Christmas Cavalcade 2022: Part Three, the Wing Wing

Ho! Ho! Ho! (again) and welcome to the third and final instalment of this year’s Christmas Cavalcade.

 

I’m finishing my Christmas Selection Box for 2022 with four tracks from the utterly wonderful Wing Han Tsang – an artist I have regularly featured on the World’s Worst Records radio Show, but who will be known to many of you from her appearance on the 2005 South Park episode ‘Wing’.

 

I have featured Wing on the blog before, but that was way back in 2011, so it is probably best that we have a quick recap. Wing Han Tsang, usually known simply as Wing, is a Hong Kong-born singer, who began her career in music after emigrating to New Zealand at the beginning of the 1990s. She began by entertaining patients at nursing homes and hospitals in and around Auckland, as well as busking in shopping centres (check out YouTube for some superb footage of Wing doing the latter), and singing in hotels in the Auckland area.

 

Her popularity prompted suggestions that she release a CD; the result was Musical Memories of Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera Performed by Wing, released in March 2001 and recorded at the Otara Music Arts Centre, based in the Otara Shopping Centre, Auckland. The second album, I Could Have Danced All Night, followed six months later, and by 2015 she had released 20 albums and Eps.

 

Following her ‘discovery’ by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Wing toured the US,  appearing in San Francisco, at the famous Birdland jazz club in New York and at the 2008 South by Southwest festival. In May 2008, she performed on the BBC Introducing stage at Radio 1's Big Weekend, in Maidstone, singing songs written by Abba and Elton John. She has since made many more television and radio appearances around the globe.

 

In 2015, Wing announced that she retired from the music business via her official website. A sad loss of a singularly unique talent.

 

Anyway, here are four Christmas-themed tracks from the magnificent Wing; Jingle Bells  and Santa Claus Is Coming To Town from her 2007 collection Everyone Sings Carols With Wing, plus the wonderfully daft Santa in a Helicopter and her reading of the classic Silent Night from her 2014 EP Carols - Rap and Sing a Beautiful Christmas With Wing.

 

Enjoy! And I'll see you all again after Christmas.

 

Download Jingle HERE

Download Town HERE

Download Helicopter HERE

Download Silent HERE

Christmas Cavalcade 2022: Part Two

Ho! Ho! Ho! Everybody: who is up for another selection of Christmas-related catastrophes? Two singles, four tracks, and all of them worthy of inclusion on your own Christmas playlist

 

First out of the snow-covered barn door is (or, rather, are) Dick and Richard, and both sides of their 1963 seasonal offering Santa Caught A Cold On Christmas Eve and the even sillier Stinky The Little Reindeer. The A-side song was written by Dave Barbour, first husband of the singer Peggy Lee (the couple were married for eight years between 1943–1951), her son-in-law Dick Foster (husband of Lee and Barbour’s only child, Nicki Lee Foster) and Richard Addrisi, Dick and Richard being the son-in-law and Mr Addrisi.

 

Jack Marshall, who produced the disc, wrote the flip side; Richard Addrisi also performed with his brother, Don, as the Addrisi Brothers, and as Dick and Don. Previous to that, the brothers had been part of a traveling trapeze act, The Flying Addrisis, with their parents. The brothers were successful songwriters through the 60s and 70s, and in 1972 scored a minor Billboard hit with their song We’ve Got To Get It On Again, but this particular clunker failed to chart.

 

Next up is a coupling from our old friend Red River Dave, with both sides of his 1980 single, the atonal horror that is Santa's Watchdog Archibald (featuring the dulcet tones of Gloria May), backed with the political polemic The Night Ronald Reagan Rode With Santa Claus. I featured Red River Dave on the blog back in August, and you can read more about his career HERE.

 

Apparently, The Night Ronald Reagan Rode With Santa Claus was penned by Dave 'Red River McEnery 'in the spirit of Christmas forgiveness’. The song features then-president Reagan issuing a pardon to striking air traffic controllers, with Santa telling the Pres that 'Santa Claus counts on air controllers all over the world. He's counting on a safe sky as he flies round the world with Christmas greetings and toys for good little girls and boys.'

 

Enjoy these, and I’ll be back before the Big Day with the third installment of this year’s Christmas Cavalcade.

 

Download Santa HERE

Download Stinky HERE

Download Archibald HERE

Download Ronald HERE

Christmas Cavalcade 2022: Part One

Well, here it is... almost. Just over two weeks to go until the Big Day, so I had better pull my finger out and give you some Christmas-themed music, hadn't I?

And how better to kick off than with three tracks from Eilert Pilarm's seasonal offering from 2001, Eilerts Jul or Eilert's Christmas?

I haven't featured Eilert on the blog for a long time, more than 11 years in fact, although he regularly pops up on The World's Worst Records Radio Show. Just this week I was reminded, by regular blog and show contributor Stephen 'Beany' Green, of this particular album, and it felt like an entirely appropriate opener for this year's Christmas cavalcade.

Eilert, for those previously unacquainted with his genius, is (or was, he stopped performing over a decade ago) Sweden's number-one Elvis impersonator. A cult figure in his home country, Eilert became semi-famous on TV, appearing in adverts cooking while dressed as a cut-price Presley, and singing his off-key renditions of the King's greatest hits. 

Born in 1953, his original surname was Dahlberg, but he changed it to Pilarm to give himself the same initials as his hero. Championed here in Britain by the late John Peel, Eilert first appeared on stage - playing in an ice hockey arena in the town of Husum - in his Elvis garb in 1992, while working at a paper mill. A local radio DJ saw him, got hold of a couple of cassettes of Eilert doing his thing and began to feature him on air, National stardom soon came: Eilert issued six albums and a couple of EPS between 1995 and 2006, he appeared on TV in Britain and the USA, and in 2001 alone he played over 150 gigs across Sweden.

Here are three tracks from the brilliant Eilerts Jul: Eilert's cover of the Elvis standard Blue Christmas, a Swedish version of Silent Night (Stille Natt), and a traditional Swedish carol from 1898, Nu Tandas Tusen Juleljus, which roughly translates as A Thousand Christmas Candles are Lit.

Enjoy!

Download Blue HERE

Download Silent HERE

Download Candles HERE