First up was suggested to me by my friend The Squire, over at the Squire
Presents. Our annual Christmas chin-wag will be up for streaming soon, but here’s
a little disc he thought you might enjoy, Marlene Paula and her 1956 single I
Want to Spend Christmas With Elvis. Paula, aka Marlene VerPlanck, was the
wife of jazz bandleader J. Billy VerPlanck, and once sang with the Tommy
Dorsey orchestra.
This particular 45 was backed with the rather dull Once More It’s
Christmas, but at around the same time that she was hoping to find Elvis
the Pelvis under her tree, she was also claiming that I Got the Asian Flu
for Christmas, in a spectacularly badly timed release aimed squarely at the
children’s market. The Asian flu pandemic of 1956 to 1958 eventually resulted
in the deaths of approximately two million people, nearly 70,000 of whom were in
the US, and therefore lost potential customers for her discs. I’ve not been
able to find a copy of that particular disc on the ‘net, but if anyone here has
a copy they are willing to rip for me I would be incredibly grateful.
Next up is another disc brought to my attention by the Squire, its
Reece Shipley and Santa Miss Those Missiles. Originally issued around
1960, at the height of the paranoia over the impending Cold War (and two years
before the Cuban Missile Crisis) on his own Shipley records, the track was
later compiled on the 2003 collection Tennessee Swing.
‘I told Chip the only singing I did was in the shower,’ Bower admitted
in a 1992 interview. ‘But the challenge appealed to me and he talked me into
it. He came over to the house and wanted to get my son, John Jr., who was about
11, involved in a little choir. So we all went down to the studio -- a bunch of
neighborhood kids who couldn't sing worth a hoot and myself -- and we made the
record.’
Enjoy!
Download Elvis HERE
Download Santa HERE
Download Honky HERE
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