“When you trim your Christmas tree, think of me beside you”

Most of my Christmas music articles will include some variation of the statement “it all started with Bing Crosby” and that’s because it did. If we are talking Christmas music, as we do at this time of year, it always warrants mentioning that it really did become a thing when Crosby recorded “Silent Night” in 1935. At that point in time – and even for the next seven years – singers of popular song did not generally record Christmas music. 1942 was of course the year of the film Holiday Inn and it’s stand-out song “White Christmas”. With his recording of this Irving Berlin gem, Bing put Christmas music on the map and many singers and bands followed suit. It was Crosby, though, who cemented himself as the foremost purveyor of such. Actually, Bing Crosby was the foremost purveyor…period. He was the biggest star in the world and in fact tried his hand at all kinds of music including Irish, Hawaiian and country and western. But there was certainly something about the way he had with a Yuletide favourite. You could tell that it meant something to him.

Crosby had initially balked at recording “Silent Night” in 1935. It must be remembered that this was a time when songs like this were revered and sacred and Bing thought it somehow sacrilegious that he – a singer of romantic songs and an owner of racehorses – should profit monetarily or otherwise by recording this hymn. But record it he did and “Christmas music”, as we modern audiences know it, was born.

Few artists in history were more prolific in the studio than Bing Crosby. He began appearing on recordings in the 1920s and before the dawn of the 1940s, his record label, Decca, began releasing “albums” in the earliest iteration of the format – that is, five (or more, or less) 10-inch shellac discs collected together and placed in sleeves joined together in what at the time would have resembled a photo album. From the infancy of this method of releasing music then, Bing Crosby was at the forefront of the recording business. In 1945, after over a dozen such album releases, Bing blessed the world with the first of many cherished Yuletide giftings.

---

Merry Christmas (1945) — Some things are hard to comprehend. The enormity of some things is difficult to grasp in today’s world. In 1945, Decca Records released this album that was built from recent singles of Bing’s, making it, technically, a “compilation”. Try to understand when I tell you that it hit the shelves in ’45 and today – almost 80 years later – it is still in print. It went through several changes, as we will see, but this record can still be purchased today. And the songs on this record? Well, get the thesaurus out. They are the epitome of timeless.

Bing’s pitch-perfect 1942 rendition of “Silent Night” begins the program to be followed by the regal “Adeste Fideles”. The “White Christmas” on this album is the 1942 version, the only time this recording has been issued on an album (save for more recent compilations). In an “unprecedented occurrence”, the master from ’42 was damaged due to overuse. They had made so many records from it that it wore out. Nice to have “Let’s Start the New Year Right” from Holiday Inn included as well as “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”. And Disc 5 of this original album is one of the swingin’-est 78s of a swingin’ era. Bing recorded “Jingle Bells” and “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” with the Andrews Sisters in September of ’43 and these tracks conclude this early edition of one of the most significant releases in the history of recorded music. This album was reissued on 10″ LP in 1951, paring down the tracks to 8 in total. Somehow, through the magic of thrifting, I own both the 78s and the 10-inch versions.

“‘Merry Christmas’ counts for more than sales; it set the table for the thematic compilations that flourished in the age of vinyl and launched an international tradition, flinging a compulsory challenge to generations of performers to enter the seasonal sweepstakes.”

Crosby biographer Gary Giddins in Bing Crosby: Swinging on a Star

---

Christmas Greetings (1949) — Odd that Bing Crosby would record a Christmas album in the golden era that is today “largely forgotten” but here it is, following in the great tradition of sequels, I guess. Patty, Maxene and LaVerne are are hand again with Vic Schoen’s swingin’ band. I have written before of the effervescent magic that was created when the team of Bing, the sisters and Vic tore through their duo of Christmas classics on Bing’s previous release. Christmas Greetings is unique in that it is Bing Crosby singing Christmas in his prime and the results are simply pleasant and not sublime.

Bing and the girls do a nice “Here Comes Santa Claus” and a cute “Twelve Days of Christmas”. Side Two of this 10-inch features two medleys of carols and Mel Tormé and Robert Wells’ “The Christmas Song”. On this record, Bing sings not only with the Andrews Sisters but also with the singers of Ken’s Lane and Darby. Ken Lane spent the Sixties as Dean Martin‘s pianist, appearing with Dino on his variety show and Ken Darby had sang with Bing on the original 1942 version of “White Christmas”. Darby would also compose songs for Presley’s first film, Love Me Tender, creating the hit title song from a Civil War ballad. Completists including myself would like to own this specific album but happily, all of the songs on the record are collected on the 1998 2-CD set The Voice of Christmas, a collection you simply cannot be without.

---

Merry Christmas (1955) — I hesitated to distinguish this release from Bing’s first, listed above. While I think it can be argued that the first release – they do bear the same title – simply morphed into this follow-up, perhaps they can be differentiated in that the first was an album of 78s, later a set of 45s and a 10-inch LP but never a 12″ Long Player. This second edition can be considered “new” for the LP era when that format became standard. The track listing is new as well with the addition of four songs recorded in ’50 and ’51. I will avoid getting into the weeds and discussing catalogue numbers and slight differences in sequencing through the years of this album’s existence.

What matters here is that the 1955 LP version is an heirloom for all of us, a Christmas gift from Crosby that millions of us have cherished for years and will do for Christmases to come. The opening strains of John Scott Trotter’s orchestra on “Silent Night” signal the start of the season in my house and perhaps in many others. The new songs added for this version take their place among Christmas favourites from Bing. “Silver Bells” is a duet with the unheralded Carol Richards and “Mele Kalikimaka” has become a standard when the desire is to combine the Christmas spirit with a tropical vibe. Bing’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” is one of the best versions of that song and “Christmas in Killarney” – while you might not think so – fits right in with Yuletide celebrations.

I have for years owned a 1970s MCA copy of this record and more recently found a 50s copy on Decca with the original liner notes on the back. Perhaps the greatest of all Christmas records, Merry Christmas has never been out of print and no other albums – save for Decca’s original cast recording of Oklahoma!, which has been in print since 1943 – come close to this distinction. It is the album home to “White Christmas”, “credited with selling 50 million copies, the most by any release and therefore it is the biggest-selling single worldwide of all time” while also being listed in the Guinness Book of Records. But more than cold figures, the record represents all the warmth and all the emotion of a season dear to so many of us.

---

A Christmas Sing with Bing – Around the World (1956) — The very next year, Crosby was back with a record that included many guests. A Christmas Sing originated as a radio broadcast from December 24th, 1955 on CBS running from 6 until 7pm. The album today is a nice artifact as it depicts a worldwide get-together that provides a little taste of Christmas songs from around the globe. Paul Weston, Norman Luboff and their conglomerates appear to support Bing who sings a handful of numbers among the guests, one of which are the Little Singers of Granby, Quebec. This Christmas Eve radio broadcast would run until 1962.

What I think you get from this record is a trip to another time when families sat around the radio and enjoyed entertainment together. This particularly would’ve been a highly anticipated hour considering Bing’s status and his relation to Christmas. I like to picture the living rooms of the 1950s with the family relaxing on a Christmas Eve listening to Bing on the radio.

This album is charming but mostly what I like about it is personal. Years ago, I found this album at a thrift store still sealed! Additionally, during Happy Holidays with Bing and Frank, the legendary episode of The Frank Sinatra Show on which Bing guested, these two giants exchange gifts each giving the other a copy of their latest Christmas album. Frank hands Bing A Jolly Christmas and Bing gifts Frank with A Christmas Sing. This show aired December 20, 1957. At one point on their normally infallible website, Discogs lists this album as having been released in 1958. At the main entry for the record though it is 1957 but neither seems right. Wikipedia says it was 1956 and BING Magazine saved the bunch with a short blurb noting that, on December 22nd, 1956, A Christmas Sing With Bing entered the charts for one week, placing at #21. Further confusing me is the fact that my copy is from 1958 – Discogs lists it as “Mono” but on the album jacket in the accompanying photo it clearly states – as mine does – “STEREO”.

---

A Christmas Story (1957) — Much like “Mr. Christmas” Andy Williams, another prolific Christmas music stylist, Bing has a children’s/story time record in his Christmas canon. This album – subtitled An Axe, an Apple and a Buckskin Jacket – was released on Golden Records, a label for children founded by Arthur Shimkin, who would go on to found Sesame Street Records. This record was also issued as a “cardboard record”, something I had never heard of. These were “cheaply made phonograph record(s) made of plastic-coated thin paperboard. These discs were usually small, had poor audio quality compared to vinyl or acetate discs, and were often only marginally playable due to their light weight, slick surface, and tendency to warp like a taco shell”. Business man Bing made these disposable discs through his Bing Crosby Phonocards, Inc. company in co-operation with Goodyear Tyres. The cardboard A Christmas Story was given away free at Goodyear service stations. Ah, the good old days. Collectors, it is OK, I think, for us to not include the A Christmas Story LP on our list of Bing Christmas records we must own. It would be cool to find but it would not be something I would listen to regularly.

---

I Wish You a Merry Christmas (1962) — I’m still learning about the manner in which Bing Crosby made records in the Fifties and Sixties. He was such a business man that he went about things differently, basically making record companies come to him. Case in point is Bing’s I Wish You a Merry Christmas issued in 1962 on Warner Bros Records. So, Bing was contracted to Warners at this time? Not really. Bing often would make a record with his own company on his own dime and then lease the results to a label and that’s what happened here.

Bing – at 59 – is in great voice and the selections are welcomed favourites. The program starts off with a nice, gentle “Winter Wonderland” and one of the finest of all the versions of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”. It should come as no surprise that Crosby acquits himself nicely on The Test for any singer, the venerable “O Holy Night”. In all, it’s a good combination of the ancient (“The Holly and the Ivy”) and the more recent (“Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”).

“On the strength of his ‘White Christmas’ and other Yuletide recordings, Bing Crosby must surely be the most popular Christmas-singer of all times. What makes this album so specially enchanting is the ease and warmth personified by Bing himself. He sings as if realizing that Christmas is (or should be) a very personal time, a time of personal fellowship and cheerful rejoicing. Thus, this album has the quality of singing heard in the days when carolers moving down your street sent their hearty voices singing out through the chill night air. That kind of Christmas seems to be more and more forgotten. Bing recalls that feeling expertly.”

from the liner notes

This album was re-issued, sort of, on CD in 2006 with almost the same song line-up and almost the same cover art. I Wish You a Merry Christmas is a very pleasant, gentle album that you would do well to seek out; the original vinyl setting or the compact disc.

---

12 Songs of Christmas (1964) — I spoke of this interesting record in my look at the Christmas music of Frank Sinatra. Here Bing joins Frank and Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians for one of two albums this consortium made together. This is actually a very pleasant record if you are OK with Fred Waring’s brand of music; sometimes it is a little too austere for me. The Frank and Bing duets work very well including the jaunty “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and the buoyant “We Wish You the Merriest”. But Bing’s solo numbers are even better. “It’s Christmas Time Again” is a gentle litany of all the wonderful things of the season wrapped with a “to all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”. A nice counterpart is the equally earnest “Christmas Candles”. The rarity of this record demands that you seek it out. Luckily, the album has a quality, a nice cover and it counts – if you were to buy it – towards the completion of the discographies of both Bing and Frank.

---

I must take a moment to mention Bing’s 1965 single “The White World of Winter”. A fun tune in the “Winter Wonderland” tradition, the song was released on Reprise with “The Secret of Christmas” – from 12 Songs of Christmas – on the B side. Remarkably, the tune was written by Hoagy Carmichael with words by Mitchell Parish. Here is a real deep cut, not easy to find and not really recorded by anyone else. Look for the Crosby CD The Crosby Christmas Sessions from 2010 on Collector’s Choice Music.

---

A Time to Be Jolly (1971) — Twenty-five years after his first, seminal Christmas record, Bing was still making an effort to add something significant to the Christmas canon when he could have easily phoned it in and coasted on his immense rep. Bing Crosby’s final proper Christmas album was recorded when he was in his late 60s and released on the Daybreak Records label, home, at that time, to Frank Sinatra, Jr. and the Count of Basie. This was a label owned by Sonny Burke, a songwriter (“Black Coffee”), arranger and producer who worked with Frank for many years at Reprise.

I had for years heard a snippet of the song “A Time to Be Jolly” sung by Bing on television, as curated on the essential DVD A Bing Crosby Christmas. So, I knew about the song and kept an eye out for the album, miraculously finding it in the wild on vinyl some years ago. Sonny Burke produced this record on which Bing sings with Jack Halloran and the Voices of Christmas with the legendary Les Brown conducting. Burke and Brown co-wrote the bright title track that begins the record. Interestingly, many of the songs bear as an intro the Voices of Christmas singing a few lines from a carol by Alfred Burt. A quick word about Burt.

Michigan’s Alfred Burt (1920-1954) was a jazz musician who composed over a dozen Christmas carols during his lifetime. These carols – rare in their American, 20th-century origin – include “Some Children See Him” and “Caroling, Caroling” and were printed on Christmas cards issued by Burt and sung only by his family until after his untimely death.

“I Sing Noel” was written by a man named…Nöel, who had also written “Do You Hear What I Hear?”. “‘Round and ‘Round the Christmas Tree” was penned by the prolific team of Jay Livingston and Ray Evans and I was surprised to learn that the first side’s closer, “The Song of Christmas”, was written by Hawaii’s Kui Lee. Lee had composed “I’ll Remember You”, a song memorably recorded by Elvis Presley. Many will know that Lee died young from cancer and proceeds from Presley’s Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite concert went to the Kui Lee Cancer Fund. “A Christmas Toast” was co-written by Dino’s piano man, Ken Lane and the one song you’ve likely heard before is a gentle reading of “Christmas Is”, with music composed by Toronto’s Percy Faith.

“Christmas and Crosby, two Institutions — the blessed Feast of Christmas having been established nearly two thousand years ago to honor and glorify the birth of the most important Man who ever lived, and Crosby who, in a comparatively few short years, has contributed more in his own way to the glorification of the Universal Birthday than any other person. No one in the wide world of entertainment has done more to perpetuate the magic, the mystique, the reverence or the gaiety of Christmas, than Crosby. The two are almost synonymous, for no one sings of Christmas with all the tenderness, the respect, the humor and the charm, like Bing.”

from Sonny Burke’s liner notes

Bing Crosby’s first Christmas album helped set the standard that all other singers of Yuletide music sought to live up to. And 25 years down the line, Bing’s final seasonal record had attributes all its own, ones that mirrored the era in which it was released. The second side is divine. The penultimate “When You Trim Your Christmas Tree” is very touching and how fitting that the last song on this final record is the declaratory “Christmas is Here to Stay!”.

---

Due in large part to the foundation laid by Harry Lillis, Christmas music certainly is here to stay. Looking back on what I’ve shared here, I’m a little disappointed that I failed to adequately explain or describe the…true worth, the intangible, almost ethereal…magic spun by Crosby when he sang the songs of Christmas. But I think I fell short because it is indescribable. If you love Christmas and particularly a vintage Christmas, there is no other body of work like the Christmas music of Bing Crosby. It can summon your most cherished memories of childhood, of parents and family. Of Christmas Eves alight with anticipation or sedate with the aura of contentment. It may remind you of Christmas mornings, children buried in strewn wrapping paper, adults in new robes grinning with exhaustion and joy. It may accompany you today as you navigate the sometimes harried holidays. Hearing a Crosby Christmas song in a store may give you pause, on the radio on the way home may help you to exhale. Alone in the basement as you thumb through your other Christmas records, Bing’s voice will float from the speakers and you’ll feel that feeling – “sure, it’s Christmas once more”. It doesn’t seem like Christmas until Crosby sings.

Papa Bing, the voice of Christmas, is certainly enmeshed in all these wonderful emotions. The music we’ve talked about today is among the sentiments of the season and it is the very soundtrack of Christmas. Like no other artist in history, Bing Crosby left us all with the greatest of mortal gifts.

---

---

Ten from Crosby at Christmas

• Silent Night
• White Christmas
• Jingle Bells
• Santa Claus is Coming to Town
• Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
• It’s Christmas Time Again
• The White World of Winter
• A Time to Be Jolly
• When You Trim Your Christmas Tree
• Christmas is Here to Stay

---

Sources and Further Studies

1. BING Magazine. Midlife Challenges, 1950-1959.
2. SoulRideblog.com. At My Time of Life: Bing Crosby in the 70s. (2022)
3. Discogs.com. Merry Christmas master.