Christmas Cavalcade 2018 - Part Two

Welcome, my friends, to our second look at terrible Christmas records this year.

I’ve been overwhelmed by your suggestions, and the first brace of tracks today come courtesy of regular WWR contributor Michael Quinn: the peculiarly-titled Christmas America Is Proud of Nixon (at least that's how it appears on the disc's label) and the slightly less perverse (but possibly perverted) Santa Clause Kissed Me (sic) by Beulah.

What a find! At just a few seconds over a minute, Christmas America Is Proud of Nixon is Beulah’s spoken-word Christmas card to her favourite president, old Tricky Dicky himself. Tribute discs to Nixon were nothing new, but the flip is a pip: Santa Clause Kissed Me is an atonal delight, despite Beulah’s inability to spell Santa’s name correctly. 

I haven’t been able to unearth any info about Beulah (no relation to the TV character played by Hattie McDaniel, incidentally), apart from discovering that she issued her 45, on her own Beulah Records, in December 1974, taking out a small ad in Billboard to promote it. I'm assuming it was her first and only release. Credited as simply Beulah on the A-side but as Beulah Sanot on the flip, she appears to have come from Crossville, a small village of some 700 or so souls in White County, Illinois. I have not been able to find anybody of that name living in the area, but there was a Beulah De Santo in the region during the 60s and 70s: perhaps her surname was misspelled on the disc?

Sadly that’s all I’ve got. Perhaps one of you can help fill in the gaps?

UPDATE: Our good friend Bob from the ever-excellent Dead Wax has found a whole bunch of info on Beulah. Beulah Kershaw was born in 1914 in Florida, Missouri and, sadly, passed away in 2007 at the grand old age of 93. Much missed by family and friends, she recorded a further 45, A Woman In Love backed with Real People, that was issued in 1982 under the name Disco Beulah. The previous November she had appeared on the NBC TV show Real People: the experience clearly affecting her enough to write a song about it. It appears that Beulah also issued a four-track EP, featuring the song My Dear Green Mountain Home. Sadly her husband, Bryan, died the same year as A Woman In Love was released.

There's a very sweet personal reminiscence HERE She must have been a very special lady.

Today’s third track comes from little-known rap act Society Threat, who issued their one and only single, It’s Christmas, Yes It Is in 1988. The track was written by the whiter-than-white country-pop balladeer Peter McCann who also wrote Right Time Of The Night, later a U.S. hit for Jennifer Warnes, and Midnight Sun for our old friend Shaun Cassidy. In 1995 McCann issued his own festively-themed collection What Christmas Really Means.

Enjoy!

Download Nixon HERE

Download Santa HERE

Download Christmas HERE