Christmas Cavalcade 2021: Part Three

The big day is getting closer, but we still have time for a few more festive fails.

 

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.

 

The third and final track for today is Honky, the Christmas Goose issued by Johnny Bower in 1965. Bower was goalkeeper for the Toronto Maple Leafs (surely that should be Maple Leaves?), and the flat as a pancake kiddie voice that accompanies him on this disc came from his son, John Junior. Recorded at the studios of CBC in Toronto on November 5 that year, the song was the brainchild of CBC producer Chip Young and composer Orville Hoover. Bower, apparently nominated for the role by his teammates, was the perfect choice for vocalist  - the veteran player regularly took on the role of Santa Claus at team Christmas parties, and he was enormously popular with young fans.

 

‘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