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Christmas Past...Christmas Past (1998) is peach of a reissue compiled by Westside Records, a British label (part of the Demon Music Group) specializing in oldies with an emphasis on rhythm 'n' blues. Subtitled "Seasons Greetings From The Roulette Family Of Labels," the CD brings together 25 holiday tracks originally released on End, Dimension, Colpix, Gee, Rama, Jubilee, Josie, and Gone, as well as Roulette Records proper. In several cases, Christmas Past includes both a- and b-sides of the original singles when both sides are Christmas songs.

Roulette Records was a New York-based label founded in 1957. They eventually became notorious for their ties to the mob, but they survived until the 1970's when the label fell inactive. Eventually, it was sold to EMI. Roulette flourished in the 1960's with pop artists like Jimmie Rodgers ("Honeycomb," "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine") and Tommy James ("Mony Mony," "Crystal Blue Persuasion"), but early on the label recorded a treasure trove of doo wop, girl groups, rhythm & blues, and jazz. All of that is on display on Christmas Past, albeit alongside some novelty songs of unspeakable weirdness. But, it's worth noting that over the years Roulette purchased a number of other labels including Jubilee (founded 1946), their subsidiary Josie, and Rama (founded 1953), and that's why Christmas Past includes some songs recorded before 1957.

A Holiday Treasure Trove

The raison d'être of Christmas Past is the treasure trove of truly great rhythm classics it rescues from obscurity. This starts with three fine Jubilee tracks by the Orioles - from Baltimore, of course - one of the "bird groups" (including the Ravens, Flamingos, Penguins, Larks, and Falcons) that pointed the way towards doo wop, the black vocal group sound that defined the late 1950's. The Orioles and their hypnotic lead singer, Sonny Til, are best remembered for "Crying In The Chapel," a huge proto-doo wop hit in 1953. On Christmas Past, they contribute a haunting original, "(It's Gonna Be) A Lonely Christmas" (1948), a gently swinging "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? (1949), and a stately reading of "O Holy Night" (1950) that succeeds despite its dusty source material.

HeartbeatsFrom there, Christmas Past jumps to the rock 'n' roll era and the full flowering of doo wop. On one end, we get the deeply romantic "After New Year's Eve" from the Heartbeats, the group that created the immortal "A Thousand Miles Away" and (as Shep & The Limelites) "Daddy's Home." On the other end, we get the Cadillacs' crazy, often-imitated "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer." Between those extremes, we get a beautiful solo performance from Frankie Lymon (newly emancipated from his group, the Teenagers), two tracks from the Marcels (best known for their unhinged hit "Blue Moon"), and a rollicking, soulful "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" by Harmony Grits, who were essentially the original Drifters, recently fired (and replaced) by their manager.

And, then there's jazz. Roulette recorded a lot of the stuff, but Christmas Past doesn't have anything that I'd formally call jazz. But, it has several fine tracks that are, well, jazz adjacent. These include both sides of a 1959 single by Pearl Bailey, then at the height of her singing career, most notably "Five Pound Box Of Money," an uproarious update of Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby." We're also treated to jive poet Babs Gonzales' "Be-Bop Santa Claus," the most famous of several holiday songs the "word jazz" pioneer recorded.

Be aware, though, Westside made a mistake with the Babs Gonzales track. In the Christmas Past liner notes, they identify "Be-Bop Santa Claus" as End single 1008, released in 1958, but that record was a completely different song, "Rock And Roll Santa Claus." "Be-Bop Santa Claus" was actually released in 1954 on two different labels, Bruce and Essex, and again in 1955 on King - none of which was affiliated with Roulette. No harm, no foul, I guess - but I feel compelled to point out the error. "Rock And Roll Santa Claus" is a charming song, by the way, but it remains a rare commodity thanks to Westside's error. (Learn more and download a copy in my 2021 Christmas Gift For You.)

MarcelsNew Decade, New Sounds

As rock 'n roll approached the 1960's, it was growing and changing, developing new sounds while becoming a big business. The new decade saw the rise of surf music, teen idols, Motown, Phil Spector, instrumental rockers like the Ventures, and dance crazes like "The Twist," as well as the first glimmers of garage rock and soul music. One of the biggest new developments was the "girl group" sound, marrying slavish teenage devotion (and lust) to a big beat. It radiated out from the American East Coast, with most of the activity centered on the storied Brill Building on Broadway Avenue in New York, which housed a new crop of songwriters feeding the girl groups most of their hits. Roulette Records was literally just down the street - ready to cash in.

Husband and wife Gerry Goffin and Carole King were one of the Brill Building's greatest songwriting teams, and in 1962 they famously recruited their babysitter, Eva Boyd, to sing their new song, "The Loco-Motion" - a deft fusion of girl group sound and dance craze energy. The record was a smash, and "Little Eva" briefly became a sensation, as well. Her 1963 duet with Big Dee Irwin, "I Wish You A Merry Christmas," mines much the same vein of gold, with some mean-spirited barbs thrown in (he calls her greedy, she calls him fat).

Christmas Past includes "I Wish You A Merry Christmas" and three more girl group tracks: Jo-Ann Campbell's yearning "Happy New Year Baby" (written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield), the Del Vetts' feverish "I Want A Boy For Christmas," and Toni Wine's earnest-but-maudlin "My Boyfriend's Coming Home For Christmas." The latter was Wine's recording debut, but she would become an in-demand session singer around the Brill Building and go on to a long career as a songwriter, later striking gold with "Groovy Kind Of Love" for the Mindbenders (1966) and "Candida" for Dawn (1970). She also served a stint as female vocalist for cartoon group the Archies and married noted record producer Chips Moman. But, she would only record a handful of singles under her own name, and she never recorded an album...

CadillacsUnspeakable Weirdness

The most interesting thing about Toni Wine's song is that her boyfriend is in "the service" - that's why he's not there in the first place. "My Boyfriend's Coming Home For Christmas" is arguably the first Christmas song of the Vietnam War, and two years later Roulette would release one of the weirdest.

Derrik Roberts' "There Won't Be Any Snow (Christmas In The Jungle)" is an almost unbelievable mish-mash of melodrama, bad sound effects, and eye-rolling plot twists. It's 1965, and our hero is stuck in Vietnam for the holidays. He's missing his sweetheart, writing her a letter explaining why he so bravely volunteered - when he gets fragged! It is frankly, if unintentionally, comical, but it speaks to the trauma the nation was witnessing almost first-hand in America's first televised war. It would only get worse, and it would produce a large body of songs about Christmas In Vietnam.

Derrik Roberts (probably a pseudonym for writers and producers Lee Pockriss and Paul Vance) actually cut two versions of "There Won't Be Any Snow" - the one on Christmas Past, where the protagonist gets shot, and another with a different closing verse that allows him to survive. As documented in 45cat, the label wanted to give disk jockeys the option to not bum their listeners out during the holidays and - predictably enough - the public preferred the happy ending. The happier version is available on Bear Family's huge boxed set, Next Stop Is Vietnam: The War On Record 1961-2008.

Doo Wop ChristmasThe rest of the unspeakable weirdness on Christmas Past is, thankfully, deliberate. Before he was Mr. Magoo or Thurston Howell III, Jim Backus was a comedian, and his "Why Don't You Go Home For Christmas?" (1958) is a bizarre and hilarious poison pen letter to his significant other. It's not even two minutes long, but it's crammed with nonsequiturs, absurdities, and all-but-graphic violence.

Meanwhile, before he portrayed crazed hillbilly Ernest T. Bass on The Andy Griffith Show, actor Howard Morris waxed "Department Store Santa" for Roulette in 1960, performing a multitude of voices. Split across both sides of a 45, Morris tells the story of a hapless Santa-for-hire "Before Xmas" (a-side) and "After Xmas" (b-side). The record skewers youth culture as much as the holiday, with two spoiled brats and an Elvis wannabe bugging Santa for modern goodies like a motor scooter, a black leather jacket, and "a wiggle-walkin' baby" in "an itsy bitsy teenie weenie bathing suit." Both sides end with an exasperated Morris moaning, "What am I doing here?"

Pulling the Trigger

The bottom line is that Christmas Past is a fascinating glimpse into the world of early rock 'n' roll through the lens of the holiday season. Unlike collections on, for instance, Rhino Records, the focus of Christmas Past is narrow and deep, not wide. This is the work of just one label, idiosyncrasies and all. As such, it's of less historical importance than Rhino's broad historical overviews - but it is fascinating, all the same. That said, it's no coincidence that no less than seven tracks from Roulette's Christmas Past appear on Rhino's Doo Wop Christmas...

Fully 21 of the 25 tracks on Christmas Past are essential listening (see list below), including two songs on my Top 100, and the rest are of interest to people (like us) who care a lot about the subject matter. These include Frankie Lymon's previously unreleased 1957 recording of "Silent Night," two fairly dull tracks from Jimmie Rodgers' 1959 album, and Lou Monte's maudlin "Christmas At Our House." For better or worse, Westside chose the latter, a 1960 b-side, rather than the a-side, the infamously bad novelty song, "Dominick The Donkey (The Italian Christmas Donkey)" - which I love, by the way. [top of page]

Albums Albums

SongsEssential Songs

  • After New Year's Eve (Heartbeats, 1957)
  • Be-Bop Santa Claus (Babs Gonzales, 1958)
  • Christmas Prayer (Valentines, 1955)
  • Department Store Santa (Before Xmas) (Howard Morris, 1960)
  • Department Store Santa (After Xmas) (Howard Morris, 1960)
  • Don't Cry For Me This Christmas (Marcels, 1961)
  • Five Pound Box Of Money (Pearl Bailey, 1959)
  • Happy New Year Baby (Jo-Ann Campbell, 1958)
  • I Want A Boy For Christmas (Del Vetts, 1961)
  • I Wish You A Merry Christmas (Little Eva & Big Dee Irwin, 1963)
  • It's Christmas Once Again (Frankie Lymon, 1957)
  • (It's Gonna Be) A Lonely Christmas (Orioles, 1948) Top 100 Song
  • Jingle Bells Cha-Cha-Cha (Pearl Bailey, 1959)
  • Merry Twist-mas (Marcels, 1961)
  • My Boyfriend's Coming Home For Christmas (Toni Wine, 1963)
  • O Holy Night (Orioles, 1950)
  • Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (Cadillacs, 1956)
  • Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (Harmony Grits, 1959)
  • There Won't Be Any Snow (Christmas In The Jungle) (Derrik Roberts, 1965)
  • What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? (Orioles, 1949) Top 100 Song
  • Why Don't You Go Home For Christmas? (Jim Backus, 1958)

Further ListeningFurther Listening

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