Details
Track Listing
1. White Christmas - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
2. Silent Night, Holy Night - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
3. Adeste Fideles (O, Come All Ye Faithful)
4. Jingle Bells - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
5. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
6. Christmas Dreaming (A Little Early This Year)
7. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
8. O Little Town of Bethlehem
9. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
10. Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
11. Introduction by General Reynolds
12. O, Little Town Of Bethlehem / Joy To The World / White Christmas
13. Ave Maria - (previously unreleased)
14. Winter Wonderland - (previously unreleased)
15. Lord's Prayer, The - (previously unreleased)
Album Notes
Personnel includes: Frank Sinatra (vocals); Alex Stordahl (arranger, conductor); Bobby Tucker Singers, Ken Lane Singers, B. Swanson Quartet, Jeff Alexander Orchestra & Chorus, Mitchell Boys Choir.
Recorded from 1944 to 1949. Includes liner notes by Roy Hemming.
Digitally remastered using Cedar and NoNoise technology by Tom Ruff (Sony Music Studios, New York, New York).
It should come as no surprise that Frank Sinatra would have a special way with Christmas songs just as he did with every other type of song. This welcome reissue is a slightly expanded version of Sinatra's original 1948 Christmas album and includes some 1945 V-Disc holiday performances especially recorded for the troops still stationed in Europe right after the war. The original 78s hold up incredibly well for Christmas music a half-century old.
Sinatra's approach to such chestnuts as "White Christmas"--only 2 years old in 1944--and "Silent Night" is straightforward, unsentimental and utterly convincing. It also owes nothing to Bing Crosby, who had a franchise on this kind of family fare. Sinatra's fresh, non-pietistic take on this material is geared more toward the unattached (young) man in the street rather than family men. The slightly sexy "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" and "Christmas Dreaming (A Little Early This Year)" were for the very same G.I.s Sinatra had once entertained through his V-Discs, back home now and considering the uncertain (and slightly sexy) future looming before them.
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