''The Beach Boys' Christmas Album'' is the seventh studio album by the American rock band

the Beach Boys The Beach Boys are an American Rock music, rock band formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian Wilson, Brian, Dennis Wilson, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and their f ...

, released November 9, 1964 on

Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007), and simply known as Capitol, is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-base ...

. It contains five original songs and seven standards on a Christmas theme. The album proved to be a long-running success during subsequent Christmas seasons, initially reaching No. 6 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 advertis ...

s Christmas LP's chart in its initial release and eventually going

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

. Music historian James Perone wrote that it is "regarded as one of the finest holiday albums of the rock era". While leader

Brian Wilson Brian Douglas Wilson (June 20, 1942 – June 11, 2025) was an American musician, songwriter, singer and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. Often Brian Wilson is a genius, called a genius for his novel approaches to pop compositio ...

produced and arranged the rock songs, he left it to Dick Reynolds (an arranger for

the Four Freshmen The Four Freshmen is an American male vocal quartet that blends close and open harmony, open-harmonic jazz arrangements with the big band vocal group sounds of The Modernaires, The Pied Pipers, and The Mel-Tones, founded in the Barbershop music, ...

, a group Wilson idolized) to arrange the 41-piece orchestral backings on the traditional songs to which the Beach Boys would apply their vocals. One single was released from the album, the original song " The Man with All the Toys" backed with the group's rendition of " Blue Christmas". "

Little Saint Nick "Little Saint Nick" is a song by American rock band the Beach Boys first released as a single on December 9, 1963. Written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, the Christmas song applies hot-rod themes to Santa Claus and his sleigh. The single peake ...

", a single which had already been released the previous year, was included on the album. In 1977, the Beach Boys attempted to follow the album with '' Merry Christmas from the Beach Boys'', but it was rejected by their label. The entire ''Christmas Album'' plus selections from the ''Merry Christmas'' sessions were later assembled for the 1998 compilation '' Ultimate Christmas''. The original Capitol CD reissue contains a remix of "Little Saint Nick" (the single version) instead of the original album version.

Background

The album was devised as a response to

Phil Spector Harvey Phillip Spector (December 26, 1939 – January 16, 2021) was an American record producer and songwriter who is best known for pioneering recording practices in the 1960s, followed by his trials and conviction for murder in the 2000s. S ...

's '' A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records'' (1963), an album Brian had attended recording sessions for. He played piano on the song " Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" but was dismissed by Spector due to his "substandard" piano playing. Side one consists mostly of original Christmas-themed rock songs penned by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, while side two features both secular and religious Christmas standards with orchestral accompaniments and conducting by Dick Reynolds. Original album cover photo by George Jerman for Capitol Photo Studio.

Recording

With the exception of "

", sessions for the album spanned June 18–30, 1964, one month after the '' All Summer Long'' album was completed. "Christmas Day" is the first Beach Boys song to feature a lead vocal from

Al Jardine Alan Charles Jardine (born September 3, 1942) is an American musician who co-founded the Beach Boys. He is best known as the band's rhythm guitarist, background vocalist, and for occasionally singing lead vocals on singles such as number-one hit ...

. The album was released in mono and

stereo Stereophonic sound, commonly shortened to stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configurat ...

; the stereo mix, prepared by engineer Chuck Britz, would be the last true stereo mix for a Beach Boys album until 1968's ''

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''. In addition to orchestral renditions of "

Jingle Bells "Jingle Bells" is one of the most commonly sung Christmas songs in the world. It was written by James Lord Pierpont. It is an unsettled question where and when Pierpont originally composed the song that would become known as "Jingle Bells". It ...

" and the original Wilson composition "Christmas Eve" which never received vocal overdubs, outtakes of the ''All Summer Long'' track " Little Honda"Mirror
/ref> and '' The Beach Boys Today!'' song " Don't Hurt My Little Sister" were recorded in between June sessions.

Reception

In a retrospective review,

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

's Jason Ankeny stated: "Brian Wilson's pop genius is well suited to classic Yuletide fare, and the group delivers lush performances of standards ranging from '

Frosty the Snowman "Frosty the Snowman" is a song written by Walter "Jack" Rollins and Steve Nelson, and first recorded by Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys in 1950 and later recorded by Jimmy Durante in that year. It was written after the success of Autry's ...

' to ' White Christmas' as well as more contemporary material like 'The Man With All the Toys' and 'Blue Christmas.'" While interviewing Wilson for a promotional radio special in 1964, Jack Wagner remarked that Wilson's decision to sing solo on a version of "Blue Christmas" could be "the start of a whole new career," to which Wilson responded "I don’t know. It could and it couldn't. I really don’t know." Referring to the standards which he believed "proved that the Beach Boys' vocal power was bigger and more agile than the surf and hot rod records ndstaking a claim for wider musical terrain," author Luis Sanchez reflected: "''The Beach Boys' Christmas Album'' music shows a quality of aesthetic selectivity that none of the group's records that came before it do, aspiring not just to assimilate one of pop's stock ideas, but also enabling Brian to make one of his biggest artistic advances." On April 6, 1982, the album was certified gold by the

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

, selling more than 500,000 units.

''Ultimate Christmas''

Released in 1998, '' Ultimate Christmas'' is a compilation containing all of the twelve tracks from the original Christmas LP in stereo. Many bonus tracks were added, including the 1974 single " Child of Winter" and several previously unreleased tracks from the aborted 1977 album '' Merry Christmas from the Beach Boys''.

Track listing

Mike Love Michael Edward Love (born March 15, 1941) is an American singer and songwriter who is one of the vocalists of the Beach Boys, of which he was an original member alongside his cousins Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson, and Carl Wilson and their frien ...

's writing credits on the tracks marked with a (*) were only awarded after a 1994 court case.

Personnel

Partial credits courtesy of session archivist Craig Slowinski.Mirror
/ref> The Beach Boys *

Carl Wilson Carl Dean Wilson (December 21, 1946 – February 6, 1998) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter who co-founded the Beach Boys. He was their lead guitarist, the youngest sibling of bandmates Brian Wilson, Brian and Dennis Wilson, ...

Dennis Wilson Dennis Carl Wilson (December 4, 1944 – December 28, 1983) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter who co-founded the Beach Boys. He was their drummer and the middle brother of bandmates Brian Wilson, Brian and Carl Wilson as well as ...

David Marks David Lee Marks (born August 22, 1948) is an American guitarist who was an early member of the Beach Boys. While growing up in Hawthorne, California, Marks was a neighborhood friend of the original band members and was a frequent participant at t ...

– backing vocals and rhythm guitar on "Little Saint Nick" (both credits uncertain) Additional musicians and technical staff * Al Viola – guitar * Cliff Hils –

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

* Jimmy Rowles, Gene DiNovi – grand piano * Jack Sperling, Frank Capp – drums * Eddie Rosa, Gene Cipriano, William Green, Willie Schwartz, Robert Jung – flute and/or saxophone * Chuck Gentry – bass clarinet and/or

baritone saxophone The baritone saxophone (sometimes abbreviated to "bari sax") is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger (and lower-pitched) than the tenor saxophone, but smaller (and higher-pitched) than the bass saxophone, bass. It is the lowe ...

* William Hinshaw, Arthur Maebe, Richard Perissi, Arthur Briegleb, David Duke –

French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most o ...

s * Henry Laubach, Ollie Mitchell, Al Porcino, Virgil Evans, John Audino, Conrad Gozzo, Raymond Triscari – trumpets * Harry Betts, Francis Howard, George Roberts, Urbie Green, Lew McCreary, Dick Nash –

trombone The trombone (, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's lips vibrate inside a mouthpiece, causing the Standing wave, air c ...

s * Red Callender –

tuba The tuba (; ) is the largest and lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece (brass), mouthpiece. It first appeared in th ...

* James Getzoff, Robert Barene, Arnold Belnick, Bernard Kundell, Paul Shure, Harry Bluestone, Henry Roth, Alfred Lustgarten, William Kurasch, Lou Raderman, Marshall Sosson, Darrel Terwilliger - violins * Edgar Lustgarten, Jesse Ehrlich, Ray Kelley, Karl Rossner, Frederick Seykora, Nathan Gershman, Alfred Wohl, Margaret Aue, Armand Kaproff, Joseph Saxon –

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

s * Dorothy Remsen - harp * Benjamin Barrett – orchestra master * Dick Reynolds – orchestra conductor/arranger * Mainerd Baker, George Yocum – copyists * Bill Putnam – engineer – orchestral tracks * Chuck Britz – engineer * Mark Linett – remix engineer (1991)

Charts

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Beach Boys' Christmas Album, The 1964 Christmas albums Albums produced by Brian Wilson Albums recorded at Capitol Studios Albums recorded at United Western Recorders The Beach Boys albums Christmas albums by American artists Capitol Records Christmas albums Pop rock Christmas albums