First up is a brace of tracks from the brilliant William
Shatner, his eccentric re-reading of the classics The Little Drummer Boy and
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer from his Christmas collection Shatner
Claus.
Issued just before Christmas 2018, Shatner Claus features
Bill alongside a bunch of heavy friends, including Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull,
Todd Rundgren, Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins and Rick Wakeman. The Little Drummer
Boy features blues guitarist Joe Louis walker, and Rudolph the Red Nosed
Reindeer includes a guest appearance from Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, It’s
insane and quite, quite marvellous.
What can you follow Shatner with? How about Elvis’s backing
singers the Jordanaires, here with Linn and Linda (and Millie, don’t forget
Millie) and the truly miserable The Christmas Orphan. My goodness, a
record that makes Red Sovine sound cheerful.
Incidentally, the Millie in
question is Millie Kirkham, who also appeared with the Jordanaires on Elvis’s Blue
Christmas. Composed by polka king Del Sinchak, who recorded the tune himself in 1953, this recording hails from – I believe – 1958: Sinchack only registered copyright in the lyric in December 1957.
We’ll finish today with US TV host Regis Philbin and his
version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, from his 2005 collection The
Regis Philbin Christmas Album. On this track Regis is joined by a friend, host
of the US version of the Apprentice and soon-to be leader of the free
world, Donald Trump. Needless to say, it ain’t pretty.
Enjoy!
Download Drummer HERE
Download Shatner’s Rudolph HERE
Download Orphan HERE
Download Regis’s Rudolph HERE
Thank you for these, especially the Regis Rudolph which I'd somehow missed. I went and got the last couple of years of Christmas songs, but some of the others were inaccessible because of Adobe Flash. Can you fix those?
ReplyDeleteHi, thanks for the comment. You must be looking at Christmas 2016 or earlier, as all those from 2017 and 18 seem to be working for me. I'll do what I can to get those others sorted for you over the next few days, but were there any specific tracks you wanted?
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