Stories For Christmas

A collection of short stories for Christmas, written and adapted for American children of the 1940s and 1950s and featuring s tar s of the silver screen, including several first time official CD issues. In the days when families gathered around the wireless and the radiogram, Christmas stories made popular entertainment for ch ild ren and adults alike. The most successful of them transferred to record with musical accompaniments supervised by experienced Hollywood hands, none more so than Bernard Herrmann, Alfred Hitchcock’s composer of cho ice, who in 1944 composed and conducted a score to an adaptation by Orson Welles of Oscar Wilde’s tale of The Happy Prince . Bing Crosby took the part of the Prince, and two years later became narrator for a new story by Charles Tazewell, The Small One . Two further Tazewell stories for radio captured the imagination of the American public in 1948 and became Christmas time fixture s, rather like The Snowman on British TV in the 1980s. The Littlest Angel and Lullaby of Christmas both told a touching tale, in the tradition of Andersen’s Little Match Girl but with a happy ending, of a child whose fortunes are transformed at Christmas time. When Decca released them as 78s and 10 inc h LPs, they were narrated by Loretta Young and Gregory Peck respectively. According to Peck, ‘This is the holiday drama I’ve always hoped to find’. English leads were used for the two English stories recorded by American Decca: Ronald Colman as Scrooge in A Christm

Tracks

1~1~Hallelujah Carol
1~2~This Year's Christmas Came November 4Th
1~3~All I Want For Christmas Is You
1~4~Xmas Song
1~5~Tyrannosaurus Rex For Christmas
1~6~Perfect Christmas Snow (Perfect Christmas Kiss)
1~7~It Was Christmas That Killed Us
1~8~The End (Bedroom Demo)
1~9~Christmas In The Midlands
1~10~Santa De La Crux
1~11~Christmas Time For Sanctimonious Swine
1~12~Christmas On Prozac
1~13~12 Days Of Christmas
1~14~Alarm Bells Bw Silent Night
1~15~Shout For Trout (At Christmas Dinner)
1~16~Never Buy You Roses
1~17~Saw What Your Momma Did
1~18~Alien Xmas Song

Details

Format: CD
Artist: Various Artists
Release Date: 02 October 2020
Genre: Classical Music
Label: ELOQUENCE / DECCA
Distributor: Universal Music