'A Few Christmas Updates'

Now available from Amazon.co.uk!

I have now received my copy of 'A 1950's Christmas - tunes for a cool yule' and can tell you that its a wonderful collection of songs that is guaranteed to send you mentally back to the old days. The album has a very American flavour and thus has a slightly 'showbizz' feel to it but if you love those old B&W Marilyn Monroe films like I do you won't mind that. In fact, listening to it even got me dreaming about spending Christmas with Marilyn and how that would have felt. I am a sucker for anything that makes me think of 'the old days' at the moment and I saw an American lady who looked like Marilyn dressed in 1950's garb at this years 'War & Peace Revival' at RAF Westernhanger. Boy! Did I want to speak to her and ask her to dance with me but I didn't dare (as usual!)...

''

'Marilyn' in pink - Oh Boy! Oh Boy! Oh Boy!

Still, I love anything that brings Marilyn to mind and just seeing someone so beautiful who spoke like her (or at least how I imagine she would have sounded with an American accent) made the whole week really special for me! Thank you darlin' -whoever you are xxxx

I don't know, what an old romantic I am, eh? Getting all starry eyed over Marilyn Monroe just by listening to a 50's CD! It is VERY romantic though this double CD and if you are a bit of an idealist like me you can't help but get swept away by the sweeping strings and romantic lyrics of 'Christmas And You' by Dave King. 

Do yourself a favour and buy a copy - Ronnie Hilton's version of 'White Christmas' is also a refreshing delight as well if you are over familiar with good old Bing's version...

Lastly, don't forget that my favourite Christmas Fair takes place this Sat at St Clement's church in High St in the Old Town of Hastings. Sadly, I am called away to a writing festival in London on the day so I won't be able to be there this year (boo!). I will be sending someone in my place to buy up a lot of presents for my Christmas celebrations though so they won't miss out!

'Tony May's 'All Things Christmas' Festive Favourites 2013'

I have really got the Mixpixie bug! What a great website! The selection of music available is pretty impressive and putting together custom made CD's takes me back to the days when I was forever compiling my own cassette compilations. In light of the amount of fun it is putting a great compilation together and in line with the fact that I am currently researching the U.K chart to try and make a definitive list of all of the U.K.'s Christmas hits, I have put together a special Christmas collection named after this blog!

D.J. John Peel was renowned for his end of year 'festive 50' and so I thought I'd have a go at starting a trend myself! After much head scratching I came up with the following 10 Christmas songs in the following running order for this years collection. 

Christmas Countdown - Frank Kelly
Walking In The Air - Peter Auty
A Spaceman Came Travelling - Chris De Burgh
December - All About Eve
Merry Christmas Darling - The Carpenters
Christmas Song - Gilbert O' Sullivan
I Was Born On Christmas Day - Saint Etienne
Christmas Rappin' - Kurtis Blow
Christmas In Hollis - Run DMC
X-M@S - Corey Taylor

I reckon John would approve of my 'eclectic' selection. There's certainly something there for everyone and ALL of the songs were U.K. Christmas hits though many would come under the banner of 'forgotten festivities' these days. I would have extended the CD to about 14 songs if it was up to me but you can only buy 10 at a time on a Mixpixie CD. Still, I will look forward to putting Vol 2 together next year about this time!

'Two Great & Unusual Christmas Compilations To Look Out For In November'

I am always looking out for new Christmas music to acquire at this time of the year and never grow tired of discovering new festive songs to (hopefully) make each year a special one. Well, now that I have this blog I'm going to flag up some of the forthcoming CD's on the way this year!

Firstly, for lovers of the 1950's, theres a great looking compilation out on Nov 4th entitled 'A 50's Christmas - Times For A Cool Yule'. A double CD, it has 50 festive songs to discover and interestingly includes a number of early U.K. seasonal hits that are now otherwise almost impossible to find on CD. Since I started my research into the U.K.'s festive hits I've had much more interest in the early classics and so this is on my pre-ordered list at Amazon.com!

 The 1950's were a bit before my time but its nice to  be able to step back and experience a totally different feeling Christmas inspired by records from just the one era. A lot of more popular compilations mix and match songs from all eras and perpetuate the same selection of established classics each time. I'm really looking forward to getting hold of this set even though most of the tracks were not U.K hit singles. Most of the content originates from the states so its going to be rather a showbizzzy collection I imagine but hey! I love Marilyn Monroe and so I'm up for a U.S. Christmas! I hope the quality of the sound is as good as the appealing cover. It makes a HUGE difference to a music nutter like me if a product I'm interested in looks great. At the end of the day a CD is just a CD but if the cover looks desirable then I'm much more likely to buy it!

The second compilation I want to draw your attention to is for those of you who love soul & disco music. 'A Funky Christmas' is in fact a CD re-issue of an old Cotillion records compilation from 1976. While the cover looks a bit naff, the album is of real interest because it includes two Christmas songs by the group 'Luther'. Now it will be no surprise to any of you who don't know already that the lead singer of 'Luther' was Luther Vandross. None of the bands original albums have ever seen the light of day on CD (Vandross himself ought up the rights to prevent this for some reason) and so the two tracks from the band here are just about all that its possible to get. 

With some nice songs from The Impressions, 

Margie Joseph, John Edwards and others as well as a few 'funky Christmas instrumentals' this album is sure to be full of sweet delights. I have checked out a few of the songs on Youtube (maybe more on that later) but don't want to spoil the surprise too much when the CD arrives so won't hunt for any more of the tracks. I can tell you though that Mr Vandross sounds every bit as good as we all remember and that must make this album worth the price of admission alone!

Well, more Christmas blogging about forthcoming releases later. 'Funky Christmas' is due to be released in the U.K. on Nov 11th this year.

Happy Listening!