Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Christmas Memories


From my first Rock & Roll album, Christmas 1965. (thanks Pat for the reminder!)













I have albums and songs that, while not of the holiday variety, will always be Christmas albums because they are so tied emotionally or nostalgically to this season.

How 'bout you? What non-Christmas music is holiday-music-by-accident?
My List:



Herman's Hermits On Tour - My first Rock and Roll album, delivered by Santa 12/25/65. It was many many many many years before I learned that 'For Your Love', 'End of the World' and even 'Henry The VIII" were not originals.


Rubber Soul - Delivered by my parents ten days later on my 8th birthday. My first Beatle album and possibly the single most influential album in my life. Also, arguably, the best product ever from the suddenly no-longer-lovable-Mop-Tops.


The Beatles - First appearing in my life in 1970, defining my listening and playing for several years and then ReAppearing in '76 when everyone in my college dorm discovered it.


Fillmore, The Last Days - I will never forget watching, in both horror and stunned admiration, my mom and dad jitterbug to The Dead's version of Johnny-Be-Good on Christmas Eve, 1972.


Born To Run - Night upon Night upon Snowy-Drunken-Night driving all over the backstreets (well, back roads) of NW Ohio as Christmas lights reappeared after several years of energy-crisis driven hibernation. And then there's all those chiming glockenspiel parts....


A Night At The Opera - Well ... Weren't Freddy's multi-tracked vocal extravaganzas just our generation's Harry Simeone Chorale? And, with 'I'm In Love With My Car' we had yet another great anthem for those backroads, bongs and brews.


(text from this post originally posted 12/20/06)

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