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Christmas RockWay back when Rhino Records was a little indie label run out of a record store in Los Angeles, they were known mainly for punk rock and novelty records. It didn't take long, however, for Rocky and his crew to reveal their affinity for holiday music. The Ravers' bang-up EP, Punk Rock Christmas (1978) was the label's first Christmas release, and the title track (previously released as an indie single in 1977) was included in 1982 on their next holiday record, a tree-shaped, green vinyl EP simply called Christmas Rock - and ultimately immortalized on Rhino's Punk Rock Xmas CD compilation. The rest of Christmas Rock was very much of a piece with Rhino's zeitgeist - modern surf, rockabilly revival, and a blazing punk assault on "Silent Night."

However, not counting a compilation of songs from the Three Stooges' latter-day series of children's records (Christmas Time With The Three Stooges, 1983), Rhino did not commence reissuing honest-to-goodness vintage Christmas music till 1984, when they dropped a bomb with two full-length LP's entitled Rockin' Christmas (1984). The two Rockin' Christmas records - one each for the 50's and 60's - consist almost exclusively of the kind of rare, idiosyncratic yule tunes that make guys like me hyperventilate. Novelty records, doo wop, rockabilly, soul, garage rock - it's all here! Despite the march of time and technology, track for track the Rockin' Christmas series has never been equaled. I consider all 27 tracks on the three releases essential (see below), and more than a dozen made my Top 100 Songs.

The importance of these two pieces of plastic cannot be overstated - at least, to geeks like me. These were among the first-ever reissues of vintage Christmas music - not just at Rhino, but anywhere - and they were harbingers of a flood of Rhino CD reissues that began in the late 1980's. More personally, the Rockin' Christmas LP's supercharged my then-nascent obsession with Christmas rock 'n' roll. By association, then, they are partly responsible for Hip Christmas - an impressive act of dysfunctional behavior, if I do say so myself.

Rockin' Christmas: The 50'sThe 50's

Rockin' Christmas: The 50's includes one blindingly obvious selection, Bobby Helms' 1957 megahit, "Jingle Bell Rock." After that, all bets are off, and we're treated to an impressive display of the eclecticism that enervated rock 'n roll in its early days - when black and white sounds were coalescing into something altogether new. The album crosses all sorts of lines, racial and musical, and strains the bounds of decency.

This volume of Rockin' Christmas is heavily weighted with rhythm 'n' blues, including Oscar McLollie's mission-defining "Dig That Crazy Santa Claus" (1954), a late jump blues record released just as rock was emerging as a cultural movement. Much of the rest is a cavalcade of doo wop, the largely black vocal group sound that ran the gamut from uptempo mayhem like the Penguins' "Jingle Jangle" (1955) to deeply romantic ballads like Marvin & Johnny's "It's Christmas" (1958). We also get both sides of a 1953 single by the Moonglows, who would prove one of the most durable doo wop groups and whose leader, Harvey Fuqua, would become a key figure at Motown Records.

But, the whiter strain of rock 'n' roll is represented on Rockin' Christmas, as well. The artists involved are, by all appearances, deeply obscure. Two of them - Brenda Lee knockoff Cathy Sharpe ("North Pole Rock," 1959) and Salt Lake City's Three Aces & A Joker ("Sleigh Bell Rock," 1960) - only ever recorded one single. Another, the Moods ("Rockin' Santa Claus") from Luling, Texas, recorded a few sides for Sarg Records - a label well-known to rockabilly enthusiasts - and went on to become a popular regional country act.

Bummed Out ChristmasBut, the Rockin' Stockin' turns out to have been a pseudonymous Billy Lee Riley & The Little Green Men, one of the storied rockabilly acts that recorded for Sun Records, the Memphis-based label that gave us Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Riley and his band, the Little Green Men, are best remembered for their 1957 Sun singles "Flying Saucers Rock 'n' Roll" and "Red Hot," but they were also the Sun house band. Their "Yulesville U.S.A." (1960) is actually an organ-and-sax-driven medley of popular Christmas songs that sounds very different from their earlier recordings.

Black or white, Rockin' Christmas: The 50's shines brightest at its craziest moments. In "Christmas In Jail" (1956), the Youngsters tell a doleful doo wop tale of yuletide inebriation. "I was in the wrong lane feeling no pain," our hero admits, and he gets thrown in the hoosegow for the holidays. By modern standards, this doo wop ditty could be considered politically incorrect; on the other hand, the hapless adventurer gets his due and swears, "Ain't gonna drink and drive no more." That's nothing compared to Ron Holden's "Who Say There Ain't No Santa Claus?" (1960), however. The singer commits robbery, extortion, and murder, and he gets "the chair" for Christmas! Both of these songs, by the way, are also featured on Rhino's Bummed Out Christmas (1989), which is brilliant in a whole different way (read more).

Special mention is reserved for Buchanan & Goodman's "Santa And The Satellite" (1957), a true classic reflecting the madcap spirit of its times as well as the frenetic energy of early rock 'n' roll. It's a "break-in" record, a microgenre that Dickie Goodman all but owned with hits like "Flying Saucer" in the 50's and "Mr. Jaws" in the 70's, in which an interviewer (portrayed here by Goodman and partner Bill Buchanan) plays straight man to snippets of recently popular songs. But, thanks to complex licensing issues, finding decent-sounding original recordings of his hits can be tough, and Rockin' Christmas contains both sides of the original single. That's a key point because it tells the unlikely story of Santa Claus being kidnapped by Martians but escaping disguised as Elvis Presley, and the first side ends with Buchanan intoning, "Turn the record over and find out."

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Rockin' Christmas: The 60'sThe 60's

The early 1960's found rock 'n' roll changing, but only by a matter of degrees. Girl groups, surf music, dance crazes like "The Twist," and instrumental groups like the Ventures were all the rage. Rockin' Christmas: The 60's reflects these new sounds, including tracks like "Twistin' Bells" by Santo & Johnny (1960), "Dancin' With Santa" by the Trashmen (1964), and "Santa & The Sidewalk Surfer" by the Crossfires (1963), an early version of the Turtles (to whom Rhino attributes the track). Rhythm 'n' blues was changing, too, and the emergence of soul music is reflected in songs like "Mr. Santa Claus" (1962) by Detroit's Nathaniel Mayer and "Merry Christmas Baby" (1965) by the Poets, an early version of the Main Ingredient. And, of course, there are novelty records like Barry Richards' "Baby Sittin' Santa" (1962) and Bobby "Boris" Pickett's "Monster Holiday" (1962) - the one true constant throughout decades of Christmas recordings.

But, Bob Dylan and the Beatles changed everything, particularly in 1965 with albums like Highway 61 Revisited and Rubber Soul, respectively. Rock 'n' roll became a serious business - art, even. Christmas records, which were once de rigeur for any recording artist, became a rare thing. The list of late 1960's rock stars who never released a Christmas record (in their heyday, at least) is a long one, indeed - Dylan and the Beatles, for sure, but also the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Janis Joplin, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. It's hard to even imagine such a thing. In the Age of Aquarius, Christmas music wasn't taken seriously, and it certainly wasn't cool.

Happily, there were exceptions, and Rockin' Christmas: The 60's includes several of the best - none better than two tracks from Etiquette Records' Merry Christmas From The Sonics, The Wailers, The Galaxies (1965). If there is any one thing that could be directly attributed to the rise of Dylan and the Beatles, it is garage rock. Every kid in America suddenly wanted to start a band, and they mashed up the hippest sounds they could find into an exciting new sound - loud, aggressive, rebellious, and horny. Seattle's Sonics personified all those traits, and their "Don't Believe In Christmas" is a self-centered rant for the ages. The Wailers, meanwhile, were actually a party band from an earlier era, having scored a hit with "Tall Cool One" in 1959. But, their "Christmas Spirit??" is even more sour than the Sonics' track, and it's one of the all-time greatest Dylan spoofs. Both songs also appear, appropriately enough, on Rhino's aforementioned Bummed Out Christmas.

James BrownNot everything was quite so dystopian, however. Many Christmas records of the late 60's reflected the trippy, utopian spirit of those heady days, while others spoke to social and political unrest. Paul Revere & The Raiders made one of the few full-length holiday records by a major rock group during that period, and it was most assuredly a product of its times - by turns dark, whimsical, and psychedelic. Rockin' Christmas: The 60's highlights "Wear A Smile At Christmas," one of the most straightforward songs on A Christmas Present... And Past - yet it features a cameo appearance by President Lyndon Johnson (though not literally, of course).

James Brown was the one major star of the late 1960's who unequivocally embraced Christmas music, waxing three whole albums of the stuff between 1966 and 1970. Brown launched his recording career in 1956, and by this time he was not only a worldwide star, he was a leading figure in the black community. In his music, he railed against drugs and for education and racial equality, and "Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year" (from his 1966 holiday album) is a fine example of his positive, progressive stance. Rhino, by the way, released the first-ever collection of Brown's Christmas music, Santa's Got A Brand New Bag (1986), though it was made redundant by later anthologies like Funky Christmas (1995) and, especially, The Complete James Brown Christmas (2010).

Again, one track on Rockin' Christmas: The 60's merits special mention, and that's "Christmas Is My Time Of Year" by the Christmas Spirit. The group was a one-off collaboration between Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman (later Flo & Eddie) of the Turtles, erstwhile Byrds Gram and Gene Parsons (who weren't related), a young-and-as-yet-unheralded Linda Ronstadt, and - from the sound of it - anyone else who happened to be hanging around the studio. Kaylan wrote the boisterous "Christmas Is My Time Of Year" with producer Chip Douglas and released it as a single on the Turtles' label, White Whale, backed with "Will You Still Believe In Me," a lovely holiday song written by Ronstadt's former bandmate in the Stone Poneys, Robert Kimmell. The record flopped miserably, though, and it wouldn't be released in the digital age until 2004 when both sides appeared on the compact disc Out Of Nowhere: The White Whale Story Vol. 2, which was later reissued for download and streaming.

Finally, I don't want to ignore the fact that Rockin' Christmas: The 60's includes a song by Aretha Franklin, the unchallenged Queen of Soul. But, her "Winter Wonderland" was recorded for Columbia in 1964, years before she moved to Atlantic Records and waxed classics like "Respect," "Think," and "Natural Woman." Aretha's lighthearted take on the song is fine, but it reflects none of the soulful heft she would bring to her later work. It doesn't even measure up well to her other Columbia recordings, which include some fine, jazz-informed interpretations of the Great American Songbook a la Dinah Washington, Nancy Wilson, and Sarah Vaughan. Still, a Christmas song by Lady Soul is nothing to sneeze at...

The Best Of Cool Yule
Christmas Classics
Doo Wop Christmas
Bummed Out Christmas
Hipsters' Holiday
Rockin' Little Christmas

Consumer Notes

Both of the Rockin' Christmas LP's are hopelessly out-of-print and have never been reissued in any digital format. If you are a vinyl enthusiast, well, you're welcome - and happy hunting! If not, well, what's a girl to do? Happily, Rhino retooled many of these songs (along with others more commonplace, though no less great) on another brief LP series, Cool Yule (1986) and Cool Yule Vol. 2 (1988). These are also out-of-print, but Rhino subsequently issued The Best Of Cool Yule (1988), a compact disc compiling about half of those tracks (read more). Several more tracks showed up the same year on Rhino's fine, if less distinctive, Christmas Classics (read more). Together, the two CDs (both enshrined in my Top 20 Albums list) constitute an instant Christmas collection, but that still leaves many of the Rockin' Christmas tracks stranded in vinyl Siberia.

Other Rockin' Christmas tracks can be found on Rhino's collections Bummed Out Christmas (1989), Hipsters' Holiday (1989), and Doo Wop Christmas (1992), and others are included on Legends Of Christmas Past (EMI, 1992), Reindeer Rock (Sony, 1994), and Rockin' Little Christmas (MCA, 1986). But, as many Christmas albums as I own, roughly a dozen of these songs appear in my collection only on the Rockin' Christmas LP's - not counting European public domain collections of dubious origin.

Rockin' Christmas: Special Collectors EditionThe Rockin' Christmas series set the template for a loose series of Rhino compact discs that started with The Best Of Cool Yule and Christmas Classics. At the height of the CD era, these albums compiled holiday music in a dizzying variety of genres including jazz, blues, doo wop, country, punk, new wave, reggae, and swing (read more). Collectively, they documented the history of recorded Christmas music in the 20th century.

All of these fine collections are out of print, though copies still circulate on the web. Rhino licensed tracks from many disparate labels for use on those specific albums - long before there was such a thing as iTunes or Spotify. So, sadly, none of Rhino's Christmas collections made the leap to the world of downloads or streaming. I wish I could say that there are equivalents in the virtual world but, mostly, there are not. Many of the songs can be found on other sources, but a lot of the copyrights now fall under the looser European public domain standards, meaning almost any idiot can upload them to your favorite streamer. So, buyer beware.

Postscript

Roughly 40 years after the fact, I discovered that Rhino released an abbreviated, co-branded edition of Rockin' Christmas through The Good Guys, a chain of West Coast record stores founded in 1973 but defunct - like many music retailers - by the early 21st century. Labeled a "Special Collectors Edition," the LP had five songs from the 50's volume and five from the 60's - meaning it was no big deal, and nobody but an obsessed collector would shell out big bucks for an incredibly rare copy if he already owned the other two editions. We don't know anybody who answers to that description, do we? [top of page]

Albums Albums

SongsEssential Songs

  • - Christmas Rock (1982)
  • (It's Gonna Be A) Punk Rock Christmas (Ravers, 1977)
  • Rockabilly Christmas (Johnny Cue, 1981)
  • Santa's Gone Surfin' (Malibooz, 1981)
  • Silent Night (Dragons, 1982)
  • - Rockin' Christmas: The 50's (1984)
  • Christmas In Jail (The Youngsters, 1956) Top 100 Song
  • Dig That Crazy Santa Claus (Oscar McLollie & His Honey Jumpers, 1954)
  • Hey Santa Claus (The Moonglows, 1953) Top 100 Song
  • It's Christmas (Marvin & Johnny, 1958) Top 100 Song
  • Jingle Bell Rock (Bobby Helms, 1957) Top 100 Song
  • Jingle Jangle (The Penguins, 1955) Top 100 Song
  • Just A Lonely Christmas (The Moonglows, 1953)
  • North Pole Rock (Cathy Sharpe, 1959)
  • Rockin' 'n' Rollin' With Santa Claus (The Hepsters, 1955)
  • Rockin' Santa Claus (The Moods, 1960)
  • Santa And The Satellite (Parts 1 & 2) (Buchanan & Goodman, 1957) Top 100 Song
  • Sleigh Bell Rock (Three Aces & A Joker, 1960) Top 100 Song
  • Who Say There Ain't No Santa Claus? (Ron Holden, 1960) Top 100 Song
  • - Rockin' Christmas: The 60's (1984)
  • Baby Sittin' Santa (Barry Richards, 1962) Top 100 Song
  • Christmas Is My Time Of Year (Christmas Spirit, 1968) Top 100 Song
  • Christmas Spirit?? (Wailers, 1965) Top 100 Song
  • Dancin' With Santa (Trashmen, 1964)
  • Don't Believe In Christmas (Sonics, 1965) Top 100 Song
  • Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year (James Brown, 1966)
  • Merry Christmas Baby (The Poets, 1965)
  • Monster Holiday (Bobby "Boris" Pickett, & The Crypt Kickers, 1962)
  • Mr. Santa Claus (Bring Me My Baby) (Nathaniel Mayer & His Fabulous Twilights, 1962) Top 100 Song
  • Santa & The Sidewalk Surfer (Crossfires, 1963) Top 100 Song
  • Twistin' Bells (Santo & Johnny, 1960) Top 100 Song
  • Wear A Smile At Christmas (Paul Revere & The Raiders, 1968)
  • Winter Wonderland (Aretha Franklin, 1964)

Further ListeningFurther Listening

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