We step back into the 1950s for "Jingle Bells" with a couple of versions by recording superstar Pat Boone!
First from 1957, is this cut from his "Merry Christmas" EP on Dot Records:
I think that's very fun in a kind of square-meets-rock-and-roll kind of way!
Pat shows his versatility, handling the vocal with ease.
He's backed by Mort Lindsey, rather than Billy Vaughn, his usual collaborator. I remember Mort as the bandleader on Merv Griffin's afternoon talk show.
The background vocals are by the Artie Malvin singers, with Artie's last name misspelled on the label. At least it was a different misspelling from the Jackie Gleason one!
Pat recorded a totally different arrangement of "Jingle Bells" for his 1959 "White Christmas" LP:
That cut also features backing by Mort Lindsey. "Jingle Bells" specifically credits the Foley Sisters - Pat's wife being Shirley Foley, daughter of Country Music Hall of Famer Red Foley.
Those two versions both run about two minutes and I think they get mixed up sometimes, but they are so different, with perhaps the LP version representing the way most people think of Pat these days.
As more time goes by, probably no one cares so much anymore, but I think Pat Boone is underrated in general. He was hugely popular in the mid to late 1950s, second only to Elvis (white bucks vs. blue suede shoes), but has latterly been painted as opportunistically stealing from R and B artists like Little Richard nad Fats Domino.
I remember hearing Little Richard himself flip-flopping over the years as to whether Pat's covers of songs like "Tutti Frutti" and "Long Tall Sally" were helpful in exposing the songs to a wider audience or hurtful in denying recognition to the original artists.
Whatever the case, I think Pat Boone cut a lot of records that hold up well and blend into 1950s playlists.
This two-sided hit from 1957 was his biggest single:
So very 1950s!
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