3 on Billboard’s Jukebox R&B chart in 1947 and soon became a Christmas standard, covered by stars such as Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Chuck Berry, and Christina Aguilera. In any case, the version by Moore and the Three Blazers, a band who came from Los Angeles, reached No. The dispute over the origins of the song even prompted a Smithsonian Magazine article entitled “Who Really Wrote Merry Christmas, Baby?” It outlined claims that proper credit had escaped an army veteran called Andrew Whitson Griffith, who went by the name Lou Baxter, with some versions listing the band’s singer Tony Brown as the sole author. The slow, bluesy classic “Merry Christmas Baby” from Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers, was a very different type of festival classic to the more usual sentimental fare (“gave me a diamond ring for Christmas/Now I’m living in paradise”), and one with a controversial history. Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers: Merry Christmas Baby Crosby’s honeyed-voice version was a double hit for Decca, becoming a bestseller in both the children’s record charts and Billboard pop singles. Crosby saw further potential in the song and, in June 1950, he recorded his own big-band version, with John Scott Trotter and his Orchestra. 1 in 1949 with a song written by Johnny Marks and inspired by a children’s book about Santa’s famous reindeer that Marks had been given by his brother-in-law. There is an oft-repeated story that Bing Crosby turned down the chance to become the first singer to record “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Instead, Gene Autry got in first and quickly reached No. 6) in Hungary.Click to load video Bing Crosby: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer “ Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” charted all around the world, achieving its highest position (No. The warm background vocals come courtesy of The Swanson Quartet. Sinatra recorded it five years later, releasing it as a Christmas single even though the song never mentions the “C”-word. New York-based trumpeter Axel Stordahl, who was Sinatra’s preferred arranger in the late 40s and early 50s, wrote the charts for this upbeat version of a Sammy Cahn-Jule Styne gem that was written in July 1945 during a heatwave in Los Angeles. 4: Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Sinatra updated it ten years later but kept the swing elements on a version performed on his TV special with Bing Crosby. Somewhat bizarrely, it was recorded three days after Christmas, on December 28, 1947. Sinatra gave J Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie’s much-covered and hugely popular 1934 Christmas number a big band swing makeover on his effervescent single version of the song arranged by Axel Stordahl. The latter was Sinatra’s final foray into Christmas songs, but he’d already done enough: over half a century later, the best Frank Sinatra Christmas songs still define the holidays.Ĭlick to load video 5: Santa Claus Is Coming To Town Two more Christmas albums followed: 12 Songs Of Christmas, which was released in 1964 and featured guest spots from Bing Crosby and bandleader Fred Waring, and 1968’s The Sinatra Family Wish You A Merry Christmas. With its blend of popular festive songs and seasonal carols, A Jolly Christmas… crowned Sinatra the king of the holidays, establishing a conceptual template that many singers have since followed. He’d recorded the album Christmas Songs By Sinatra in 1948, but by the time he returned to seasonal recordings, with 1957’s A Jolly Christmas From Frank Sinatra, the Hoboken-born singer had become a Hollywood star and one of the most in-demand entertainers of all time. As the best Frank Sinatra Christmas songs prove, having one without the other is unthinkable, but it wasn’t until the late 50s that Sinatra became synonymous with December 25 and all its festivities. Frank Sinatra and Christmas go together like mistletoe and mulled wine.
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