Christmas Songs of the World'' (1992), ''A Wonderful Christmas Time'' (1998) and ''Christmas Party'' (1998 and 2003). Track listing Side A #"Christmas Medley (" Silent Night, Holy Night" / "Snow Falls Over the Ground" / "Hear Ye the Message" / "Sweet Bells") (Franz Xaver Gruber, Joseph Mohr, Farian, Jay) - 7:51 #* Full-length version including the previously unreleased "Sweet Bells". Features Amy & Elaine Goff singing the first verse of "Silent Night, Holy Night" in German - instead of Liz Mitchell si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christmas Music
Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or, in the case of carols or songs, may employ lyrics whose subject matter ranges from the nativity of Jesus Christ, to gift-giving and merrymaking, to cultural figures such as Santa Claus, among other topics. Many songs simply have a winter or seasonal theme, or have been adopted into the canon for other reasons. While most Christmas songs prior to 1930 were of a traditional religious character, the Great Depression era of the 1930s brought a stream of songs of American origin, most of which did not explicitly reference the Christian nature of the holiday, but rather the more secular traditional Western themes and customs associated with Christmas. These included songs aimed at children such as "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", as well as sentimental ballad-type songs p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Francis Wade
John Francis Wade (1 January 1711 – 16 August 1786) was an English hymnist who is sometimes credited with writing and composing the hymn " Adeste Fideles" (which was translated to "O Come All Ye Faithful" in 1841 by Frederick Oakeley), even though the actual authorship of the hymn remains uncertain. The earliest copies of the hymn all bear his signature. Wade fled to France after the Jacobite rising of 1745 was crushed. As a Catholic layman, he lived with exiled English Catholics in France, where he taught music and worked on church music for private use. Jacobite symbolism Bennett Zon, Head of the Department of Music at Durham University, has noted that Wade's Roman Catholic liturgical books were often decorated with Jacobite floral imagery. He argued that the texts had coded Jacobite meanings. He describes the hymn "Adeste Fideles" as a birth ode to Bonnie Prince Charlie, replete with secret references decipherable by the "faithful": the followers of the Pretender, James Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jester Hairston
Jester Joseph Hairston (July 9, 1901 – January 18, 2000) was an American composer, songwriter, arranger, choral conductor and actor. He was regarded as a leading expert on black spirituals and choral music. His notable compositions include "Amen," a gospel-tinged theme from the film '' Lilies of the Field'' and a 1964 hit for the Impressions, and the Christmas song " Mary's Boy Child." Early life Hairston was born in Belews Creek, a rural community on the border of Stokes, Forsyth, Rockingham and Guilford counties in North Carolina. His grandparents had been slaves. At an early age, he and his family moved to Homestead, Pennsylvania, just outside Pittsburgh, where he graduated from high school in 1921. Hairston was very young when his father was killed in a job-related accident. Hairston was raised by his grandmother while his mother worked. Hairston heard his grandmother and her friends talking and singing about plantation life and became determined to preserve this his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Drummer Boy
"The Little Drummer Boy" (originally known as "Carol of the Drum") is a popular Christmas song written by American composer Katherine Kennicott Davis in 1941. First recorded in 1951 by the Trapp Family, the song was further popularized by a 1958 recording by the Harry Simeone Chorale; the Simeone version was re-released successfully for several years, and the song has been recorded many times since. In the lyrics, the singer relates how, as a poor young boy, he was summoned by the Magi to the Nativity of Jesus. Without a gift for the Infant, the little drummer boy played his drum with approval from Jesus's mother, Mary, recalling, "I played my best for him" and "He smiled at me". Origins and history The song was originally titled "Carol of the Drum". While speculation has been made that the song is very loosely based on the Czech carol "Hajej, nynjej", the chair of the music department at Davis's alma mater Wellesley College claims otherwise. In an interview with Music Depart ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
When A Child Is Born
"When A Child Is Born" is a popular Christmas song. The original melody was " Soleado", a tune from 1974 by Ciro Dammicco (alias Zacar), composer for Italy's Daniel Sentacruz Ensemble, and Dario Baldan Bembo. The tune was based on Damicco's earlier tune "Le rose blu" published in 1972. The English language lyrics were written a few years later by Fred Jay (Friedrich Alex Jacobson IPI number 00015195204, who wrote many hits for Boney M such as Rasputin and Ma Baker). They do not make specific mention of Christmas. Fred Jay's lyrics have been sung by many artists, first version by Michael Holm in 1974 but most successfully by Johnny Mathis in 1976, whose version was the Christmas number one of that year in the UK. Performances "Soleado" is used in the 1975 Argentinean film '' Nazareno Cruz y el lobo'' (''The Love of the Wolf''), and it is credited as "Theme From the Motion Picture 'The Love of the Wolf'" on Mathis's album ''Johnny Mathis Sings the Movie Greats'' (CBS). Artists who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
José Feliciano
José Montserrate Feliciano García (born September 10, 1945) () is a Puerto Rican musician, singer and composer. He recorded many international hits, including his rendition of the Doors' "Light My Fire" and his self-penned Christmas song " Feliz Navidad". Music genres he explores consist of fusion of many styles, such as Latin, blues, jazz, soul and rock music, created primarily with the help of his signature acoustic guitar sound. In the United States, Feliciano became popular in the 1960s, particularly after his 1968 album ''Feliciano!'' reached number 2 on the music charts. Since then, he released in his career over fifty albums worldwide, in both English and Spanish language. Early life and family José Monserrate Feliciano Garcia was born on September 10, 1945, in Lares, Puerto Rico, the fourth child of eleven sons. He was born blind as a result of congenital glaucoma. He was first exposed to music at the age of 3, playing on a cracker tin can while accompanying his un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feliz Navidad (song)
"Feliz Navidad" () () is a Christmas song written and first recorded in 1970 by Puerto Rican singer-songwriter José Feliciano. With its simple, heartfelt lyrics - the traditional Spanish Christmas/New Year greeting "Feliz Navidad, próspero año y felicidad" ("Merry Christmas, a prosperous year and happiness"), followed by text in English words "I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart" - it has become a Christmas classic and has gained popularity around the world. Background and composition Feliciano says he recorded the song while feeling homesick at Christmas, missing his family in New York City and his extended family further afield as he sat in a studio in Los Angeles. He remembered celebrating Christmas Eve with his brothers, eating traditional Puerto Rican foods, drinking rum, and going caroling. "It was expressing the joy that I felt on Christmas and the fact that I felt very lonely," he told NPR in December 2020. "I missed my family, I missed Chri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Lord Pierpont
James Lord Pierpont (April 25, 1822 – August 5, 1893)Lewis, DaveJames Pierpont Biography, AllMusic, retrieved December 16, 2011 was an American songwriter , arranger, organist, Confederate States of America, Confederate States soldier, and composer, best known for writing and composing "Jingle Bells" in 1857, originally titled "The One Horse Open Sleigh". He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and died in Winter Haven, Florida. His composition "Jingle Bells" has become synonymous with the Christmas holiday and is one of the most performed and most recognizable songs in the world. Early life and career James Lord Pierpont was born on April 25, 1822 in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, the Reverend John Pierpont (1785–1866), was a pastor of the Unitarianism, Unitarian Hollis Street Church in Boston, an abolitionist and a poet. Robert Fulghum confused James with his father in the book ''It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It'' (1989); erroneously attributing the authorship of "J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jingle Bells
"Jingle Bells" is one of the best-known and most commonly sung American songs in the world. It was written by James Lord Pierpont (1822–1893) and published under the title "The One Horse Open Sleigh" in September 1857. It has been claimed that it was originally written to be sung by a Sunday school choir for Thanksgiving, or as a drinking song. Although it has no original connection to Christmas, it became associated with winter and Christmas music in the 1860s and 1870s, and it was featured in a variety of parlor song and college anthologies in the 1880s. It was first recorded in 1889 on an Edison cylinder; this recording, believed to be the first Christmas record, is lost, but an 1898 recording also from Edison Records survives. History Composition James Lord Pierpont who was the uncle of JP Morgan, wrote "One Horse Open Sleigh" in 1857 and claimed to be a drinking song (it was always performed in blackface) It didn't become a Christmas song until decades after it was f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin; yi, ישראל ביילין; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-American composer, songwriter and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Imperial Russia, Berlin arrived in the United States at the age of five. He published his first song, "Marie from Sunny Italy", in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights,Starr, Larry and Waterman, Christopher, American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3, Oxford University Press, 2009, pg. 64 and had his first major international hit, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", in 1911. He also was an owner of the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. For much of his career Berlin could not read sheet music, and was such a limited piano player that he could only play in the key of F-sharp; he used his custom piano equipped with a transposing lever when he needed to play in keys other than F-sharp. "Alexander's Ragtime Band" sparked an international dance craze ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White Christmas (song)
"White Christmas" is an Irving Berlin song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas setting. The song was written by Berlin for the 1942 musical film ''Holiday Inn''. The composition won the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 15th Academy Awards. Since its release, "White Christmas" has been covered by many artists, the version sung by Bing Crosby being the world's best-selling single (in terms of sales of physical media) with estimated sales in excess of 50 million copies worldwide. When the figures for other versions of the song are added to Crosby's, sales of the song exceed 100 million. History Origin Accounts vary as to when and where Berlin wrote the song. One story is that he wrote it in 1940, in warm La Quinta, California, while staying at the La Quinta Hotel, a frequent Hollywood retreat also favored by writer-director-producer Frank Capra, although the Arizona Biltmore also claims the song was written there. He often stayed up all night writing. One ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> José Feliciano")
