|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
 Dillo Tales Intro Ten Ways to Know Your Advertising Works Origin of Our Name The Agency Story Arthur Armadillo: Private Investigator Happy Holiday Music |
An Enduring Dillo Tradition | |||||||||
|
The first “Happy Holiday Music” CD was a limited, untitled production, distributed to a few friends and co-workers during the not-so-merry December of 2001. I thought folks needed some serious cheering up, so I collected some of my favorite holiday tunes and passed out CD copies. I think I called it a “Chris-Mix” – and I apologize for that. I came up with the idea because I grew up with Christmas music on long-playing vinyl albums that were kept, most of the year, on a shelf in the closet. There was the Bing Crosby album, and a stack of Christmas variety albums with songs by different artists. My favorite was a collection that included Doris Day, Sammy Davis, Jr., Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Robert Goulet, Maurice Chevalier and the Norman Luboff Chorale. So the first CD was put together in that spirit. I wanted to cheer and uplift people, to bring back warm memories and make folks smile. Response to the collection was heartfelt and overwhelmingly positive, and I looked forward to a repeat performance, but with more polish, better attention to sequencing, and a real label. It all came together with “Happy Holiday Music” – later known as Volume I. It’s probably the best of all the CDs, due to the fact that I had a lot of very good holiday music to choose from. My standards are high. To be included in a “Happy Holiday Music” collection, the music has to be well-written, well-produced and contain simply superb performances by the artists. The music should not be cliché, but instead, kind of timeless. If the performance or song is one you’ve never heard before, it should be a delightfully revealing. Above all, every song, whether serious or silly, should have a “Christmasy” sound. Which rules out, year after year, “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.” Also not included are “Jingle Bell Rock” and “All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.” I rarely include country artists and only once have included an instrumental. As endearing as they can be, there have been no Muppets. You’ll notice, too, that I’ve never used a traditional version of the “Twelve Days of Christmas.” Not that it’s a bad song. In fact, it’s got quite the quotient of “Christmas-ness.” It’s that I have yet to come across a version that I can stand to listen to. Which is, by the way, another of my standards. I have to be able to stand to listen to it. That first volume included rock and roll artists like Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, John Lennon and Elvis. R&B artists like Vanessa Williams. Pop singers like Bette Midler, James Taylor and Whitney Houston. And lots of dead artists we only get to hear around Christmas anymore like Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, and Perry Como (who I don’t think was dead yet, but may very well have been). The album became an “Armadillo Advertising” production and a worthwhile holiday gift for clients, vendors, friends and family (yes, family — I’m that cheap). For months after Christmas, we were still receiving thanks for the production, and shortly after that, folks began asking for Volumes II, and III and IV. So now, “Happy Holiday Music” is a Christmas tradition. It’s become a year-round effort, looking for and listening to hundreds of Christmas carols, from classy to cheesy. Occasionally, I’ll stumble across a real find: last year, Doris Day’s sterling collection of Christmas songs was remastered and released. Most of the time, I wade through a lot of forgettable recordings. Yes, Tiny Tim made a Christmas album. No, you don’t want to hear it. I usually keep to a policy of one song per artist, per album, so I have a long waiting list of numbers. There are future “Happy Holiday Music” CDs coming with songs by Barbra Streisand, Doris Day, Chris Isaak, Brian Wilson, Vanessa Williams, and, thanks to her 2006 release, “Cool Yule,” Bette Midler. Waiting in the wings for an appropriate moment on future volumes are carols by Vikki Carr, Robert Goulet, and Rick Nelson. We’re truly in a golden age of Christmas recordings, when just about every artist has recorded a holiday album or two, so there’s a lot to choose from, and many I’m still looking for. Many artists, for instance, sang carols in movies or on TV, but never recorded them, so I’m on the lookout for quality recordings of holiday songs by Paul Simon, Cher, George Michael, and Axl Rose. It all starts with the first rough mix of a new volume, usually in July, the same month Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas” in Beverly Hills. From year to year, each volume will invariably contain the same song list, but by different artists. Song production styles range from light to dark, from serious to comical. There have been ethereal sopranos, screaming guitars, the clip-clop of horses dashing through the snow and the rat-a-tat-tat of the Red Baron’s guns. There has been the ethereal duet by Bing Crosby and David Bowie on “Little Drummer Boy” and the Vegas cheese of Cher howling “O Holy Night” – perennially lampooned on “Late Night with David Letterman” by Paul Shafer. It all sounds like Christmas to me. Bing has made every volume because there’s no end to his quality interpretations. Dean, Ella, Frank and Rosemary have been around as well. I’ve included surprisingly good performances by Justin Timberlake, Chrissie Hynde, Jaci Velasquez and the Partridge Family. In a quirk that I didn’t realize until Volume III, the same song by Luther Vandross has made every CD. Every volume has ended with a longing, heart-breaking interpretation version of my favorite Christmas song, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Because gift editions of “Happy Holiday Music” are made-to-order, the song lists will often change during the season as I discover new tunes and add them to the volume, or move songs around. The song lists presented here are, therefore, the final editions of each volume. So the tradition does what it is supposed to do: it continues. I welcome suggestions and always look forward to hearing new holiday sounds. The Armadillo staff provides invaluable assistance, with new submissions, suggestions on what to keep in each collection, and what to discard. I discourage illegal downloads and look forward to next year’s holiday releases, new, old and remastered. I hope more of today’s young artists will add quality holiday albums to their catalogs. It reminds me of being a kid, and knowing that Christmas was coming when the albums came down from the shelf. Finally, Christmas morning arrived and my sisters and I waited in our parents’ room while my Dad readied the tree and the presents in the living room. Only when we heard the strains of Bing Crosby’s “Silent Night” did we know it was time to walk down the hallway. Christmas music always made it feel like Christmas. It still does. Merry Christmas, Everyone! Volume I
01 Christmas Memories – Bette Midler Volume II
01 Snow – Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee, Danny Kaye
01 Carol of the Bells - The Nylons Volume IV
01 Baby, It’s Cold Outside – Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme Volume V
01 Merry Christmas – Bette Midler Volume VI
01 I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm – Bette Midler  |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Copyright 2002-2003 Armadillo
Advertising - All rights reserved |
||||||||||
