Continuing in 1948 with our 1940s Christmas music playlist, we have song that has had a few recordings, but never really became a standard: "You're All I Want for Christmas."
Frankie Laine had a hit with the song on Mercury Records:
That's a nice record, but very subdued by the usual standards of the dynamic Mr. Laine. Is that why "Billboard" wasn't too keen on it?
That review is cold!
"You're All I Want for Christmas" was co-written by Seger Ellis, whom I know as a singer most prominent in the early to mid-1930s and as a bandleader with his "Choir of Brass" orchestra in the later 1930s.
He had his own recording of "You're All I Want for Christmas" on Bullet Records backed by Owen Bradley. I'd like to hear it, but I haven't been able to get my mitts on it yet!
In any event, Frank Gallagher also recorded the song in 1948 on the small Dana label:
I like that a lot and enjoy the very rare verse added in the middle!
I don't know too much about Frank Gallagher, but he has a nice voice. With such a common name, one's search results get pretty muddled!
There were some more recordings of the song in 1949, including Hugo Winterhalter's version on the flipside of his "Blue Christmas" on Columbia Records:
"Lush" is the word that springs to mind! One odd thing is that the choir sings "...my whole life long" rather than "...my whole life through." It needs to rhyme with "you" so the change doesn't make sense. But it's all the singers, not just one, so it must have been a mistake on the lyric sheet. Hmmm...
Our old friend Johnny Desmond cut it for MGM Records:
Johnny always sounds good!
Not too many female singers seem to have recorded it, but Anita Ellis cut it for Standard Transcriptions:
Anita was a really good singer who did a lot of radio work and also some ghost vocals, memorably dubbing for Rita Hayworth in "Gilda" from 1946.
There have have been some other recordings, such as this cut from Frankie Avalon's 1962 Christmas album on the Chancellor label:
What's with the song and Frank/Frankies?
This catches Frankie at a career crossroad, as his hit-record-making days were through, but he would star in "Beach Party" the next year!
There have been many Christmas other songs with a similar theme before and after, but "You're All I Want for Christmas" is a nice little nugget!
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