A musical battle between Hanukkah and Christmas is really no battle at all. As the popularity of recorded music grew through the twentieth century, so did the Christian-to-Jew population advantage. A 50:1 advantage in 1900 grew to a 150:1 advantage by 2000, and magnified by Western commercialization of Christmas, its celebrants produced an unparalleled abundance of popular holiday music. Hanukkah, in contrast, mostly made good with candles, dreidels, latkes and music that bore more resemblance to traditional Jewish melodies than the top of the pops. Sure, there’s the catchy “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel,†but it’s more of a nursery rhyme than a hit single, and Adam Sandler’s “The Hanukkah Song†(covered by both Neil Diamond and the hardcore rockers Yidcore) was a heartfelt, but ultimately self-conscious response to the dearth of Hanukkah songs. Beck, They Might Be Giants and Ben Kweller, to name a few, have given it a shot, but don’t expect to be humming along to a Muzak™ version of Tom Lehrer’s “I’m Spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica†any time soon.
Even with the LeeVees’ Hanukkah Rocks on the shelves, Hanukkah fights the musical battle with both arms tied behind its back. If Christmas is the Beatles, Hanukkah is at best a lounge band covering the Four Seasons (cf: The International Battle of the Century). The relentless repetition of Top 40 hits, on the radio and in stores, has made dozens of Christmas songs icons of the season. And in keeping with the secularization of Christmas as aU.S. celebration, many of the best-loved Christmas songs were written or sung by Jews. The Idelsohn Society’s two-disc set traces the transformation of Christmas from a religious holiday to a popular bonanza, and further emphasizes the second-banana position into which the relatively minor holiday of Hanukkah was pressed. The songs on disc two demonstrate how Christmas cut across cultural lines to become as much a secular seasonal feeling as a religious celebration. As the set’s liner notes point out, American Jews celebrated Christmas “not because it was Christian, but because it was American.â€
At the same time, the designation of Christmas as a national holiday in 1870 set off a desire among some Jews for Hanukkah parity. And though Hanukkah songs were written and revived, none ever reached true popular acclaim. Disc one, “Happy Hanukkah,†includes historical odes, folk songs (including Woody Guthrie’s “Hanukkah Danceâ€), traditional melodies, klezmer, cantorial standards, children’s songs, chorals and humor. The disc’s one hit is Don McLean’s “Dreidel,†which just missed the Top 20 in 1972, and is really only Hanukkah-themed in its title. Disc two is filled with popularly familiar artists (The Ramones, Bob Dylan, Benny Goodman, Sammy Davis Jr., Herb Alpert, Mel Torme), all of whom are Jewish. The song list features many perennials, including Irving Berlin’s classic “White Christmas,†which author Phillip Roth characterized as subversively turning “Christmas into a holiday about snow.â€
3-CD overview ofAmerica’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band
As a band whose albums, singles and live performances were equally exciting, it can be argued that Creedence Clearwater Revival remains the greatest group in American rock ‘n’ roll history. Whether stretching out a psychedelic jam of “Suzie Q†or “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,†or packing everything they had into the 2:21 of “Bad Moon Rising,†their synthesis of rock, country, blues, and southern soul was riveting. Their hit singles still leave listeners reaching to turn up the volume, and their albums harbor dozens of lesser-known, but no less terrific covers and Fogerty originals. In a six-album stretch from 1968’s eponymous Creedence Clearwater Revival through 1970’s Pendulum, the quartet never faltered – dropping dozens of hit singles and revitalizing well-selected covers with iconic guitar riffs and vocal turns that hook your ear as readily today as they did forty years ago.
The CCR catalog has seen its fair share of reissues, with a box set in 2001, individual album remasters in 2008, and in 2009 a mono singles collection, vintage live concert and a covers collection. And then there are numerous tributes and an endless array of karaoke discs. Fantasy’s latest reiteration of the core catalog is a three-disc set that goes beyond the hit singles, but not as far as the box set. It’s a better introduction than a single disc, and with the inclusion of album and live tracks, a broader look than the two volume Chronicle set. The set is delivered in a tri-fold cardboard sleeve with extensive liner notes by Bay Area music historian, Alec Palao. Among his insights is the astonishing fact that CCR never scored a chart-topping U.S. single; Green River and Cosmo’s Factory each topped the album chart, but their peak singles, “Proud Mary,†“Green River†and “Lookin’ Out My Back Door†topped out at #2.
Deluxe reissue of infamous 1960s Texas psych-blues
The Moving Sidewalks first came to wide attention outside of Texas with the inclusion of their incendiary 1967 single “99th Floor†on the second volume of the garage rock anthology, Pebbles. Tantalized by a liner note reference to “Bill†Gibbons and ZZ Top, fans tracked down the group’s album, Flash, and found – no doubt disappointingly to some – that the bulk of the band’s oeuvre favored heavy psychedelic blues-rock, rather than the organ, guitar and harmonica punk of “99th Floor.†Though part of the Texas scene, the Sidewalks leaned more to the electric blues of Jimi Hendrix (to which “Pluto – Sept 31st†clearly tips its cap) and Savoy Brown, than to the punk rock or Mouse and the Traps or the psychedelia of the 13th Floor Elevators.
The album’s been reissued before [12], including a few of the bonus tracks heard on this set’s second disc. What sets this reissue apart, aside from the crisp audio (mono on 1, 3 and 5 of Flash) and the involvement of Billy Gibbons, are non-LP singles, demos and alternate takes that provide the bridge from “99th Floor†to Flash. The three singles include “99th Floor†(also heard twice more in earlier form by the Moving Sidewalks’ predecessor, The Coachmen) and its B-side “What Are You Going To Do.†The band continued to flirt with garage even as it turned more heavily to the blues with the guitar-and-organ instrumental “Headin’ Out,†and their single for Wand (the bluesy “Need Meâ€) features the punkier “Every Night a New Surprise†on the flip. Their last single, a cover of the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand,†is either magnificent or Spinal Tapian, depending on your perspective.
David Cassidy’s third and final post-teen idol album for RCA
In the two years after David Cassidy walked away from Bell Records and his career as a teen idol, he recorded three albums for RCA. The first, The Higher They Climb, found success in Europe and spun out a pre-Barry Manilow hit recording of Bruce Johnston’s “I Write the Songs.†Cassidy’s second album for RCA, Home is Where the Heart Is failed to chart, as did the pre-release singles from this third album. RCA planned and then shelved the album’sU.S. release, though apparently copies were pressed and warehoused, as they began showing up in cutout bins three years later.
The album’s track list is an eclectic lot, including the autobiographical title tune (featuring the guitar playing of Mick Ronson), the boozy original “Rosa’s Cantina,†a cover of Harry Nilsson’s “The Story of Rock and Roll,†and a tune co-written by Cassidy, producer (and America founding member) Gerry Beckley and head Beach Boy, Brian Wilson. The latter, “Cruise toHarlem,†has the hallmarks of a mid-70s Brian Wilson tune, with a chugging rhythm and sophisticated vocal arrangement. The album closes with Cassidy’s original “Junked Heart Blues,†sung in a clenched voice that brings to mind Boz Scaggs.
A multitalented teen-idol tears it up live in 1974
In 1974, David Cassidy was on top of the world commercially, but near the end of his run of mainstream fame. He was a talented musician trapped in the body – and career – of a teen idol. His aspirations were starting to exceed what his fans and critics would freely allow him to grasp, and unlike the Beatles, who successfully retreated from the stage to studio, Cassidy’s attempts to grow beyond the confines of his Partridge Family-launched solo career led to artistic accomplishment, but not broader commercial success. 1974 marked the tail end of his pop-idol ride, and the frenzy surrounding his live appearances, as evidenced by the crowd’s non-stop hysteria, was as highly-charged as ever. Cassidy didn’t know it at the time, but it would come crashing down at tour’s end, when hundreds of fans were injured and one, Bernadette Whelan, was killed by the crush of a concert crowd. Cassidy retired from touring at the end of that year, and after a three-album stint on RCA, he put his public music career on a decade-long hiatus.
What’s truly impressive about his live album is that with the craziness still running full tilt, Cassidy was able to deliver a live performance that was both exciting to his youngest fans and artistically satisfying to those able to listen past the pre-teen pandemonium. He was (and remains to this day), a fetching singer and dynamic showman. He had a terrific ear for material that fit his voice, that played well on stage and with which he could do something interesting. His raucous cover of Leon Russell’s “Delta Lady†is worth hearing, and he leads the band in stretching Stephen Stills’ “For What It’s Worth†into a soul groove. Even better is a Beatlemania-worth cover of “Please Please Me†and the rock ‘n’ roll medleys that close the set. Cassidy whips the crowd into a lather with covers of Mitch Ryder’s mash-up of “C.C. Rider†and “Jenny Jenny,†and rips through five early rock classics capped with his own his hit single, “Rock Me Baby.â€
2012 remaster of a Christmas classic with two Thanksgiving bonuses
Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas did as much to define the Peanuts gang as it did to capture what Charles Schulz wrote in his strip. In the same way that the television special literally animated the characters, Guaraldi’s music provided an emotional soundtrack to which they moved and danced, fleshing out a whole new dimension of the characters’ personalities. Every song on the soundtrack, even the traditional tunes adapted by Guaraldi, quickly become sense memories of the special, and a few, such as “Linus and Lucy,†“Skating†and “Christmas is Coming†were indelibly wed to their animated sequences. Like the television special, the soundtrack is a perennial. It’s been reissued on CD twice before, initially in 1988, and as recently as 2006, the latter being the subject of mastering mistakes, changes from the original album and much heated discussion.
For those who lucked into following Shoes from their earliest self-produced living room recordings though their major label stint on Elektra and back to self-production (including this year’s superb hiatus-breaking Ignition), this collection provides a pleasant, albeit non-chronological, whirlwind through numerous catalog highlights. For those who latched onto Shoes during their major label days, the band’s DIY origin will remain murky, as the set includes only one track from the seminal Black Vinyl Shoes, neither side of their single for Bomp, and none of their earlier self-distributed work.
That band’s early aesthetic is heard most fully in the Black Vinyl Shoes version of “Okay,†while the other early song, “Tomorrow Night†is taken from 1979’s Present Tense, rather than the more primitive 1978 Bomp A-side. Still, those two songs are a roadmap to everything that’s great about the band: winsome lyrics, hummable melodies, tight harmonies and deftly constructed layers of guitars, bass and drums. Half the collection focuses on the group’s three albums for Elektra, including the power-pop gems “Too Late,†“In My Arms Again,†“Curiosity†and “The Summer Rain.†Selections from their later albums for Instant, New Rose and their own Black Vinyl label show that the spark of their living room recordings was amplified by ever-improving home studio technology.
Super-stoked anthology of Dick Dale’s surf-related tunes
