"Jingle Bells" Bonus - Happy Birthday, Ray Anthony!

Here's a bonus version of "Jingle Bells" to celebrate the 100th birthday of the handsome, trumpet playing bandleader Ray Anthony, who was born on January 20, 2022 and is still around!

Ray cut a ton of records in his day, but didn't get around to recording a Christmas album until 1995 with "Dream Dancing Christmas," which featured this version of "Jingle Bells":

In addition to Ray's trumpet, the album features a couple of his trademarks, the Glenn Miller style arrangements and the "Dream Dancing" title.

19-year-old Ray Anthony (first trumpet on left) with Glenn Miller's band in the 20th Century Fox movie "Sun Valley Serenade" (1941)

One of Ray's earliest jobs was playing trumpet with Glenn Miller's band as a teenager, so when the Miller style had a revival in the 1950s, Ray at least was qualified to use it!

And Ray had a best-selling series of albums on the Capital label back in the day with "Dream Dancing" in the title featuring lush versions of standards, so this treatment of "Jingle Bells" was a nice throwback in 1995 (was that really 27 years ago?)!

Happy birthday, Ray!

Bonus - Happy Birthday, Elvis!

Hard to believe, but today is the 87th anniversary of the birth of Elvis Presley!

So, if really is still hiding out somewhere, he's getting up there!

In keeping with the Christmas spirit, here's my favorite Elvis Christmas cut:

That's, of course, from his 1957 RCA Victor release "Elvis' Christmas Album."

At this point, Elvis was already a huge multi-media star, but he had been popular enough the previous holiday season to inspire the novelty song "I Want Elvis for Christmas," which actually had a few competing versions!

The least annoying by far is by the Holly Twins on Liberty Records:

That's fun as far as it goes, but doesn't bear up to heavy rotation listening on one's 1950s rock 'n' roll holiday playlist!

The secret weapon on that recording was the formidable Liberty artist Eddie Cochran, who contributes his stellar guitar playing in addition to the Elvis-like "Baby, baby, baby" vocals. Eddie gives the proceedings a ton of retro cred!

Despite the talents of co-writers pre-fame Bobby Darin and Don Kirschner, I think the song itself is a bit clunky (starting with the awkward title) and doesn't work as well as "I Want Eddie Fisher for Christmas," which we heard here, the ode to RCA Victor's star of only two years prior!

How times had changed!

For my dough, the best Elvis tribute record from the period was from his RCA Victor label mate, Janis Martin, from earlier in 1956:

That's just a fun little rockabilly number on its own!

So, if you are still out there somewhere, Elvis, have a good one!