Willie Nelson had enjoyed one of the biggest hits of his career in 1978 and 1979 with Stardust, his collaboration with producer Booker T. Jones. It went to Number One on the country album chart and Number 30 pop, and contained three monster hit singles. But all that success did not buy Willie any time [...]
Filed under: Christmas, Tracks | Tagged: Booker T. Jones, Willie Nelson | 3 Comments »
We got the storm we were expecting up here in Wisconsin. Yesterday afternoon, during the lull, I removed nine inches of snow from The Mrs.’ car; one of the suburbs south of Madison reported 18 inches. Bitter cold came behind it last night; today we’re not supposed to get out of the single digits and [...]
Filed under: Christmas | Tagged: Living Strings | 1 Comment »
(Slightly edited since first posting.)
Does anybody read Longfellow anymore? I suspect he’s been replaced in school curricula by others considered more “relevant,” even though dozens of elementary and middle schools were named for him in an era when he was still one of America’s greatest authors. In 1863, a couple of years after his wife [...]
Filed under: Christmas | 8 Comments »
It’s time again for a feature begun two years ago, in which I put my Christmas music stash on shuffle and we see what comes out. The list begins in an entirely predictable fashion.
“What Child Is This”/Vince Guaraldi Trio/A Charlie Brown Christmas. Fun fact about the special, which aired Tuesday night on ABC and will [...]
Filed under: Christmas, Random Universe, Tracks | Tagged: Moog Machine, Partridge Family, Vince Guaraldi Trio | Leave a Comment »
Usually I ease into the Christmas music every year, letting holiday songs pop up at random on the laptop in the days after Thanksgiving. Not this year—I jumped into the pool fully clothed, doing four solid hours of Christmas tunes on the radio the day after Thanksgiving, which felt like an awful lot awfully fast. [...]
Filed under: Christmas, Tracks | Tagged: Bob Dylan, Phil Spector, REO Speedwagon | 3 Comments »
We’re in pre-holiday mode again around here. Granted, that isn’t much different than our regular mode. The big difference is that we worry less about the remunerative labor we should be doing but aren’t.
I was thinking the other day about Thanksgiving of 1966, the year I was in first grade. That was the year I [...]
Filed under: Christmas, Tracks | Tagged: Mighty Blue Kings | 4 Comments »
