Every day until December 25, I’m writing about holiday music in my personal collection – but that doesn’t always mean Christmas tunes. Hanukkah starts at sundown Thursday, so let’s dig out the 2005 record from The LeeVees, “Hanukkah Rocks.”
Like The Ramones, every band member’s last name is LeeVee, but not really. Adam LeeVee is Adam Gardner from Guster and David LeeVee is Dave Schneider of The Zambonis, a band that writes and performs only songs about ice hockey. The tunes on “Hanukkah Rocks” are more about the cultural aspects of The Festival of Lights than the purely religious – “Latke Clan,” “Gelt Melts,” “At the Timeshare,” “Nun, Gimmel, Heh, Shin…” Here’s the video for “How Do You Spell Channukkahh?”
Does a song have to mention Christmas at all to be a Christmas song? I bet this cover tune puts you in the holiday frame of mind even though the original was a hit in the summer of 1969.
Annie Lennox and Al Green teamed up to cover Jackie DeShannon’s “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” for the “Scrooged” soundtrack in 1988. The cast sang the song at movie’s end and transitioned to Lennox and Green as the credits rolled.
Green had left pop music in 1980 after falling off a stage and taking it as a sign from God that he should turn exclusively to gospel music. Producer Jimmy Iovine was the musical supervisor for “Scrooged.” He asked Green to record the song, Green asked if Annie Lennox would sing with him, and it became Green’s first Top 10 pop hit since 1974. It’s also Lennox’s highest charting song outside of Eurythmics, although her bandmate, David Stewart, did produce the track.
Here’s the original from Jackie DeShannon. Odd bit of trivia – Jackie wrote “Bette Davis Eyes,” the 1981 hit for Kim Carnes.
And let’s wrap up with an all-star version I found in doing my research. From a 1979 UNICEF charity concert in Assembly Hall at the United Nations – here’s John Denver, Donna Summer, Barry Gibb, Olivia Newton-John, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Andy Gibb, Rod Stewart, and ABBA. I also see Henry Fonda, Henry Winkler, Gilda Radner, David Frost, Rita Coolidge, Kris Kristofferson, and I’m sure I missed a few…
I’m taking a quick break from the Christmas songs to try the latest version of the Reese’s peanut butter cup. I think we all know the ratio of peanut butter to chocolate varies in each version of Reese’s and everyone has their favorite. Stick with me here because I’m going to go deeper than a supermarket candy bar really deserves, but it’s a Sunday afternoon during a pandemic and what else have I got going right now?
To me, the Halloween pumpkins and Christmas trees and Easter eggs are better than the original Peanut Butter Cup – although I do really miss the ridges around the edge of the original. I don’t think I’m alone because a couple years back, Hershey introduced the Big Cup – a peanut butter/chocolate ratio more like the holiday specials that still has the fluted rim. It’s a big flavor bomb of salt and sugar and peanut and chocolate. God Bless America.
Now, there’s a new version of the Big Cup that also has pretzel bits in the peanut butter. Here’s what’s odd… These aren’t the same pretzels that are in the Reese’s Take Five candy bar (which also has caramel, peanuts and chocolate, BTW). The Take Five pretzels are made with wheat flour, while the Big Cup pretzels are brown rice flour and potato starch. That makes this new candy officially gluten-free, which is great news for folks with celiac disease, but I think there’s another benefit that’s just about the experience of eating candy.
I’m posting a holiday song a day from my personal collection until Christmas day … and today is a Jimi Hendrix medley of “Little Drummer Boy,” “Silent Night,” and “Auld Lang Syne.” Jimi was rehearsing in December 1969 for some shows at Fillmore East with drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox (aka The Band of Gypsys). The space didn’t have soundboard so think of the medley, recorded on a two-track tape recorder, as more an official bootleg than a polished single. I can’t find a YouTube link, and the Vimeo link isn’t won’t embed, so instead, you’ll have to click on this bit of run-on typing to hear it.
The pic of Santa Jimi on the cover is from a 1967 photo shoot to promote “Axis: Bold As Love” in the UK’s “Record Mirror” weekly paper. Another photo from that shoot is at the top of the post.
“The Little Drummer Boy” is not my favorite Christmas song, but here’s a second version I can get behind – a revved-up surf rock take by Los Straitjackets,
I have to confess. For years, I assumed “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” was sung by an adult pretending to be a little kid. I wasn’t listening to the radio in 1953, so when I first heard Gayla Peevey’s strong voice and comic timing years later, I assumed she was a studio singer banging out a novelty hit between commercials for Ipana toothpaste and Chesterfield cigarettes.
Turns out, Gayla Peevey was a real ten-year-old radio singer from Oklahoma City. “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” was her first single for Capitol Records, a song found for her by Mitch Miller. This clip is from “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
John Graham is That Guy on TV – an Emmy-winning producer/writer/host and owner of Mosquito County Productions, based in Orlando, FL.
Over the years, John has produced YouTube videos with millions of views, worked with Muppets and Princesses, won two regional Emmys for travel reporting, interviewed celebs from Ariana Grande to Hillbilly Jim, and done thousands of live news broadcasts. (You know it’s me writing this, right?)
