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Whispers, Happy Holidays To You, 1979 coverYou'd be forgiven for assuming - as I did - that The Whispers were a product of the late 70's disco era. Indeed, the group scored some huge dance hits after signing to Solar Records, the Los Angeles-based label that was also home to Shalamar, Lakeside, and Midnight Star, among others. "And The Beat Goes On" (1979) and "It's A Love Thing" (1981) both reached Billboard's Top 10 R&B and Top 40 Pop charts. A little later, "Rock Steady" (1987) became their all-time greatest hit. But, in fact, the group had been around since the early 1960's and had been chalking up a string of relatively modest rhythm & blues hits since 1969. Anchored by identical twins Wallace and Walter Scott, the Whispers continued charting singles until 1997 and remained an active concern decades into the 21st century - albeit with reduced ranks as original members passed away. In 2023, the Whispers even released a new holiday single, "This Christmas," a song they first recorded on Happy Holidays To You in 1979.

Happy Holidays To You is significant in a number of ways, including the fact that it exists at all. At the time, Christmas albums by major R&B stars were relatively rare. They weren't unheard of - Gladys Knight and the Salsoul Orchestra recorded ones about the same time - but the fact that some of the biggest holiday albums of the 1970's were by the Partridge Family, John Denver, and the Carpenters tells you something. Christmas music was not, in a word, hip. In recording Happy Holidays To You, the Whispers were helping reclaim Christmas music for their audience - the emergent black middle class. And, while not exactly a hit - the album reached #50 on the R&B charts, and the title track failed to chart when released as a single - Happy Holidays To You made a lasting impression. In 1981, critic David McGee included it on his foundational list of essential Christmas albums, and it's been reissued over and over (with multiple covers, by the way), including a two-for-one CD edition that paired the Christmas album with their self-titled 1980 Solar breakthrough.

Whispers, Happy Holidays To You, 1985 cover
1985
Whispers, Happy Holidays To You, 1987 cover
1987
Whispers, Happy Holidays To You, 1993 cover
1993

Now, having told you all that, I should emphasize that I don't exactly agree with McGee's assessment of Happy Holidays To You as "essential." As I have already implied, the Whispers were making music for adults - their peers, in reality. The Whispers were all grown-ass men by this point in their careers. They had lived through the heyday of soul, then funk and disco - not to mention the civil rights struggle, the Vietnam War, and subsequent urban decay. The Whispers and their audience were ready for music smoother, calmer, more dignified and romantic. Happy Holidays To You reflects that desire across the totality of its eight lushly arranged, impeccably sung tracks. Even the album's opening track - conspicuously titled "Funky Christmas" - goes down pretty easy. Personally, I prefer my rhythm & blues with more grit, but your results may vary.

Whispers, Christmas MomentsBut, don't get me wrong. Happy Holidays To You isn't a bad album - I'd give it a solid B-plus - and it certainly accomplishes its goal of putting a polished, Afrocentric shine on the Christmas genre. Four of the songs were written for the project, and they are the ones that stand out - including "Funky Christmas," cowritten by Nicholas Caldwell, a founding member of the Whispers, even if he should have more accurately called it "Disco Christmas." Caldwell's mid-tempo "This Time Of The Year" also cooks pretty good, but "A Very Special Holiday" - written by fellow Solar artist Juanita Hines - is merely dull. Ultimately, it's the sentimental, soft-spoken title track - written by Lakeside's Mark Adam, Jr., and originally released as a single in 1978 - that really puts the album in the record books. Instantly memorable, the Whispers' "Happy Holidays To You" captures both the spirit of the season and the character of the group perfectly.

The other half of Happy Holidays To You consists of three traditional holiday standards and a song that would become one - the aforementioned "This Christmas," cowritten and originally recorded in 1970 by Donny Hathaway. Most artists who cover "This Christmas" don't do much with it, sticking to Hathaway's (admittedly great) arrangement. To their credit, the Whispers don't, opting instead to give it the full "slow jam" treatment. This plays to their strengths, perhaps, but it bores me to tears. I prefer their take on Nat King Cole's classic "Christmas Song," which is tailor-made for lead vocalist Wallace "Scotty" Scott, who sings largely solo with a neat little jazz vocalese break near the coda. A salsa-flavored "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" and a disco-styled "White Christmas" complete the bill - fine, functional, but forgettable.

But, The Beat Goes On...

After the Whispers' tenure at Solar Records ended in the late 1980's, I stopped paying much attention. But, they released two more holiday albums over the years. The first one, Christmas Moments (1994), was their second of three albums recorded for their next label, Capitol Records. It applies the same basic formula: a mix of original compositions, pop standards, and traditional carols in the Whispers' smooth, soulful style. The only real difference is the production, which reflects the prevailing mainstream R&B of the day - Boyz II Men, Keith Sweat, Toni Braxton, et al. But, for me, if Happy Holidays To You was an uphill climb, Christmas Moments was a bridge too far.

By the turn of the century, the Whispers were fending for themselves, and Christmas With The Whispers (2010) was self-released through CD Baby, a company that, at the time, enabled small acts to offer compact discs (and later downloads) online. The album compiles tracks from both previous albums plus one stray track, a George Duke-produced cover of the Carpenters' 1970 hit "Merry Christmas Darling," taken from a 1997 R&B compilation on Sony-distributed N2K Records, 'Tis The Season. Frankly, I'm not sure how the struggling group pulled off that licensing hat trick, but the tracks sure sound like the official masters to me. The CD quickly became rare, but the album is now widely available for streaming and download. (The group also released an apparently unrelated DVD called Christmas With The Whispers in 2008.)

Albums Albums

SongsEssential Songs

  • The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire) (1979)
  • Funky Christmas (1979)
  • Happy Holidays To You (1978)
  • This Time Of The Year (1979)

Further ListeningFurther Listening

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