"Our Winter Love" is an

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...

Johnny Cowell Johnny Cowell (11 January 1926 in Tillsonburg, Ontario – 22 January 2018) was a Canadian trumpeter, composer and arranger.Bill Pursell William Whitney Pursell (June 9, 1926 – September 3, 2020) was an American composer and onetime session pianist. He had a brief but successful career as a pop musician before continuing on as a session player. Pursell is best known for the to ...

. Pursell's version was recorded in 1962, and was released as a single in January 1963.

Bill Pursell version

While the Bill Pursell version is largely an instrumental, primarily piano with strings, some riffs are vocalized by a chorus of female and male singers. While it wasn't intended to be a

Christmas song 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 ma ...

, some

easy listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, n ...

and

adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...

radio stations have the Bill Pursell version on their Christmas music

playlist A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs, but sometimes a loop. The term has sever ...

Chart performance

"Our Winter Love" spent 14 weeks on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart in 1963, peaking at No. 9 on March 30, while reaching No. 4 on ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

''s Middle-Road Singles chart, No. 20 on ''Billboard''s

Hot R&B Singles The Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart ranks the most popular R&B and hip hop songs in the United States and is published weekly by ''Billboard''. Rankings are based on a measure of radio airplay, sales data, and streaming activity. The chart had 100 p ...

chart, No. 12 in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

,Billboard Hits of the World
, ''

'', June 8, 1963. p. 31. Accessed July 31, 2016. and No. 25 on

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

CHUM Hit Parade The CHUM Chart was a ranking of top 30 (and, until August 1968, the top 50) songs on Toronto, Ontario radio station CHUM AM, from 1957 to 1986, and was the longest-running Top 40 chart in the world produced by an individual radio station. On Janua ...

. Bill Pursell's version was ranked No. 54 on ''Billboard''s end of year ranking " Top Records of 1963".

The Lettermen version

In 1966,

The Lettermen The Lettermen are an American male pop vocal trio. The Lettermen's trademark is close-harmony pop songs with light arrangements. The group started in 1959. They have had two Top 10 singles (both No. 7), 16 Top 10 singles on the Adult Contempor ...

released a version, with lyrics written by Bob Tubert. This vocal version spent 4 weeks on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart in 1967, peaking at No. 72, while reaching No. 16 on ''

''s

Easy Listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, n ...

chart, No. 12 on ''

Record World ''Record World'' magazine was one of the three main music industry trade magazines in the United States, along with '' Billboard'' and '' Cashbox''. It was founded in 1946 under the name ''Music Vendor'', but in 1964 it was changed to ''Record Wo ...

''s "Top Non-Rock" chart, and No. 91 on

's "''

RPM Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

'' 100".

Other versions

*In 1963, a version by Lawrence Welk and His Orchestra, was released as the lead track on his album ''1963's Early Hits''.Dot: The Nation's Best Selling Records
, ''

'', September 28, 1963. p. 23. Accessed August 1, 2016.

References

{{Authority control 1963 songs 1963 singles Columbia Records singles The Lettermen songs 1960s instrumentals Songs written by Johnny Cowell Song recordings produced by Don Law