Happy Birthday to the Singing Cowboy, Gene Autry!
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Rest in Peace, Andy. And thanks so much for the music! The Polyphonic Spree are certainly no strangers to Christmas music. They've covered John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War is Over", a terrific original called "It's Christmas" and even appeared on the "Nightmare Revisited" collection, with their take on "The Town Meeting Song" from "A Nightmare Before Christmas". They also perform Christmas shows annually, and this love of Christmas music has lead them to release their first Christmas album this year! You'll be hearing tracks from "Holidaydream: Sounds Of The Holidays Volume One" as soon as the Sounds of Christmas goes back on the air. In the meantime, here's a video of the Polyphonic Spree performing "It's Christmas" I don't know a lot about Courage My Love. I know they're a Canadian band. I know Mercedes and Phoenix are twin sisters, And I know they rock. Oh, I also know they recorded two Christmas songs last year, complete with videos, and that it doesn't appear that these are for sale anywhere. Looks like it was done just because they love the music. Since that's the same reason the Sounds of Christmas exists, I thought it would be fitting to feature both of their Christmas videos today. So here are Courage My Love with their rockin' versions of two holiday classics that don't usually rock! Styx have given us a few Christmas songs over the years, both as a band and as solo artists. They did a version of "The Hallelujah Chorus" on their third album, "The Serpent Is Rising", back in 1973. And there was also an original track on their "One With Everything" DVD called "Ring The Bells". Former lead singer Dennis DeYoung did a wonderful version of "I'll Be Home For Christmas" on "The Today Show" in the '90's, and also released an original Christmas song a few years ago, "When I Hear A Christmas Song". Tommy Shaw has teamed with Jack Blades for "The Twelve Days Of Christmas" as well as covering John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)". Tommy also sings lead on this original from Styx, "All I Want". Tey has been a friend of the Sounds of Christmas for years. Her Christmas CD came out in 2008, and the next year she was kind enough to let us use her version of "Silver Bells" on our label's first compilation. Since then, she's releases lots of other music. and even toured and performed for the troops! You can find out more about her by visiting her website HERE! In the meantime, here's her video of the title track to her Christmas album, "Christmas Is Easy When Love Is Around"... The Pretenders have given us a quite a bit of Christmas music over the years. Most recently, they released a four-song "Holiday EP" (which I think was exclusive to iTunes the first year). It's everywhere, now.  This one had new versions of their original "2000 Miles" and "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", in addition to new recordings of "Blue Christmas" and "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". In the 1990's, there was another EP featuring a live version of "2000 Miles" and an original song, "Happy Christmas" (not a cover of the John Lennon song). Before that, there was their version of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" that was featured on the first Very Special Christmas collection. As far as I know, their first one was that original version of "2000 Miles" from the "Learning To Crawl" album. Since Chryssie Hynde is celebrating her birthday this weekend, I thought it would be fun to go back to the early 80's for the promotional video for this song. The quality of the video isn't great, at times, but it's still fun to see it! For a lot of people, the Commodores are just Lionel Richie's old band. While they didn't have nearly the success they did before Richie left, they did manage to win their first Grammy after his departure (for "Nightshift" (their first, and biggest hit, post-Lionel Richie). The Commodores did go on to record more albums, including (in the early 1990's) a Christmas album. Here's a fan-made video from that, the Commodores with "Deck The Halls"... |
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