As we continue with "Jingle Bells," we go from the Four Aces to four Ames - The Ames Brothers!
The quartet from Massachusetts (yay!) featuring brother Ed on lead vocals was extremely popular in the 1950s with several big hits.
They included a very snappy version of "Jingle Bells" on their 1957 RCA Victor LP "There'll Always Be a Christmas":
Fun to hear the early stereo. But where have I heard that "jet speed" line before?
The title track of that LP was actually originally one side of an RCA Victor holiday single from the boys in 1954:
Kind of an odd pairing, but the quartet was pretty versatile and easily went from novelties to ballads.
One thing about the Ames Brothers is that they were definitely not a bunch of Scrooges, as they recorded quite a few Christmas songs!
Their first was a coupling of "White Christmas" and "Winter Wonderland" on Coral Records in 1949. This single was paired with 1951's single of the Vaughn Horton adaptation of "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas" and Horton's "Ting-A-Ling-A Jingle" on the "Christmas Greetings" EP.
Here are both sides:
Of note is that the same two Vaughn Horton tunes were released as a single by the Pinetoppers with the Marlin Sisters also on Coral Records also in 1951!
Presumably Coral put together that EP because the Ames Brothers had recently moved to RCA Victor and they wanted some competing product out there.
With Coral in 1950, the Brothers also had a ten-inch album of Christmas carols titled "Sing a Song of Christmas," which included these two also released on a 78 record:
Very nice, with just simple accompaniment. They had a great blend!
Jumping ahead to the 1960s, Ed Ames had a solo career as an actor (notably on TV's "Daniel Boone") and singer and he actually had two more Christmas albums on RCA Victor!
Ed's version of "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" from 1967 is particularly memorable to me as it was contained in the various artists Christmas album shown above, side one of which I played a lot as a kid!
Here it is, with the rarely heard verse:
Takes me right back!
Ed Ames is still around at age 94, so Happy New Year to him!
And for more holiday spirit, here's a clip of the Ames Brothers singing a medley of Christmas tunes on the Ed Sullivan show in 1959:
Fun!
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