We're back in the mid-1960s with "Jingle Bells" as we run into the Swedish group the Spotnicks with this cut from their "Winterland" album from 1966:
That's a fun version, really has that 1960s Venture-ish sound!
The Ventures had a great instrumental take on "Sleigh Ride" and so do the Spotnicks:
Those tracks have now found a home on my mid-1960s Christmas playlist!
I don't know much about the Spotnicks, but they seem to have been mostly an instrumental combo with some vocals mixed in, such as on the "Winterland" title song:
That has such a 1960s European vibe! If there had been a James Bond movie named "Winterland," this could've been played over the end credits. Now I also have a pitch for Cubby Broccoli when I finally get my time machine!
The album also includes a novelty vocal version of "I Saw Mommy (Mama) Kissing Santa Claus":
I wonder if that's supposed to be the little cartoon guys in the space ship who are singing? Are they the Spotnicks? The group apparently dressed like spacemen sometimes, as seems to befit their name:
I notice that the vocals are in English, but I'm aware that people in Sweden are way more likely to speak English as a second language than we in America are to speak any second language at all!
Instrumentals need no translation, however, and I understand that the Spotnicks' big hit was their 1963 updated instrumental of the old Jimmy Dorsey hit "Amapola":
I dig it!
I see various European releases of the song, but I don't think it made it over to the States.
What keeps things interesting is that there was an imported instrumental version of another Jimmy Dorsey hit that was a hit in the U.S. in 1963 - "Maria Elena" by Brazil's brother guitar duo Los Indios Tabajaras:
The 1960s music scene was certainly diverse!
