MARY’S BOY CHILD

HARRY BELAFONTE
SONGWRITER: JESTER HAIRSTON
COUNTRY: JAMAICAXU. S. A.
ALBUM: AN EVENING WITH BELAFONTE
LABEL: RCA VICTOR
GENRE: CHRISTMAS SONG
YEAR: 1957
 
       Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is a Jamaican-American singer, songwriter, activist, and actor. One of the most successful Jamaican-American pop stars in history, he was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Trinidadian Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s. His breakthrough álbum Calypso (1956) was the first million-selling LP by a single artist. Belafonte is known for his recording of "The Banana Boat Song", with its signature lyric "Day-O". He has recorded and performed in many genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards. He has also starred in several films, including Otto Preminger's hit musical Carmen Jones (1954), Island in the Sun (1957), and Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow (1959).
               Belafonte was an early supporter of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s and was a confidant of Martin Luther King Jr.. Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for political and humanitarian causes, such as the Anti-Apartheid Movement and USA for Africa. Since 1987, he has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. He was a vocal critic of the policies of the George W. Bush presidential administrations. Belafonte acts as the American Civil Liberties Union celebrity ambassador for juvenile justice issues.
         Belafonte has won three Grammy Awards (including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award), an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award. In 1989, he received the Kennedy Center Honors. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994. In 2014, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy's 6th Annual Governors Awards.
                 An Evening with Belafonte is a studio album by Harry Belafonte, released by RCA Victor in 1957.
"Mary's Boy Child" is a 1956 Christmas song, written by Jester Hairston. It is widely performed as a Christmas carol.
              The song had its genesis when Hairston was sharing a room with a friend. The friend asked him to write a song for a birthday party. Hairston wrote the song with a calypso rhythm because the people at the party would be mainly West Indians. The song's original title was "He Pone and Chocolate Tea", pone being a type of corn bread. It was never recorded in this form.
                 Some time later Walter Schumann, at the time conducting Schumann's Hollywood Choir, asked Hairston to write a new Christmas song for his choir. Hairston remembered the calypso rhythm from his old song and wrote new lyrics for it.
          Harry Belafonte heard the song being performed by the choir and sought permission to record it. It was recorded in 1956 and released as a single that year. Belafonte released it again the following year in 1957 on his album An Evening with Belafonte, using a different, longer take. This longer version was also released in the UK as a single (with a B-side of Eden Was Just Like This), where it became the first UK number one to have a playing time of over four minutes. It reached Nº. 1 on the UK Singles Chart in November 1957, and has since sold over 1.19 million copies there.
              In 1962, the full-length version was also added to a re-issue of Belafonte's previously released álbum To Wish You a Merry Christmas.
Long time ago in Bethlehem
So the Holy Bible say
Mary's boy child, Jesus Christ
Was born on Christmas day.
 
Hark, now hear the angels sing
A new King born today
And man will live forever more
Because of Christmas day.
 
While shepherds watched their flock by night
And see a bright new shining star
And hear a choir sing
The music seems to come from afar.
 
Now Joseph and his wife Mary
Come to Bethlehem that night
And find no place to borne she child
Not a single room was in sight.
 
Hark, now hear the angels sing
A new King born today
And man will live forever more
Because of Christmas day.
 
By and by they find a little nook
In a stable all forlorn
And in a manger cold and dark
Mary's little boy was born.
 
Hark, now hear the angels sing
A new King born today
And man will live forever more
Because of Christmas day.

RUDFOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER

BING CROSBY
SONGWRITER: JOHNNY MARKS
COUNTRY: U. S. A.
ALBUM: ALBUM BING CROSBY – CHRISTMAS CLASSICS
LABEL: CAPITOL RECORDS
GENRE: CHRISTMAS SONG
YEAR: 1951
 
         Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, comedian and actor. The first multimedia star, Crosby was a leader in record sales, radio ratings, and motion picture grosses from 1930 to 1954. He made over seventy feature films and recorded more than 1,600 different songs.
        His early career coincided with recording innovations that allowed him to develop an intimate singing style that influenced many male singers who followed him, including Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Dick Haymes, Elvis Presley, and John Lennon.
             Yank magazine said that he was "the person who had done the most for the morale of overseas servicemen" during World War II. In 1948, American polls declared him the "most admired man alive," ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. Also in 1948, Music Digest estimated that his recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music.
             Crosby won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Going My Way (1944), and was nominated for its sequel The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) opposite Ingrid Bergman, becoming the first of six actors to be nominated twice for playing the same character. In 1963, Crosby received the first Grammy Global Achievement Award. He is one of 33 people to have three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in the categories of motion pictures, radio, and audio recording. He was also known for his collaborations with longtime friend Bob Hope, starring in the Road to... films from 1940 to 1962.
         Crosby influenced the development of the postwar recording industry. After seeing a demonstration of a German broadcast quality reel-to-reel tape recorder brought to America by John T. Mullin, he invested $50,000 in a California electronics company called Ampex to build copies. He then convinced ABC to allow him to tape his shows. He became the first performer to pre-record his radio shows and master his commercial recordings onto magnetic tape.
        Through the medium of recording, he constructed his radio programs with the same directorial tools and craftsmanship (editing, retaking, rehearsal, time shifting) used in motion picture production, a practice that became an industry standard. In addition to his work with early audio tape recording, he helped to finance the development of videotape, bought television stations, bred racehorses, and co-owned the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team.
                "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is a song by songwriter Johnny Marks based on the 1939 story Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer published by the Montgomery Ward Company. Gene Autry's recording hit No. 1 on the U.S. charts the week of Christmas 1949.
In 1939, Marks' brother-in-law, Robert L. May, created the character Rudolph as an assignment for Montgomery Ward, and Marks decided to adapt the story of Rudolph into a song. English singer-songwriter and entertainer Ian Whitcomb interviewed Marks on the creation of the song in 1972.
       The song had an added introduction, paraphrasing the poem "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" (public domain by the time the song was written), stating the names of the eight reindeer, which went:
             "You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer                                  and Vixen,
                    Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen,
                    But do you recall
                   The most famous reindeer of all?"
            They SUPPOSED The song was first sung by crooner Harry Brannon on New York City radio in early November 1949, Gene Autry's recording hit Nº. 1 in the US charts during Christmas 1949. The song was suggested as a "B" side for a record Autry was making. Autry first rejected the song, but his wife convinced him to use it. The success of this Christmas song by Autry gave support to Autry's subsequent popular Easter song, "Here Comes Peter Cottontail". Autry's version of the song also holds the distinction of being the only chart-topping hit to fall completely off the chart after reaching Nº. 1. The official date of its Nº. 1 status was for the week ending January 7, 1950, making it the first No. 1 song of the 1950s.
                (…)Autry's recording sold 1.75 million copies its first Christmas season and 1.5 million the following year. In 1969, it was awarded a gold disk by the RIAA for sales of 7 million, which was Columbia's highest-selling record at the time. It eventually sold a total of 12.5 million. Cover versions included, sales exceed 150 million copies, second only to Bing Crosby's "White Christmas".
               Autry recorded another version of the song in the fall of 1957 and released it the same year through his own record label, Challenge Records. This version featured an accompaniment by a full orchestra and chorus. This was the only other version of the song Autry recorded and released on an album.
                  In 1959, Chuck Berry released a recording of a sequel, "Run Rudolph Run" (sometimes called "Run Run Rudolph"), credited to Marks and Marvin Brodie.
          In December 2018, Autry's original version entered the Billboard Hot 100 at #36, nearly 70 years after it first charted. It climbed to #27 the week ending December 22, 2018. and peaked at #16 the week ending January 5, 2019.
 

You know
There's Dasher
And Dancer
Prancer and Vixen
Comet and Cupid
Donner and Blitzen
But do you recall
The most famous
Reindeer of all?
 
Rudolph
The Red-Nosed Reindeer
Had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw him
You would even say it glows
 
All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh
And call him names
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games
 
Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say
"Rudolph with your nose so bright
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"
 
Then how the reindeer loved him
As they shouted out with glee
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
You'll go down in history"
 
Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say
"Hey, Rudolph
With your nose so bright
Won't you guide
My sleigh tonight?"
 
Then how the reindeer loved him
As they shouted out with glee
"Hey
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
You'll go down in history".

SANTA BABY

EARTHA KITT
SONGWRITERS: FRED EBB; JOAN JAVITS & PHILIP SPRINGER
COUNTRY: U. S. A.
ALBUM: SANTA BABY
LABEL: RCA VICTOR
GENRE: CHRISTMAS SONG
YEAR: 1953
 
                 Eartha Kitt (born Eartha Mae Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer, actress, dancer, comedienne, activist, author, and songwriter known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Baby", both of which reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the world".
                  Kitt began her career in 1942 and appeared in the 1945 original Broadway theatre production of the musical Carib Song. In the early 1950s, she had six US Top 30 hits, including "Uska Dara" and "I Want to Be Evil". Her other notable recordings include the UK Top 10 hit "Under the Bridges of Paris" (1954), "Just an Old Fashioned Girl" (1956) and "Where Is My Man" (1983). She starred as Catwoman in the third and final season of the television series Batman in 1967.
            In 1968, her career in the U.S. deteriorated after she made anti-Vietnam War statements at a White House luncheon. Ten years later, she made a successful return to Broadway in the 1978 original production of the musical Timbuktu!, for which she received the first of her two Tony Award nominations. Her second was for the 2000 original production of the musical The Wild Party. Kitt wrote three autobiographies.
              Kitt found a new generation of fans through her roles in the Disney films The Emperor's New Groove (2000), in which she voiced the villainous Yzma, and Holes (2003). She reprised the role as Yzma in the direct-to-video sequel Kronk's New Groove (2005), as well as the animated series The Emperor's New School (2006–2008). Her work on the latter earned her two Daytime Emmy Awards. She posthumously won a third Emmy in 2010 for her guest performance on Wonder Pets!.
             "Santa Baby" is a song performed by American singer Eartha Kitt with Henri René and His Orchestra and originally released in 1953. The song was written by Joan Javits and Philip Springer, who also used the pseudonym Tony Springer in an attempt to speed up the song's publishing process. Lyrically, the song is a tongue-in-cheek look at a Christmas list addressed to Santa Claus by a woman who wants extravagant gifts such as sables, yachts, and decorations from Tiffany's.
         The lyrical content of "Santa Baby" proved controversial, resulting in temporary bans of the song in the Southern United States. Music critics gave mixed reviews to the single, with some calling it too suggestive for a holiday-themed song. Springer was initially dissatisfied with "Santa Baby" and called it one of his weakest works. It has since been included on lists of both the best and worst Christmas songs ever written.
                In the United States, "Santa Baby" became the best-selling Christmas song of 1953 and found more success, retrospectively, when it entered various component charts by Billboard in the 2000s and 2010s. Elsewhere, it peaked on the record charts in Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. As of 2014, Kitt's version has sold more than 620,000 copies, having appeared on Kitt's self-titled and first extended play in 1954.
               "Santa Baby" has been parodied, referenced, and featured in various films and television series. It has also been covered by many artists, such as Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Taylor Swift, Michael Bublé, and Trisha Yearwood. Other musicians, including Ariana Grande and Gwen Stefani, released covers of the song as commercial singles. Many of the cover versions experienced major commercial success, with Minogue's version reaching the top 40 of the UK Singles Chart and selling over 400,000 copies. Madonna's cover has sold 270,000 copies in the United States and was subject to discussion by many music critics, who believed her version revived the popularity of the song. Kitt, however, disliked Madonna's association with the track. Grande's cover was released as a duet with Elizabeth Gillies and managed positions on charts in several countries such as Australia, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

Santa Baby, just slip a sable under the tree, for me
I've been an awful good girl
Santa Baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight
Santa Baby, a fifty-four convertible too, light blue
I'll wait up for you dear
Santa Baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight
Think of all the fun I've missed
Think of all the fellas that I haven't kissed
Next year I could be just as good
If you'd check off my Christmas list
 
Santa Baby, I wanna yacht and really that's
Not a lot
I've been an angel all year
Santa Baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight
Santa honey, one little thing I really need, the deed
To a platinum mine
Santa Baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight
Santa cutie, and fill my stocking with a duplex, and checks
Sign your 'X' on the line
 
Santa cutie, and hurry down the chimney tonight
Come and trim my Christmas tree
With some decorations bought at Tiffany's
I really do believe in you
Let's see if you believe in me
Santa Baby, forgot to mention one little thing, a ring
I don't mean a new phone
Santa Baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight
Hurry down the chimney tonight
Hurry down the chimney tonight. 

DECK THE ALL

NAT KING COLE
SONGWRITERS: EDITH BERGDAHL & JÖRGEN ELOFSSON
COUNTRY: U. S. A.
ALBUM: THE MAGIC OF CHRISTMAS
LABEL: CAPITOL RECORDS
GENRE: CHRISTMAS SONG
YEAR: 1960
 
           Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer and jazz pianist. He recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts. His trio was the model for small jazz ensembles that followed. Cole also acted in films and on television and performed on Broadway. He was the first African-American man to host an American television series. He was the father of singer-songwriter Natalie Cole (1950–2015).
          The Magic of Christmas is a 1960 album by Nat King Cole, arranged and conducted by Ralph Carmichael.
       This was Cole's only complete album of Christmas songs, although he had recorded several holiday singles earlier in his career. One of these, "The Christmas Song", originally recorded in 1946, was re-recorded for the 1961 album The Nat King Cole Story. In 1963 The Magic of Christmas was reissued under the title The Christmas Song, with that recording added to the track list in place of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", and with new cover art.
          It is the best-selling Christmas album released in the 1960s, and was certified by the RIAA for shipments of 6 million copies in the U.S. The 1963 version reached number 1 on Billboard's Christmas Albums chart and remained for two weeks.

Deck The Halls
Deck the halls with boughs of holly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Tis the season to be jolly
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
 
Don we now our gay apparel,
Fa la la, la la la, la la la.
Troll the ancient Yule tide carol,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
 
See the blazing Yule before us,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Strike the harp and join the chorus.
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
 
Follow me in merry measure,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
While I tell of Yule tide treasure,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.