Jewish You A Merry Christmas:
Elseblog @ Breakthrough Radio
My week at Breakthrough Radio ends with today’s entry, and as promised, I’d like to take this opportunity to offer a little thanks and good cheer for the season. What follows is a repost, originally shared last year on Cover Lay Down under the title The Twelve Jews of Christmas: Folk Covers of Holiday Classics by Jewish Songwriters; though for obvious reasons its interest is seasonal, it remains one of my most popular posts ever, and I’m happy to share it here today. Enjoy!
Today we celebrate the holiday coversongs of Jewish-American songwriters, most notably the prolific Johnny Marks, who is best known for penning a holy host of non-canonical Christmas songs, and lesser known for being the head of ASCAP from 1957 to 1961.
Familiar carols written by Marks include Holly Jolly Christmas, which most of us imagine in the voice of Burl Ives, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which is based on the story by Marks’ brother-in-law, and I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day, which Marks adapted from a Longfellow poem. He also wrote Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree; I was hoping to share some folkcovers of that song, too, but for some reason, I can’t find any.* Wonder why?
*[UPDATE 12/15: Rose Polenzani and Rose Cousins to the rescue!!]
- Pedro the Lion, I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day (Johnny Marks)
- John Gorka, Christmas Bells (ibid.)
- Martin Sexton, Holly Jolly Christmas (ibid.)
- Jack Johnson, Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer (ibid.)
In fact, a significant percentage of “traditional” Christmas tunes turn out to have been written or co-written by “verifiably Jewish artists”. Here’s a few more, mostly from the country and alt-pop ends of the folk spectrum, though the list runs the gamut from urban folk to indiefolk:
- Raul Malo, White Christmas (Irving Berlin)
- The Roches, Sleigh Ride (Anderson/Parish)
- Mindy Smith, I’ll Be Home For Christmas (Kent/Gannon/Ram)
- A Fine Frenzy, Let It Snow (Cahn/Styne)
- Steve Goodman, Winter Wonderland (Bernard/Smith)
- Liz Phair, Winter Wonderland (ibid.)
- Aimee Mann, The Christmas Song (Torme/Wells)
- Suzy Bogguss w/ Delbert McClinton, Baby, It’s Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)
No purchase links today, kids: many of these songs are in the public domain, and even those that aren’t are hard to avoid this time of year. (Plus, how the heck do you link to a songwriter?) Just keep on buying your Christmas music from artists and labels directly, and we’ll call it square, okay?
Category: Elseblog, Holiday Coverfolk
December 12th, 2008 at 7:02 am
[...] Vote Jewish You A Merry Christmas: Elseblog @ Breakthrough Radio [...]
December 12th, 2008 at 10:34 am
[...] free music today comes courtesy of Cover Lay Down; it’s some holiday music covered by Jewish artists. Check it out, there’s some good stuff to be [...]
December 12th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
The Roches holiday CD is my favorite! - it’s the first one my family plays to welcome in the season. Love the latin flavor of Deck the Halls, the Middle Eastern sound of We Three Kings and their Noo Yawk accent in Winter Wonderland - their harmonies on For Unto Us a Child is Born (from Handel’s Messiah) are sublime…
December 12th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Wonderful songs, thanks so much! xoxo
December 13th, 2008 at 10:28 am
these are real nice - many thanks to you.
December 13th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Totally unrelated: it seems your great blog is the only one in the blogosphere to carry James Taylor’s “A change is gonna come” cover, but since last November it got removed from Box.net; any chance to re-up?
Thanks! Xuhh
December 13th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Thanks for the good cheer and comments, folks. We’ll have a bit more Holiday Coverfolk in the same vein up tomorrow.
PS for Xuhh: check your email.
December 13th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
[...] In Kidfolk: Christmas Specials (Seasonal TV Tunes For Folk Fans and Families)Jewish You A Merry Christmas: Elseblog @ Breakthrough RadioPop Top Covers: Elseblog @ Breakthrough RadioStarmakers and the Blogging World: Elseblog @ [...]
December 15th, 2008 at 12:38 am
[...] Rose CousinsCovered In Kidfolk: Christmas Specials (Seasonal TV Tunes For Folk Fans and Families)Jewish You A Merry Christmas: Elseblog @ Breakthrough RadioPop Top Covers: Elseblog @ Breakthrough RadioStarmakers and the Blogging World: Elseblog @ [...]
December 18th, 2008 at 7:41 am
First of all congratulation for such a great site. I learned a lot reading article here today. I will make sure i visit this site once a day so i can learn more.
December 24th, 2008 at 11:55 am
It’s interesting to find out the sources of these songs. Thanks for sharing!
December 8th, 2009 at 1:37 am
[...] Expanding on the list just linked to (and offering some free downloads), you might also check out Jewish You A Merry Christmas. But we’ve come a long way since the days when the only hip Hannukah songs out there were [...]
December 13th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
[...] herein are relatively recent but not new releases - I’ve long treasured [and previously posted] Martin Sexton’s Holly Jolly Christmas, love Deanna Carter’s delicate fireside Winter [...]