1940s Christmas Playlist - Part 17 - "The Winter Song"

Here's another 1949 song for our playlist that falls into the seasonal rather than holiday category, with the obvious name of "The Winter Song!"

Tex Williams cut this western swing version for Capitol:

I love Tex Williams! He always delivers the goods!

The only other recording of "The Winter Song" that I can find from 1949 is this one by Gil Downs on Coral Records:

I have no idea who Gil Downs is and cannot find any info about him. His vocal is not particularly polished, so I guess his career didn't really go anywhere.

Here's the flipside of "The Winter Song":

There's only one other record I can uncover for him, which was on the independent Tower label in 1948.

Here are both sides, also with Four Hits and a Miss:

I presume the Four Hits and a Miss are a scaled down version of Six Hits and a Miss, a popular backing vocal group on lots of records.

The curious thing is that all four of the songs recorded by Gil Downs that I can unearth were written by the team of "Teepee" Mitchell and Lew Porter. There must be a story there - can't be coincidence!

The team had a previous underrated Christmas song in 1948 with "Wonderful Christmas Night." You can hear versions by Dan Grissom and Roy Rogers & Dale Evans here.

Anyway, Coral tried again in 1951 with "The Winter Song" in a new version by George Cates:

This added the "Look out the Window, Look out the Window" subtitle to help identify the song, but it still didn't really go anywhere. Incidentally, it was the flipside of "Jingle Bells Around the World," which we heard back here.

The song resurfaced in 1952, now titled "Look out the Window (The Winter Song)" with slightly revised lyrics.

Gene Autry and Rosemary Clooney teamed for this record on Columbia:

I think that's OK, but I don't think they really blend well. I don't suppose either was used to singing harmony.

Coral's parent label Decca gave it one more try with Russ Morgan and his Orchestra:

Russ Morgan and his "Music in the Morgan Manner" is popping up a lot!

Gene Autry's Christmas catalog is always being reissued, so the song hasn't disappeared, but I don't think it's seen a lot of recordings since.

Flashforward to 2020, though, and we find this really snappy version by Roots/Americana/Whatever-the-proper-term-is group the Shootouts:

I think that's so cool that I purchased the digital single from their website! Keep up the good work!