Jingle Bells - Part 6 - Two from Decca!

We move a little further into the 1940s with a couple of stellar versions of "Jingle Bells" on Decca Records, from right before and right after the recording ban...

First up is Woody Herman and his Orchestra from 1942:

That was recorded on July 31, 1942, which was literally just before the infamous recording ban began!

It catches the Herman band at an interesting time, as it was morphing from his earlier Band That Plays the Blues into his First Herd, which started recording for Columbia Records after the ban ended.

Whoever "Clarence" was, he was a lucky guy!

Carolyn Grey is the vocalist on this side, although she doesn't get to sing a lot. I associate her more with Gene Krupa's band from later in the 1940s.

She and the band do add the "Hey!" after "One-horse open sleigh," though!

Every record needs a flipside, so what did they go with for this one? Naturally it was:

The band really gets swinging on both those tunes!

We move ahead to 1943 when Decca Records settled with the Federation of Musicians and began recording again.

This team-up of Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters was one of their first recordings with an actual orchestra in more than a year:

That's just so much fun! Bing teamed up with the Andrews Sisters quite a bit in the 1940s and they always seemed like they were having a great time!

I guess that's the most famous recording of "Jingle Bells" ever, as it was a good seller at the time as a 78 rpm record and it was later included on Bing's first Christmas album (shown at the botton of the page) and other variations ever since!

And what was the flipside? If you've been paying attention, you already know:

"Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" and "Jingle Bells" really were the go-to Christmas songs back in the day, starting with Harry Reser in 1934!

Here's "Billboard's" take on the commercial viability of the disk:

And the musicality:

Interesting that it's Maxene Andrews who sings the duet part with Bing! I always figured it was Patty!

So, a couple of great records from Decca from right before and right after the recording ban!