Every year this gets a little bit harder. Every December since
2009 I’ve tried to bring you a cornucopia of Christmas-themed crapness, in an
annual Christmas Cavalcade of terrible records. After a decade of dodgy discs,
you would think I would have run out of new material to bring you.
But oh no… or oh ho!Ho!ho! no, if you prefer.
It just means that each year I have to trawl though my
previous posts to ensure I’m not repeating myself: that’s what takes the time.
For example, I had intended to post Red Sovine’s Here It Is, Christmas,
but I blogged that back in 2017. Never mind: over the next few weeks I’ll be
featuring a handful of Christmas clunkers I know I have not blogged before.
First up we have four tracks from Mae West, Hollywood royalty and naughty ne’er-do-well
of yore, and her only Christmas album, Wild
Christmas. Issued in 1966 on the tiny Dagonet label, just a few short
months after Mae had released her major-label rock ‘n’ roll album Way Out
West. Way Out West had been a minor hit, peaking at 116 on the Billboard
album chart, so you might assume that Tower (an imprint of Capitol) only had
her under contract for the one record: it makes no sense to let her go,
especially in light of the success their parent company was having with Mrs
Miller. Until you do a little digging that is.
Dagonet was a TV production company: their spin-off record
label issued very few discs, but an act signed to the company, variously known
as The Chyldren and Somebody’s Chyldren, provide the uncredited backing for Ms
West on Wild Christmas. Most Dagonet releases were produced by David Mallet.
Mallet also produced Way Out West, and Mae’s backing band on that album
was Somebody’s Chyldren. You see, it all adds up now. My assumption is that the
tracks for both albums were recorded during the same sessions, but Tower declined
to issue a Christmas album because it was too soon after Way Out West (which
had been issued in July) or, more likely, that there was not enough material to
produce a viable album.
Wild Christmas is a weird little album, just eight
tracks and clocking in at 20 minutes, although it did spawn a single, Quint Benedetti's Put
The Loot In the Boot Santa, which was backed by a cover of the Beatles’ From
Me To You, listed on both the album and 45 as With Love From Me To You. The
album was reissued, with a rejigged track listing, as Mae In December for the anthology The Fabulous Mae West.
From Wild Christmas here’s Put The Loot In the
Boot Santa, Santa Baby, Merry Christmas Baby and, as a bonus, Santa, Come Up And See
Me, which I did feature on the blog back in 2012 but that link is now dead. As Ms West once said, ‘My left leg is Christmas
and my right leg is New Year’s. Why don't you visit me between the holidays?’
Enjoy!
Download Loot HERE
Download Santa HERE
Download Merry HERE
Download Come UP HERE
A minor correction Darryl, company production is Dagonet, not Dragonet
ReplyDeleteOops! How silly! I shall put that right ASAP
DeleteQuint ("Joe") Charles/Benedetti was my Dad's best friend in the Navy, and was my Godfather.
ReplyDeleteHe used to visit us all the time. One year he gave us the "Put the Loot" b/w "From Me To You" single. We played it every year. The trumpet solo was so hokey I lost it every time. However, I was impressed that Joe had a record, recorded by someone famous like Mae West.