And I’ll be happy, it’s Christmas once again

Posted on by brucehhackett

I recognize that the holiday season is not full of joy and glad tidings for everyone. Some folks have lost loved ones and must cope with the empty chair at Christmas dinner. Others are reeling from illnesses or other health concerns, and it can be tough to feel much Christmas spirit when we’re ailing.

Still, the Yuletide has the uncanny ability to bring feelings of serenity, love and gratitude, be it in small or large helpings. One way it’s done so for me through the years is with seasonal music. Granted, it can get excessive if you hear the same songs over and over when you’re out in stores and other public places. But I have several dozen Christmas-oriented CD mixes I’ve received as gifts from other music lovers, and they’ve been in rotation at my house and in my car for several weeks now. Hymns, rock songs, folk melodies, even whimsical comedy tunes (some new, some old) segue from one to the next, keeping things interesting instead of predictable.

This year, I’m sharing a dozen or so of my favorite secular Christmas tunes, with some background information you might not have known. I hope this playlist hits the spot, cheering you up and offering warmth and comfort as you gather with family and friends this coming week.

A very Merry Christmas to my readers!

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“I Believe in Father Christmas,” Emerson, Lake and Palmer, 1977

Emerson, Lake and Palmer were one of the most bombastic of the British progressive rock bands of the ’70s, with Keith Emerson’s virtuoso keyboards dominating their albums.  Each LP featured at least one commercial ballad by bassist/vocalist Greg Lake (“Lucky Man,” “From the Beginning,” “Still, You Turn Me On”).  In 1974, as a solo track, Lake collaborated with lyricist Peter Sinfield to write this piece, intended as a protest against the commercialization of Christmas.  Musically, it has a grandly traditional, hymn-like flair to it, thanks to Emerson’s suggestion to use a riff from Prokofiev’s “Lieutenant Kijé’s Suite” (1934). Lyrically, though, it’s a bit dark. As Sinfield has said, “It’s about the loss of innocence and childhood belief. It’s a picture postcard Christmas song, but with morbid edges.” Lake’s solo recording reached #2 in the UK, but didn’t chart here. In 1977, ELP re-recorded it for their “Works Part II” album, and that’s the version you’re hearing here.

“Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,” Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, 1975

J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie teamed up back in 1933 to write this holiday favorite, which became an instant hit when performed on Eddie Cantor’s radio show the following December. Hundreds of recorded versions followed, from Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters to The Temptations and Neil Diamond. A version by The Four Seasons reached #23 on the charts in 1962, and Phil Spector included a rousing version by The Crystals on his Christmas collection in 1963. When Springsteen and his band recorded a performance of their rendition in 1975 at a small Long Island college, they used a modified arrangement of The Crystals’ version. It was released as part of the “In Harmony 2” package on Sesame Street Records in 1982, and again as the B-side of the “My Home Town” single in 1985. It had long been familiar to Boss fans through distribution to rock radio stations in the late ’70s, and the band has been featuring it for decades in its playlist any time they’re touring in late November and December.

“Run Rudolph Run,” Chuck Berry, 1958

In a November 1958 recording session, Berry and his backing band recorded two tracks: his new tune “Little Queenie” (which would be released as a B-side several months later with “Almost Grown”), and “Run Rudolph Run,” which was basically the same song with different lyrics, made up quickly in the studio by Marvin Brodie and Berry. The label rush-released “Run Rudolph Run” for the Christmas market, and it reached #28 on the charts that year. Both songs are melodically similar to Berry’s earlier signature song “Johnny B. Goode.” Since then, the song has been recorded by such big names as Lynyrd Skynyrd, Sheryl Crow, Cheap Trick, Grateful Dead, Foo Fighters, Jimmy Buffett, Brian Setzer Orchestra, Hanson and Foghat.

“Please Come Home for Christmas,” The Eagles, 1978

Blues pianist/singer Charles Brown co-wrote this track in 1960 with Gene Redd, and Brown’s recording made the charts that year. It remained a seasonal favorite each year throughout the 1960s, reaching #1 on a Christmas Singles chart in 1972. Six years later, as The Eagles were struggling to come up with the follow-up to their mega-platinum 1977 LP “Hotel California,” their label insisted they select something to release for the lucrative Christmas season. Glenn Frey, a blues rock aficionado, had always liked Brown’s song, so he brought it to the group’s attention, and they polished off a solid cover version, which reached #18 in 1978, the first Christmas single to make the Top 20 on the pop charts since Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Paper” in 1963. Bon Jovi had a popular version of “Please Be Home for Christmas” included on “A Very Special Christmas 2” collection in 1992.

“Father Christmas,” The Kinks, 1977

The hardest rocking tune on this list, and the least Christmassy, is this angry diatribe by Ray Davies and The Kinks.  They wrote this and recorded it in 1977, during punk rock’s heyday in England, as a screed about the unfair class system prevalent there, where rich kids got many Christmas presents while poor kids got none.  Davies sings of a gang of poor kids beating up on a department store Santa Claus, telling him they want his money, not toys. “Father Christmas, give us some money, /Don’t mess around with those silly toys, /We’ll beat you up if you don’t hand it over, /We want your bread so don’t make us annoyed, /Give all the toys to the little rich boys!…” Many punk and hard rock bands have covered it in recent years, from Green Day and Bad Religion to Warrant and Smash Mouth.

“Little Saint Nick,” The Beach Boys, 1963

It’s no secret to Beach Boys fans that there’s plenty of bad blood between Brian Wilson and cousin Mike Love that has kept the band in different camps on and off for decades. Sometimes the differences were artistic; for example, Love didn’t care for Wilson’s new direction with the songs on the universally praised 1966 LP “Pet Sounds.” Love also took exception to being excluded from songwriting credit for some of the classics in the band’s lucrative early catalog. The Christmas single “Little Saint Nick,” recorded in 1963 and borrowing heavily from their earlier Wilson/Love tune “Little Deuce Coupe,” was one such bone of contention. The original single indicates Wilson as its sole writer, but Love won back royalties and co-writer credit in a 1993 lawsuit. The song appeared on “The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album” in 1964 along with a dozen covers of traditional carols.

“Happy Xmas (War is Over),” John Lennon and Yoko Ono, 1971

Like so many Lennon tracks of his early solo period (“Cold Turkey,” “Instant Karma,” “Power to the People”), this unique “holiday protest song” was written and recorded quickly, this time to capitalize on the 1971 Yuletide season, but they were late getting it out. “Happy Christmas (War is Over)” never got past #42 in the US that year, but it was a Top Ten hit in Europe and #4 in the UK when released there for the 1972 holiday season. The song, which utilized the basic structure of the English folk song “Stewball,” was designed as an anti-war anthem mixed with untraditional Christmas tidings (“And so this is Christmas, and what have you done?…”), bringing in the “War is over if you want it” theme from past protests. John and Yoko used session musicians Nicky Hopkins on piano and Jim Keltner on drums, and brought in the Harlem Community Children’s Choir to add vocals to the chorus, all produced by Phil Spector. Following Lennon’s death in 1980, the track soared to iconic status and has been covered by dozens of other artists.

“A-Soalin’,” Peter Paul & Mary, 1964

PP&M did a nice little trick in 1963 when they took a traditional English folk song, added a new verse by Paul Stookey with Christmas references and part of the “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” melody, and voila! A Christmas song for their repertoire. It’s a simply stunning performance which appears on their “Peter Paul and Mary In Concert” double live album in 1964 when the trio seamlessly blended two acoustic guitars and their three voices. Lyrically, it sounds like it’s from some sort of soundtrack for a Charles Dickens tale. “A-Soalin'” is a variation on “A-Wassailing,” which is the practice of going door to door, singing a song and getting a small gift in return. These gifts were often fruit, candy or “soul-cakes” in memory of recently departed souls of family members. PP&M’s live recording in Paris in 1965 is on YouTube and should definitely be on your must-see holiday viewing list. https://youtu.be/nABowLcQlHc?si=62KmOGGuuz4K-rB7

“Song for a Winter’s Night,” Gordon Lightfoot, 1967

Not so much a Christmas song as a nod to wintertime, its subtle use of sleigh bells evokes fond memories of Christmases from the ’60s and ’70s, when I first heard it.  Ironically, Lightfoot wrote and recorded “Song For a Winter’s Night” on a hot summer night in Cleveland while .he was there on a US tour in 1967. He was missing his wife, and his thoughts turned to winter in Toronto where they had met years earlier. It appeared on his second album, “The Way I Feel,” and was then one of several songs Lightfoot re-recorded in 1975 when he assembled the tracks for his “Gord’s Gold” greatest hits collection, which is the one you’re hearing on my playlist.

“Christmas Song” and “Another Christmas Song,” Jethro Tull, 1969 and 1989

Of all the British rock artists of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, none has written and recorded as much Christmas-related material as Jethro Tull. Leader Ian Anderson is a self-confessed Yuletide romantic, and early in the group’s career, he wrote “Christmas Song,” which uses traditional imagery of “Royal David city” and cattle sheds, but also reprimands us about “stuffing yourselves at the Christmas parties” and reminds us that “the Christmas spirit is not what you drink.”  In the late ’80s, he wrote what amounts to a sequel, “Another Christmas Song,” which centers on a dying patrician who yearns for his estranged family to gather ’round one last time to celebrate the holidays. Both of these melodic, poignant tracks were re-recorded and included on “The Jethro Tull Christmas Album,” released in 2003.

“River,” Joni Mitchell, 1971

Deftly weaving in multiple musical phrases from “Jingle Bells” in both the introduction and the ending, Joni Mitchell created a marvelous piece that is regarded by many as a Christmas-related song, even though it’s actually more about the sorrowful breakup of a relationship she’d been having with Graham Nash.  Her Canadian roots are evident in the recurring line about how “I wish I had a river I could skate away on.”  Several of my close friends and family members share my fondness for this one, which appeared on her universally praised 1971 album “Blue.” I can’t fail to mention that my daughter Emily recorded a gorgeous cover of “River” several years ago with two musical colleagues, and it’s available on YouTube for your viewing pleasure: https://youtu.be/nk_kYn7x0yI?si=F0bsPg5EvWQ61n3v

“Merry Christmas Baby,” Elvis Presley, 1971

Lou Baxter and Johnny Moore came up with this beauty back in 1947, and dozens of versions have been recorded since then, from Bruce Springsteen to Otis Redding, from Melissa Etheridge to B.B. King.  I’m torn between Elvis’s smokin’ hot rendition from his 1971 Christmas album “Elvis Sings The Wonderful World of Christmas” and the sensual blues cover by Natalie Cole from her “Holly & Ivy” 1994 holiday collection. Pretty much any version of this song is worthy of inclusion on your holiday mix, but in the end, you gotta go with Elvis. It was recorded as an extended 8-minute jam but edited down to a still-robust 5:44 for the album.

“Pretty Paper,” Roy Orbison, 1963

In the late ’50s and early ’60s, Willie Nelson struggled mightily to find a major label to sign him as a recording artist. In the meantime, he wrote songs which sometimes were made into hits by other artists. Most famously, he wrote “Crazy” for Patsy Cline, “Funny How Time Slips Away” for Billy Walker and “Pretty Paper” for Roy Orbison. Nelson was inspired by a disabled man he knew in Texas who sold paper and pencils on the street corner to eke out a living, and Nelson turned it into a Christmas-themed song by singing about wrapping paper. Orbison turned it into a #15 hit in 1963, and then Nelson recorded it himself after he was signed to RCA the following year.

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Band Aid, 1984

This sobering holiday track was an amazing collaborative effort by the best of Britain’s pop scene at the time, including Sting, Phil Collins, Bono, the members of Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, and Bob Geldof, who produced it and co-wrote it with Midge Ure.  Geldof and his wife had seen heartbreaking footage of the starvation in Ethiopia at that time and rallied their colleagues to put together this charity single, which not only raised needed funds but sparked “We Are the World” by USA for Africa and the Live Aid event in the summer of 1985. These and other efforts helped stem the tide of misery in that part of the world.  That’s what Christmas should be all about.

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I know a change gonna come, yes it will

Posted on by brucehhackett

It’s been called one of rock and roll’s greatest mysteries.

It’s certainly one of its greatest tragedies.

Sixty years ago this week, at a seedy motel in South Central Los Angeles, the popular and extraordinarily gifted singer Sam Cooke was shot to death, apparently by the motel manager, who claimed self-defense. Cooke was 33 years old.

Friends, family members, journalists and attorneys have all publicly speculated in the years since that the slapdash police investigation, difficult-to-fathom circumstances and suspicious business relationships surrounding Cooke’s ignominious end all point to some sort of conspiracy. The 2017 documentary “Lady, You Shot Me: The Life and Death of Sam Cooke” examines the dubious nature of his violent death and concludes, in his nephew Eugene Jamison’s words, “It just doesn’t make sense.”

By 1964, Cooke had become the #1 black musical artist in the country, with an impressive run of more than 25 hit singles on the Billboard Top 40 pop charts, 20 of which were also Top Ten on the R&B charts. His first big single, “You Send Me,” reached #1 in 1957, and was followed by such classics as “Wonderful World,” “Chain Gang,””Cupid,” “Twistin’ the Night Away,” “Bring It On Home To Me,” “Havin’ A Party,” “Another Saturday Night” and “(Ain’t That) Good News,” among many others. He not only recorded these iconic tracks, he wrote them, published them and produced them in an era when black artists simply didn’t have that kind of clout.

From his early days as a gospel singer with The Soul Stirrers in the ’40s and early ’50s through his switch to secular musical styles in the late ’50s and early ’60s, Cooke was a keen observer of the music business. He had seen how artists, particularly black artists, had been cheated out of royalties and underpaid for live performances by unscrupulous managers, agents and record label moguls, and he was adamant that he wasn’t going to suffer that same fate. He founded his own publishing company, his own label and began amassing both wealth and power that upset the dynamic of the industry.

And yet Cooke still was taken advantage of by those he trusted — in particular, the notorious Allen Klein, who became involved in Cooke’s affairs in 1963 and engaged in shady dealings to wrest control of Cooke’s copyrights. (Klein infamously later mismanaged the finances of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, who found themselves mired in lawsuits and countersuits with Klein for years on end.)

In a 2019 article in The Guardian by investigative reporter Ellen Jones, she wrote, “The week before (Cooke) died, he was planning to confront Klein over altered contracts and official documents. Could Cooke’s willingness to stand up to powerful vested interests have been a factor in his murder? Isn’t it time some enterprising filmmaker did a deep dive into Cooke’s death?”

In my view, “Lady You Shot Me” provides a pretty convincing case that the matter needs a thorough, official investigation, which had been continually obstructed by Klein before his own death in 2009 at age 77. When I watched the documentary last week on Amazon Prime, I grew angrier by the minute as the facts and informed opinions were presented. I urge my readers to make up their minds by watching the piece themselves, but I daresay you’ll draw the same outraged conclusion I did.

Cooke’s Wikipedia entry calls him “one of the greatest singers and most accomplished vocalists of all time. His incredibly pure tenor voice was big, velvety and expansive, with an instantly recognizable tone. Cooke’s pitch was remarkable, and his manner of singing was effortlessly soulful.”

Major stars of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s — iconic names like Otis Redding, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Paul McCartney, Tina Turner, Steve Perry, Rod Stewart, Al Green, Mick Jagger and Diana Ross — have each praised Cooke as “hugely influential” in the development of their own singing styles.

As a student of rock music of the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, I’m sheepish to admit that I was late to the party when it comes to Sam Cooke. I was too young to have known about him while he was still alive (I was only nine when he died), but I didn’t even become aware of his name until the early ’80s. I recall seeing a cheesy TV commercial in the late ’70s advertising a bargain “greatest hits” collection by “the legendary Sam Cooke” and thinking, “Who?? How can he be legendary if I’ve never heard of him?”

When my friend Gary played his records one night in 1985, I fell in love with the songs and, especially, the voice. Sure, I’d heard “You Send Me” before, and I recognized “Twistin’ the Night Away” from its use in the “Animal House” film soundtrack. But I was kicking myself for not having fully appreciated this guy before. I picked up two outstanding CD compilations — the 28-song “The Man and His Music” (1986) and the grittier blues collection “The Rhythm and The Blues” (1995) — and found that the deeper I dove into his recorded catalog, the more I was dazzled by his expressive tenor and the way he could successfully handle such a wide range of genres.

He could wrap his voice around a time-honored gospel song like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and then pick up Nat King Cole’s mantle as a convincing crooner of standards like “Mona Lisa.” Cooke’s mastery of legendary blues tunes like “Nobody Loves You When You’re Down and Out” is every bit as impressive as his take on a pop confection like “Cupid.” These days, whenever a Cooke track comes up on somebody’s playlist, I stop what I’m doing and just marvel at that voice.

The Soul Stirrers, with Sam Cooke (bottom left)

Cooke began singing in Chicago at age six in the children’s choir of the Baptist church where his father was preacher. He started getting noticed when he became the lead singer with the gospel vocal group The Highway Q.C.s at the tender age of 14. He received wider exposure when, at 18, he took over R.H. Harris’s place as lead tenor in The Soul Stirrers, who were signed with Specialty Records, where they recorded such gospel standards as “Jesus Gave Me Water,” “Touch the Hem of His Garment” and “Peace In the Valley.”

While gospel was popular, Cooke recognized that its fans were mostly limited to rural communities, and he wanted to expand his reach by attempting other genres, notably pop and soul music. Where artists like Marvin Gaye faced heated opposition from his preacher father for abandoning religious music for secular music, Cooke was surprised and pleased that his father supported his son’s career move. Said Cooke, “My father told me it was not what I sang that was important, but that God gave me a voice and musical talent, and the true use of His gift was to share it and make people happy.”

He covered classics like George Gershwin’s “Summertime” and The Ink Spots standard “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons,” but noting that the real money in the music business went to the composers who held the copyrights, Cooke began writing songs, and eventually, most of the hits he recorded and released were Cooke originals. He focused on singles and built a solid legacy on those charts, but he also enjoyed a couple of high-rated albums as well — 1963’s blues-oriented “Night Beat” (which reached #62) and 1964’s “Ain’t That Good News,” which included three hit singles and peaked at #34.

Cooke was also intensely interested in the growing civil rights movement in the early ’60s. He became friends with Martin Luther King and the more revolutionary Malcolm X, as well as sports giants Jim Brown and Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali). The award-winning stage play and film “One Night In Miami” offers a fictionalized account of the night Cooke, Brown and Malcolm X were all together to see Clay’s upset of heavyweight boxing champ Sonny Liston, and their meeting to discuss how they could help advance the civil rights cause.

Leslie Odom Jr. as Sam Cooke in the 2020 film “One Night in Miami”

In the film, the outspoken Malcolm accuses Cooke of disloyalty to the black community by pandering to white audiences, and Cooke calmly argues that his method produces greater economic empowerment for black artists. Malcolm harshly ridicules the music Cooke has produced since finding success, but Cooke insists his success and creative autonomy is itself an inspiration to the black community. He agrees with Malcolm that Bob Dylan’s then-new “Blowin’ in the Wind” showed that protest songs with thought-provoking lyrics could become popular on the charts, and points to his own profoundly relevant “A Change is Gonna Come” as indicative of the kind of songs he’d be writing in the future.

Sadly, that landmark track wasn’t released as a single until after his death, which ironically gave it even more impact in 1965 as the watershed Voting Rights Act was passed and the movement took center stage in communities across the country. In the 2017 documentary, it was pointed out that Barack Obama quoted from the song often during his 2008 Presidential campaign speeches, which helped revive Cooke’s name and reputation as an iconic cultural figure.

I’ve chosen not to devote too much space here to all the details and conjecture surrounding his shocking death. The documentary does a thorough job of that, and I’ve always preferred to write about the music and achievements of artists like Cooke rather than their ignoble demises. As his nephew said, “My uncle’s star shone very brightly for a short period of time. Some stars are tragic figures. Sam Cooke was not a tragic figure. He was a very good person who just had a tragic ending.”

Bill Gardner, the longtime radio host of the “Rhapsody in Black” program on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles, said, “Sam was never a violent guy. I never saw him get angry. Never saw him want to hit anybody. Hard for me to believe the story as it appears in the police report. In my opinion, everyone should be a suspect, but I don’t think we’ll ever get to the bottom of it.”

As a musical coda to Cooke’s story, the impactful singers Dion DiMucci and Paul Simon teamed up in 2020 to write and record the poignant “Song For Sam Cooke (Here in America),” with provocative lyrics that remind us that the struggle still goes on: “You were a star when you were standing on a stage, /I look back on it, I feel a burning rage, /You sang ‘You Send Me,’ I sang ‘I Wonder Why,’ /I still wonder, you were way too young to die, /Here in America…” I’ve included the track as the final entry on my Spotify playlist below.

It’s profoundly sad to acknowledge how we were all robbed of the chance to hear more from this wondrous singer, and to imagine what Sam Cooke might have accomplished in the ensuing decades.

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