Burl Ives - Have A Holly Jolly Christmas (1965)

Ives was an Academy Award-winning actor and a folk singer who had four singles hit the Top 40, all in 1962. But to my generation and those that followed, Ives is best known as the voice of Sam the Snowman, the nattily attired narrator of the 1964 animated TV special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

While I enjoyed the show as child when it aired on network TV, I can't watch the thing today what with the adults behaving worse than their children, the nonstop bullying, and the eventual moral of "I don't like you unless you can do something for me." But I digress. My youngest son loved the thing and his favorite Christmas tune for several years around the turn of the century was A Holly Jolly Christmas. So we bought this CD for the family and when my son started his life as an adult, he left behind all his CDs (he now prefers vinyl), so here we are. And you know what? This album is a highly enjoyable seasonal treat. I wish I could say the same for the Baja Men CD he left me.

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: did not chart
• Billboard Christmas: #32

Tracks: 12 tracks, 29½ minutes. The two familiar tunes written by Johnny Marks for the Rudolph special are both here: A Holly Jolly Christmas and Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, plus an earlier Marks tune, I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day. Other Christmas standards get their turn, too: Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town, White Christmas, Little Drummer Boy, Winter Wonderland, and Silver Bells. Then there are the 4 tunes I've never heard elsewhere: Christmas Is A Birthday, Christmas Child (Loo, Loo, Loo), Christmas Can't Be Far Away, and Snow For Johnny. All with wonderful, characteristics 1960's orchestrations supporting the immediately recognizable voice of Ives.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: see above