A Christmas Gift For You

2021

The Beautiful South, Hold It Back (1995)
The Beautiful South was formed in 1989 by Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway out of the remnants of The Housemartins, a very English alt-pop band founded by Heaton and Norman Cook. (Hemingway joined later.) The Housemartins could be described as something like the Smiths, but with way more pop savvy, and the Beautiful South would continue much in that vein - arguably more refined and genteel musically, but more socially attuned in their lyrical concerns. Norman Cook, meanwhile, would head off in a whole 'nother direction, founding Beats International and eventually transforming into über DJ Fatboy Slim.

The Beautiful South's "Hold It Back" (sometimes subtitled "The Christmas Song") was recorded at a BBC Christmas show, December 25, 1995, at the end of a year during which the band wouldn't release an album but were poised to become one of the hottest acts in the world - at least outside the United States, where the Beautiful South scarcely ever registered on the charts. Their 1994 collection, Carry On Up The Charts: The Best Of The Beautiful South, had gone #1 in the UK, as would their next two studio albums, Blue Is The Colour (1996) and Quench (1998).

All of which makes it weird that "Hold It Back" was never officially released. Rather, it is arguably the first-ever free Christmas song given away through a band's website. That's an impossible point to prove, but remember, this was before iTunes, or Spotify, or MySpace, or Napster, or even broadband. Anyway, it's not altogether a rarity - anyone who knows how to Google can probably snag a copy - but I felt like "Hold It Back" deserved a slightly more prominent place in the pantheon of Christmas songs - if only as a milestone in the development of the interwebs. The song itself is a downcast, but droll, tale of Christmas loneliness, sweetly sung by Hemingway. He's "sick of minding his own business" while drowning his sorrow in alcohol-free beer and pulling crackers with the dog.

The Beautiful South ceased to be in 2007, releasing what has to be one of the all-time great announcements to the press, "The Beautiful South have split up due to musical similarities." It didn't take long for things to reignite, however, with Paul Heaton performing as a duo with Jacqui Abbott - the second of three female vocalists to cycle through the band - and Dave Hemingway forming a 'New Beautiful South' with Alison Wheeler, the band's third and final female singer. That group was simply called The South, and they've released just one album, Sweet Refrain (2012), but have carried on till this day. Heaton and Abbott, meanwhile, can be found on Facebook under their old band's name, and they released their own holiday track just a few years ago - "Christmas (And Dad Wants Her Back)," a rousing, sad, but hilarious tale of family dysfunction. Two very different versions of the song were added to the deluxe version of their 2020 album, Manchester Calling.

Babs Gonzales, Rock & Roll Santa Claus (1957)
Largely lost to history, Babs Gonzales doesn't get credit for a lot these days, even though he was a real innovator in the world of "word" jazz, aka vocalese. Gonzales recorded briefly for Blue Note and Capitol in the late 40's and early 50's, and throughout his career was associated with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Lionel Hampton, Sonny Rollins, and Dizzy Gillespie. But, that career never really took off, and he spent most of his adult life recording intermittently for a long series of independent labels - even publishing his own books and records. And while, mostly, he toiled in obscurity, he was a celebrated and colorful figure in the New York jazz scene almost until his death in 1980. (Learn more in this excellent article from Illinois Public Media.)

These days, however, Babs Gonzales is well-known only among the Christmas-obsessed thanks to several holiday songs scattered among his large and disorganized catalog of jazz sides. Babs could scat and sing like a typical vocalese performer; his song "Oop-Pop-A-Da" (Blue Note, 1947) with his band Three Bips And A Bop is a good example, and probably his most famous recording. But, he excelled at storytelling, painting vivid stories of the street in a truly unique, always amusing brand of hipster jive-speak. And, that's the style he employed on his four holiday sides. One of them, "Be Bop Santa Claus" (1955), appeared on two fine CD compilations, Hipsters' Holiday (1989) and Christmas Past (1998), and another, "Teenage Santa Claus" (1959), pops up with regularity on public domain collections. Both are even available on over-priced CD singles of dubious origin, as well as for download. But, the two other songs have never been legitimately reissued, appearing only on a CD of equally dubious origin, Cool Whalin' - which is where I got my copy of "Rock & Roll Santa Claus."

There's no easy way to describe Gonzales' style, so I won't try too hard. You can listen for yourself. I won't even try very hard to spell, let alone interpret his lyrics. That said, compared to the more famous "Be Bop Santa Claus," "Rock & Roll Santa Claus" is relatively plainspoken and, dare I say it, clearly aimed at a younger, whiter audience. But, much like the Jolly Old Elf portrayed in "Be Bop" and "Teenage Santa Claus" records, Babs is presenting a new-fangled Saint Nick, one better suited for the modern world and, more specifically, the modern teenager. Rather than a sleigh and reindeer, "This cat's gonna whale on in on a canary yellow float," bringing "real boss presents" like "all the hit records by Boone, Presley, and Sam The Man" (Pat, Elvis, and Cooke, I assume). Then Santa's gonna rent Carnegie Hall and hire Alan Freed's band "so all the rock 'n' rollers can have one terrible ball!" And, in case you're curious, "Jocko's spaceship" is a reference to Douglas "Jocko" Henderson, a New York disk jockey who hosted a long-running radio show called Jocko's Rocket Ship Show.

For the record, "Rock & Roll Santa Claus" was issued on 45 by End Records, one of the Roulette family of labels, and it was backed with an hilariously egotistical song called "Me - Spelled M-E - Me." And, what about Babs' fourth holiday side? It's a New Year's song called "Watch Them Resolutions," and you can hear it now in my Christmas Jukebox. But, maybe next year...

SSD, Jolly Old Saint Nicholas (1983)
Apparently, I am slowly sharing the entire, terrific Boston Rock Christmas EP, starting back in 2005 with Native Tongue's "Do You Hear What I Hear," continuing in 2011 with "O Holy Night" by the band Christmas, and now "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas" by semi-legendary straight-edge punk band SSD (stands for "Society System Decontrol"). So, that leaves two songs after this year - hopefully we'll all live long enough. Anyway, I'll try not to be too long-winded in my praise of Boston Rock, mainly because I've already made that case. Suffice to say that it lives up to its name - it's Christmas rock 'n' roll by a bunch of Boston bands - and I think it's one of the all-time great Christmas albums, despite its brevity and scarcity. By the way, I don't do a lot of YouTube, but I did make sure the whole EP is available over there - here's the playlist.

Now, concerning the song itself, I'm not a huge hardcore or straight edge punk fan - I'm more of a first-wave guy - but this track is a complete and total freight train of a performance. Beginning with plodding, mock seriousness, the band starts slamming about 30 seconds in and never lets up till their overly grand conclusion crashes to a stop. When lead singer David Spring (aka Springa) screams at Saint Nick, "Lean your ear this way," it sounds more like an order (or a threat) than a request. And, when guitarist Alan Barile kicks into his solo, it sounds more like a machine gun than a musical instrument. Really, the band barely even performs the song - they just sing the first verse twice - and, most amusingly, Springa isn't even singing the melody. Rather, he's singing the harmony line from Ray Conniff's arrangement on his 1962 album We Wish You A Merry Christmas. I guess his parents owned that record, too...

The Pretenders, Blue Christmas (2008)
More than a few of my little gifts over the years have been digital-only releases that got deleted. Unlike deleted records, tapes, and compact discs, there are no "used MP3" shops to rummage through. (Sorry, Napster.) When those songs are deleted, they're just gone. One of the more egregious cases of this was the Pretenders' 2008 Holiday EP offered exclusively through iTunes, then suddenly withdrawn from circulation. I mean, it's the Pretenders - come on! But, here's the good news: I have a copy to share. And, here's the bad news: It's not very good - or, at least, hardly exceptional. The EP consisted of just four songs, including a by-the-numbers reading of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas," an uncharacteristically folksy version of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," and a new rendition of the band's greatest holiday hit, "2000 Miles."

The track that stands out - even if it's a piss-take - is "Blue Christmas." The band starts out in drawling, shambling Elvis mode, barely in tune and clearly under-rehearsed. About halfway through, Chrissie Hynde suddenly barks out "One! Two! Three! Four!" and the band takes off in a breakneck punk breakdown, including a squalling one-note-solo by (I think) James Walbourne, who joined the group that year. Then, barely a minute later - bam! - it's over. You can almost hear Chrissie drop the mike.

Betty Lloyd, Six Days Till Christmas (circa 1968)
Here's a record that astounds me with its obscurity. Betty Lloyd was a talented singer in the soul vein, resembling a fuller-throated Dionne Warwick. She probably - online evidence is very thin - started out in a Long Island, New York-based girl group called the Percells, led by Gail Houston (née Jones). The Percells cut a handful of singles for ABC-Paramount, circa 1962, and promptly disappeared. Lloyd pops up again in 1965, cutting a record for the tiny Detroit label BCS called "I'm Catching On" which, while hardly a success, is well-respected in soul circles. Her Christmas single, "Six Days Till Christmas" was most likely originally released on BCS, as well, probably around 1967 or 1968, though no hard evidence exists - at least that I've been able to discover.

And, here's where things get interesting. "Six Days Till Christmas" very much resembles the Chicago sound being cultivated at the time by Curtis Mayfield, soul wunderkind and leader of the Impressions. And, suddenly, "Six Days Till Christmas" was reissued in 1969 on Thomas, a precursor of Mayfield's Curtom Records - but under a new title, "Snowflakes." So, the question is, did Mayfield have anything to do with Lloyd's record? We'll never know, but adding to the mystery is the fact that Lloyd is credited with writing the song - but with a different co-writer on the different editions. On BCS, it's "Tony Steele," and on Thomas, it's "Richard Boozer" - both otherwise non-entities and, really, Boozer and Steele? Could they be Mayfield working under pseudonyms? We'll never know, of course, but in the meantime, enjoy the record!

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