← Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Chestnut Roasters, Part 1
01:01:18
A festive retrospective on the artists whose holiday hits outperform the rest of their catalog combined.
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You're listening ad free on Amazon Music. Hey there Hit Parade listeners. What you're about to hear is Part one of this episode. Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus. You can try it for a month for just $1 and it supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts. Just go to slate.com hit parade plus you'll get to hear every Hit Parade episode in full the day it arrives. Plus hit the Bridge our bonus episodes with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics and pop chart trivia. Once again to join, that's slate.com hitparadeplus thanks and now please enjoy part one of this hit Parade episode. This podcast contains seasonal Wham Content Whamageddon players discretion is advised.
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Would you like to swing on a star, Carry moonbeams home in a jar and be better off than you are.
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Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number one Series on today's show. If by some chance you don't recognize this vocalist, that is the legendary Bing Crosby with Swinging on a Star. It spent a total of 10 cumulative weeks at number one on Billboard's pop singles charts, best selling retail records and most played jukebox record in 1944. That 10 week run was the most of any chart topper that year.
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He has no manners when he eats his food.
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Swinging on a Star has become a standard thanks in large part to its prominent inclusion in the film Going My Way, the Crosby starring Best Picture Academy award winner for 1944. At that same Oscar ceremony, the the tune itself won the best original Song prize, and it probably contributed to Crosby's own Oscar win that night for Best Actor. For most musicians, feats like these would make Swinging on a Star their definitive song the way such Oscar winners as Theme from Shaft, My Heart Will Go on and Lose Yourself are the definitive hit for Isaac Hayes, Celine Dion and Eminem, respectively. But I mean, who are we kidding? This is not the signature hit for Der Bingle. As soon as I said the name Bing Crosby, I'll bet you instantly thought instead of this chestnut, I.
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Dreaming of a White.
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Christmas, this is the best, bestselling single period of all time. Bing Crosby's White Christmas, a song Irving Berlin wrote for Crosby's 1942 film Holiday Inn. It too won the best Song prize at the oscars, and this 1942 recording has reportedly sold more than 50 million copies worldwide, as per the Guinness Book of World Records. When you include Crosby's later re recordings of the song, including this one from 1947, which is the version you're likeliest to hear on the radio today, where.
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The tree tops glisten and children listen.
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Bing's White Christmas has sold upwards of 100 million copies, making it a bigger seller than any other recording. More than four decades after his passing. White Christmas defines Bing Crosby, even though he recorded dozens of other non Christmas related smash hits. But Bing is not alone. There are plenty of other artists for whom their holiday hit eclipses everything else in their catalog, whether it was originally a chart hit or not.
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Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away.
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There are chart acts that had multiple non seasonal number one hits like Wham or Nat King Cole Chestnuts roasting on.
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An open fire.
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Who are now mostly consumed at Christmas. From girl groups, Latin rockers, R B.
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Legends, and this Christmas will be Very.
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Special Christmas two millennial crooners.
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It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
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Even a former Beatle or two. You might be surprised at how much better their holiday singles do on the modern hit parade than movies. Most of their other solo material Simply.
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Having a Wonderful Christmas Time Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.
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You can call these artists Christmas careerists, holiday hitmongers. I sometimes refer to them as chestnut roasters. They're one holiday chestnut, maybe one song among many, has so overTaken their musical Erv they've become seasonal streamers rather than year round performers.
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It's the most wonderful time of the year.
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Today on Hit Parade, we'll compare some of these acts historical billboard histories to the very merry ways their music is consumed today. For some, the holidays will be their main claim to fame in decades to come, whether or not they embrace their status as Santa's Little Helpers rocking around.
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The Christmas tree at the Christmas party hop.
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And speaking of little Helpers, possibly no rock era act with a top tier chart career has been more redefined by a single Christmas record than the pint sized vocalist who is in both the rock and roll and country halls of fame. Brenda Lee is the only woman to achieve that dual enshrinement, by the way. And she even had a few R and B hits too back in the day. No matter what chart she appeared on. Brenda Lee just wanted to be wanted alone.
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So alone That I, I could cry I want to be wanted.
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And that's where your hit parade marches today, the week ending December 12, 1960. When I Want to Be Wanted, a recent number one smash by Teen vocal sensation Brenda Lee, was in its final week in the top 40 of Billboard's Hot 100. That same week, 32 positions lower. This song by Brenda Lee was just making its debut. I'll bet you know this one. Rockin around the Christmas Tree, Brenda Lee's definitive recording of the classic holiday bop would not wind up as big a hit in 1960 as her number one, I want to Be Wanted. Not even close. Christmas Tree still hasn't topped the hot 100, but decades later, it would get awfully close. We're still tracking its progress on the chart as I record this, Will Brenda actually score another number one more than 60 years after her last one? Will she pull off what you might call a double Mariah? Pour yourself some cocoa with marshmallows and curl up as I explain how legends like Brenda Lee go from chart toppers to chestnut roasters. And just maybe chart toppers again. Hit Parade listeners who play the Little Drummer Boy Challenge or Whamageddon during the holiday season might just relate to actor Hugh Grant's exasperation in this clip.
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November the sodding 19th. Six weeks before Christmas, and already they were playing the bloody thing.
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In the 2002 film about a boy based on the 1998 novel by Nick Hornby, Grant plays idol bachelor Will Freeman. Here, Will is confronted in the supermarket by an inescapable holiday song that it so happens his late father wrote. Hornby's clever plot pivots on this song, Santa's Super Sleigh. Will is a man child living comfortably in London without a job. He doesn't need one, thanks to his deceased dad's perennial Christmas royalties, which have set Will up for life. Which doesn't mean Will actually likes the ditty that serves as his personal annuity.
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Must have heard of it. Uh, it's Santa's Super Sleigh. Oh, God, please don't sing it. Look who's going round the bend It's Santa and his reindeer friends With a ho ho ho and a hate. Hey, hey, it's Santa's Super Sleigh. I expect people do that all the time. Oh, no, I think you two are the first.
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Sorry. What makes this plot point true to life? At least as authentic as Billy Mack's plot to score a Christmas number one in love? Actually, another Christmassy British movie starring Hugh Grant is a perennial Holiday song really is like winning the lottery. What also makes it true to life, however, is the way that song can define a musician's career or, some might argue, diminish it. For example, when legendary performer Nat King Cole first emerged as a recording artist at the turn of the 1940s, he was widely respected in the jazz world.
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I'm as happy as a baby boy with another brand new choo choo joy When I met my sweet Lorraine Lorraine.
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Lorraine Tracks like The King Cole trio's 1940 hit Sweet Lorraine were beloved by jazz heads as much for Nat Cole's sterling piano playing as for his vocals. Cole only began singing due to audience encouragement as a young man, he was more interested in playing. Through the mid-1940s. Cole had a knack for translating authentic jazz playing for mainstream audiences, as on his trio's take on the jazzy R B standards standard get your kicks on Route 66.
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Get your kicks on Route 66. Now you go through St. Louis, Joplin, Missouri and Oklahoma City looks my eye.
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And then in 1946, Cole and his trio recorded a new song written by jazz and pop crooner Mel Torme and and for the first time, Nat King Cole layered on some strings.
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Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
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Jack.
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Frost nipping at your nose.
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It was not only a smash, it changed the direction Nat King Cole would pursue for most of the rest of his career. The Christmas Song, merry Christmas to you AKA Chestnuts roasting on an open Fire was a smash in 1946, number three on both Billboard's pop and R B charts. And it kept coming back year after year. After the Christmas Song, Nat King Cole shifted toward vocal showcases built on orchestral backing, downplaying his jazz roots on tracks like Nature Boy and Too Young. And Cole also re recorded the Christmas Song multiple times, working with arrangers like Nelson Riddle and singing on ever more elaborate orchestral arrangements.
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Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
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Clearly, Cole himself didn't mind his shift into soft pop vocalizing. Nor did Mel Torme. The Christmas Song made him a very wealthy man. But jazz aficionados still revere Nat King Cole's 1930s and 40s jazz trio records and disdain his pop records. Whereas to generations born in the the late 20th and early 21st centuries, if they know Nat King Cole at all, it's as the chestnuts roasting Jack Frost nipping yuletide carols being sung by a choir Standard bearer Tiny tots with their.
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Eyes all aglow Will find it hard to sleep tonight.
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On the plus side, the Christmas Song ensures generations to come will know who Nat King Cole is, but it does skew his place in the musical firmament. Or what about Dean Martin?
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One girl, one boy, Some greed, some joy made her there.
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The suave actor, cabaret performer, comic. He was one half of the legendary nightclub act Martin and Lewis with his erstwhile friend Jerry Lewis. And of course a charter member of Frank Sinatra's so called Rat Pack. Dino was also a pretty serious hit maker.
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Of wine.
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In 1950, at the dawn of rock and roll, Martin scored a number one hit with the jazzy harmony vocal ditty Memories Are Made of this. And nine years later, even after Elvis Presley and the Beatles had stormed the charts, Dean Martin went to number one again with Everybody Loves Somebody.
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Everybody find somebody. There's no telling where love may appear.
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To be sure, both of these songs are staples in Martin's catalog, but they're not what you're likeliest to hear by Dino nowadays. He has instead become the louche chronicler of avoiding winter by snuggling and boozing it up with your baby. Both on the classic Let it Snow, let it snow, let it Snow and.
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Since we've no place to go, go Let it snow, let it snow, let.
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It Snow and on the now controversial politically incorrect but still popular Baby It's Cold Outside.
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Put some records on while I pour. Baby it's bad out there no cabs.
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To be had out there Nowadays, this pair of wintry tunes by Dean Martin and Nat King Cole's the Christmas Song are far and away the most played of these crooners recordings on the radio and on streaming services like Spotify. I'll be using those modern yardsticks alongside original Billboard chart performance to try to give a sense of how Christmas has rewired our perceptions of a slew of jazz, rock, country, R and B and pop eminences since the launch of the hot 100 and a bit before. You may not even realize some of these chestnut roasters had other hits like.
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This Guy the Coyotes Whale along the Trail Deep in the Heart of Texas.
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Gene Autry, the self styled singing cowboy, helped bring country and western to the masses as early as the nineteen nineteen thirties. Even before Billboard had a country chart, Autry was scoring national crossover hits like his 1942 take on Deep in the Heart of Texas. After Billboard's country chart launched in 1944, Autry started racking up hits. He scored 18 straight country top tens through 1948, including the military themed At Mail Call Today, a story about a soldier separated from his sweetheart, an eight week number one in 1945 at mail call today.
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Dear your last letter came. I just stood there smiling.
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Singing about the military was done by design. Not only was there a a war on, but Gene Autry had a rep to protect. His singing cowboy Persona was a masculine archetype both on the radio and on the silver screen. Maybe that's why he needed convincing when he was brought this song in 1949.
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You know, Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner.
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Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was penned by famed Christmas songwriter Johnny Marks. Like Irving Berlin, a Jew, by the way, Marx wrote it accompanying a promotional holiday children's book issued by department store Montgomery Ward. Marx himself later called Rudolph one of the worst songs ever written.
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Used to laugh and call him names.
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Gene Autry didn't much care for Rudolph either. Autry had first started edging into holiday music with Here Comes Santa Claus, a song he himself co wrote and recorded in 1947. It was a top five country hit in 1948.
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So hang your stockings and say your prayers Call Santa Claus Here comes tonight Here comes Santa Claus Here comes Santa Claus Right down Santa Claus lane But.
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Johnny Marks ditty about an underestimated magical caribou with an electric schnoz that was a bridge too far for Autry. Gene rejected Rudolph at first, even as a B side, before his wife convinced him the song was sweet and cajoled him into recording it. And Autry's career, already at its height, was culturally rebooted.
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Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, you'll go down in history.
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During the 19491950 holiday season, Autry's Rudolph hit number one on both the country and pop charts. The singing cowboy became, from then on, primarily a Christmas singer. Rudolph Here comes Santa Claus up on the housetop. Autry's versions of these songs are all on Billboard's Holiday 100 chart this very week in 2021, Autry's Rudolph is even on the current Hot 100 pop chart for the fourth Christmas in a row. So that's what happened to a formative country legend when he got swallowed by Christmas. What about a jazz guy? Consider this pianist. This is not a holiday song. But his tone on the keys might sound familiar. Vince Guaraldi never meant to be either a holiday nor a children's recording artist. He was a serious jazz player, inspired by the work of such prior piano legends as Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans. At one point around the turn of the 50s, he was even warming up crowds for art Tatum. He formed the Vince Guaraldi trio in 1955. This take of the standard the Ladies in Love with youh was on the Vince Guaraldi Trio's 1956 self titled album. What made the bespectacled, mustachioed Guaraldi exceptional was how he connected with pop audiences even after rock and roll replaced jazz as America's primary youth music. In 1962, when samba and bossa nova were at their crossover peak in the Girl from Ipanema era, the Vince Guaraldi Trio recorded an entire L interpreting selections from the likes of Antonio Carlos Jobim. From that album they scored an actual honest to goodness top 40 pop hit with a Latin flavored Guaraldi original called Cast your Fate to the Wind. Cast yout Fate peaked at number 22 in early 1963, better even than fellow bespectacled jazz pianist Dave Brubeck had done in 1961 with his number 25 pop hit take five. Vince Guaraldi had proved that he had the soul of a jazzbo but an ear for pop. Which might explain why a pair of television producers approached him in 1965 to do the music for for an animated holiday special based around the unusually melancholy Peanuts comic strip characters by Charles M. Schultz. A Charlie Brown Christmas, which established the half hour animated special as a TV norm, was unorthodox in every sense, built around actual child voice actors and themed around how the holiday season can be deeply emo. Vince Guaraldi's music only enhanced this mood. His trio's jazzy takes on Christmas standards like O Tannenbaum and the Little Drummer Boy set a new tempo template for ambient holiday music and one instrumental, an original by Guaraldi that was not specifically Christmassy, became both a holiday perennial and his signature song, Linus and Lucy, a song named for Peanuts brother and sister, would recur through later Peanuts TV specials like it's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and It's the Easter Beagle Charlie Brown, but it remains most associated with the Christmas season. As I speak, it's in the top 30 on Billboard's seasonal holiday 100 chart. Guaraldi did continue to record non Charlie Brown Music. His 1968 album the Eclectic Vince Guaraldi introduced his jazzy singing voice.
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I'm the family's unknown boy golden curls of ended hair Good hurls with faces fair See they shine on the black.
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Sheep board, which Gwaraldi then repurposed for more Peanuts TV music such as the Snoopy the Dog anthem Joe Cool. When Vince Guaraldi died from a heart attack in 1976, sadly he was only 47, he was satisfied with his children children's TV infused recording career. The thing is, even when actual children are singing on his tracks, though, Guaraldi's music thanks to the Holidays is no longer really considered kiddie music. On Billboard's Holiday 100, Guaraldi's Christmas time is Here. Linus and Lucy and Otanenbaum come back year after year. Even more remarkably, on the Billboard 200, the regular year round all genre album chart, the Vince Guaraldi Trio's A Charlie Brown Christmas is now not only a perennial, but a smash. This year in 2021, it has reached a new album chart peak of number nine. By the way, the LP never charted while Garaldi was alive and it does particularly well on vinyl. This week it's number four on Billboard's Vinyl Albums chart, just behind new LPs by Adele and Taylor Swift. Are kids buying all that Vince Guaraldi vinyl? I sincerely doubt it. The music Guaraldi made for a primetime 1965 TV special sponsored by Coca Cola is now best consumed with a whiskey, rocks and a long stare out a snowy window. While we're in this mellow mood, allow me to put play this old standard.
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Moon River Wider than a mile I'm crossing you in Stein someday.
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That's Andy Williams with Moon river, made famous in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's, though the original recording. By comparison, composer Henry Mancini was the chart hit, a number 11 peak on the Hot 100 and the one that in 1962 won Mancini both an Oscar for Best Original Song and a Grammy for Record of the Year. Andy Williams version is now widely considered the standard for Moon river, and Williams did score chart hits of his own. On his 1957 smash block Butterfly, a number one on Billboard's Most Played by disc Jockeys chart, Williams was on trend with a vocal that sounded a lot like Elvis.
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Then you fly around with somebody new But I'm crazy about you, you, butterfly.
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In 1963, Williams topped the album chart for more than four months with his LP Days of Wine and Roses.
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The days of wine and roses Laugh and run away.
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That album spawned a hot 100 smash with can't Get Used to Losing youg, a number two hit that sounds both deeply old fashioned and strangely modern.
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Girl I Used to Know.
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Maybe that modernity explains why those plucking strings were sampled with more than 50 years later by none other than Beyonce. And the song was covered extensively, most notably in a two tone ska version by British new wavers the Beat, AKA the English Beat in America.
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No matter what I try to do Gonna spend my whole life through loving you.
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So yeah, for all his schlockiness, Andy Williams was kinda badass. As affirmed by the Simpsons Secret fan. Ha ha ing bully Nelson Muntz what is this place?
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Branson, Missouri? My dad says it's like Vegas if.
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It were run by Ned Flanders.
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Andy Williams oh, we don't need to stop here. Yes we do.
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And yet all of those cool old Andy Williams ditties are not remotely what he is known for today.
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Happy Holiday, Happy holiday While the merry bells keep ringing Happy holiday to you.
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Andy Williams first recorded a Christmas album in 1963. It was an immediate smash, even though Billboard at this time segregated holiday music on a chart separate from its flagship top LPs, the Andy Williams Christmas album dominated that holiday chart for three consecutive years, going back to number one on the Christmas chart again and again. And not unlike what he did to Moon river, it established several songs as Andy Williams standards. His take on Irving Berlin's Happy Holiday is definitive, and a new song on 1963's Andy Williams Christmas album is I say this With Love, a schlock classic.
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It'S the Most Wonderful Time of the.
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Year for the last six Christmases, Andy Williams has dominated the radio and Spotify with It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. Each year on both the Holiday 100 and the Hot 100, it does a little better. Last year, during the 2020 holiday season, it reached a new Hot 100 peak of number five. This year. As of this week, it's once again cracked the top 10 and is still rising. Maybe it'll reach yet another new peak by New Year's.
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There'll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting and caroling out in the snow.
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Like genius Autry, once Williams went Saint Nick, he didn't go back. His televised Christmas specials persisted into the 90s, and he recorded a new holiday album at least once. A decade later, LPs like 1965's Merry Christmas generated additional hits, like his take on do you hear what I hear.
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Night with a Tail as big as.
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A Kite, which by the way, is number 78 on Billboard's Holiday 100 this week. Williams died in 2012, just as streaming music was beginning to take over the Billboard charts. If there is an afterlife, and Williams can see how Spotify is making him a hitmaker every December. He might indeed still regard it as the most wonderful time of the year. So far, all of the chestnut roasters I've discussed have been purveyors of pre rock music. But here's a Rock and Roll hall of Fame legend who's still with us and has leaned into her seasonal fame.
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Write Me a Letter Loving Me Alive.
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This is the Blossoms, a girl group that singer Darlene wright joined in 1957. Almost immediately, Darlene took their material up a notch. So much so that they recorded singles for a string of labels and got noticed for session with work backing up the likes of Sam Cooke. Eventually, in 1962, the blossoms were invited to sing on a session by infamous producer Phil Spector. He's the one who would eventually rename Darlene Wright Darlene Love, but her first time singing on a Spectre recording, a number one hit, no less. It wasn't under the name the Blossoms or Darlene Wright or Darlene Love. He's a Rebel was credited to the Crystal, a pre existing, totally separate girl group in Spectre's stable of acts that just couldn't make it into the studio in time for the session. Desperate to get a version of this surefire hit into stores before a competing version by singer Vicky Carr, Phil Spector recorded the Blossoms singing the song featuring Darlene Love's power house vocals and simply printed the crystal's name on the he's a rebel single. It spent two weeks on top of the Hot 100 in November 1962. He's a Rebel wasn't even the last faux Crystal singer single to feature Darlene Love's vocals. She and the Blossoms also sang on the early 1963 number 11 hit he's sure the Boy I Love. And in between those two Crystals hits, Darlene Love and the Blossoms scored another hit with another Spectre act, Bob B's Socks and the Blue Jeans. Their R B arrangement of the Disney standard Zip A Dee Doo Dah reached number nine. After the second of the two fake Crystals hits, Dark Arlene confronted the producer and demanded that she be able to sing under her own name. And say this for Phil Spector, he did give her an amazing showcase. We talked about The Classic Classic 1963 album A Christmas Gift for you from Phil Spector. In our prior Hit Parade episode on Holiday Hits, this seasonal compilation was a showcase for Spectre's wall of sound and arguably the album's star. The only vocalist on the compilation credited as a solo singer was Darlene Love. She commanded three songs on the Spectre Christmas lp, two of which were standards Winter Wonderland and the song made famous by Bing Crosby, white Christmas, may your.
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Days be merry and red, and may all your Christmases be wise.
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But the LP's signature song was an original penned by the team of Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry with Spectre, called simply Christmas Parentheses Baby Please Come Home. With her powerhouse vocals, Darlene Love made this new classic her signature song. None of the tracks on Spectre's Christmas album was issued as a single in 1963, hence none made the Billboard charts. But for decades, long after Darlene Love broke away from the controlling Phil Spector, Christmas Baby, Please Come Home was her call calling card. It was later covered by everyone from U2 to share but no one could take Christmas away from Darlene Love. For 28 years, from 1980 to 2014, every holiday season like clockwork, Love would appear on David Letterman's late night talk show on both NBC and CBS to sing her song, backed by Paul Shaffer's band.
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As far as I'm concerned, the best.
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Thing about the holiday season is when.
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Our next guest takes the stage for.
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What is now an annual Late show tradition. Here now to sing Christmas Baby, Please Come Home, our good friend Darlene Love.
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Let's go.
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And it may well be the song that eventually got Darlene Love into the Rock and Roll hall of fame in 2011. Induction presenter Bette Midler seemed to imply as much. Darlene was the very embodiment of teen screen spirit in the 60s, singing lead and backgrounds for Phil Spector. With and without credit, these records have remained in people's hearts. They are still played and loved all over the world. It's safe to say also that Christmas isn't officially here until Darlene wails. Christmas Baby, Please come home. To this day, Christmas Baby, Please Come Home is the Darlene Love vocal you're likeliest to hear. According to MRC data, in calendar 2020 alone, the song was played on terrestrial radio more than 14,000 times nationwide and streamed on services like Spotify over 92 million times. That, by the way, is 17 times the modern radio spins for the Crystal song He's a rebel and 52 times as many streams. So that's one 60s hitmaker who hit the Christmas jackpot. Here's another from the late 60s and early 70s who is also still walking the earth. And whatever you know him for, he was a maker of hits. Or should I say Un artista de exitos.
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And your wig had on your head.
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Jose Feliciano from Lares Puerto Rico projected a kind of post folkie hippie era cool. His trademark sunglasses, worn due to his blindness caused by congenital glaucoma at birth, were purposeful, but gave him a vibe that was in full effect in 1968 when Feliciano scored a massive hit with his sensual, stripped down Latin pop cover of the Doors. Light My Fire.
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Come on baby, light my fire Come on baby, light my fire.
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One year after, after the Doors took the song to number one, Feliciano brought Light My Fire back to the Hot 100, where his version peaked at a remarkable number three. For a couple of years, Jose Feliciano was a pretty serious pop star. His self titled lp, Feliciano peaked at number two, went gold and rode the album chart for more than a year. Before 1968 was over, he generated a couple more hits with his takes on the blues song High Heel Sneakers and the groovy Hitchcock Railway. All of these were covers. Feliciano had a skillful ear for songs he could give his signature spin. He was defining Latin rock crossover before Carlos Santana had even debuted. In 1969, a year when Feliciano scored two more gold albums, one of them a live double LP, a rarity at the time, he utterly transformed the Beatles B side She's a Woman into a minor hit for himself.
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Well, she's a woman who understands.
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But as with Gene Autry, Vince Guaraldi and Darlene Love before him, none of these year round hits were what made bank for Jose Feliciano over the long haul. As his album started to peak at lower chart rungs at the turn of the 70s, Feliciano decided to record a.
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Christmas album, Chestnut Roasting on an Open Fire.
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As was typical for him, most of the holiday LP consisted of covers. But Feliciano's savviest movies move was writing a totally original song, one whose royalties he could keep. He wrote it one Christmas Eve in LA when he felt homesick for his traditional Puerto Rican holiday celebrations. The result would become a Latin Christmas standard, one that was not only effortlessly catchy, but expressed universal sentiments in both Spanish and English in a way that welcomed everyone.
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I want to wish you a merry Christmas.
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Feliz Navidad was a slow grower. It appeared on no Billboard chart in the 70s when it was new. Feliciano kept himself busy that decade, playing guitar for Joni Mitchell on her 1974 hit Free man in Paris, stoke in.
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The star maker machinery behind the popular song.
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A
And recording the theme song to the hit TV show Chico and the Man.
- [47:19]
B
Chico, don't be discouraged the man.
- [47:30]
A
But quietly, Feliz Navidad started making the rounds as a holiday perennial, most prominently on the 1978 PBS special Christmas Eve on Sesame street, in which Big Bird ice skated to the song. Two decades later, when Adult Contemporary stations began their shift to all Christmas music during the holidays, Feliz Navidad, which was friendly to both Hispanic and Anglo audiences, filled a useful slot in those AC station rotations. During the holiday season of 1997, the song made its first ever Billboard appearance on the Adult Contemporary chart. A couple of seasons later, at the height of the Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez Latin pop explosion, Feliz Navidad peaked on the AC chart at number 12.
- [48:35]
B
The bottom of My Heart.
- [48:39]
A
And then a couple of decades after that, in the 2000 and tens when streaming took hold on the charts, Feliz Navidad finally cracked the Hot 100, breaking into the top 40 for the first time in 2018. Last year, during the holiday season of 2020, a year where when Felicianos Castana was played 54,000 times on terrestrial radio, Feliz Navidad reached a new Hot 100 peak of no kidding, number six. Now that might still be a few spots lower than his 1968 number three hit Light My Fire, but nowadays there's no comparison. On Spotify, Feliciano's streams for Navidad outdo those for Light my fire, nearly 100 to 1, a groovy doors cover that's a time capsule, a Christmas standard that is eternal. While I'm rhapsodizing about slow growing early 70s holiday standards, let's talk about my very favorite one, written and performed by a soul man's soul man.
- [49:58]
B
I've been so many places in my life and time. I've sung a lot of songs. I've made some bad ones.
- [50:17]
A
In his life, Life and Time, Donnie Hathaway recorded definitive versions of several classic songs. Among the first was his 1971 take on Leon Russell's oft covered composition, A Song for you.
- [50:37]
B
I know your image of me is what I hope to be.
- [50:43]
A
As acclaimed as Hathaway's music was, he was only a modest hitmaker, especially when he recorded by himself. Solo, Donnie never cracked the pop top 40, and even on the R B side, he could only get as high as the low to mid-20s as on his 197023 hit the Ghetto.
- [51:10]
B
The ghetto, the ghetto.
- [51:15]
A
What made Hathaway's career was, for one thing, his on stage prowess.
- [51:21]
B
Yeah yeah, yeah, to brighten up even your darkest night.
- [51:32]
A
The 1972 LP Donnie Hathaway Line 5 was an instant Classic critic Emily Lordy later wrote that Hathaway quote, could bring the drama, pain and joy of soul music to an audience like nobody else, unquote. And the album was also a near instant hit. Donnie Hathaway Live peaked at number 18 on the pop album chart and quickly went gold, remarkable for a soul singer with few crossover hits. But Hathaway's other great asset was his friendship with R B legend Roberta Flack, who happened to be a colleague classmate of Donnie's from their days at Howard University. As it turned out, their voices also blended beautifully.
- [52:38]
B
You just call out my name.
- [52:44]
A
And.
- [52:45]
B
You know wherever I am I'll come running.
- [52:55]
A
Flack's and Hathaway's duet version of Carole King's You've Got a Friend was Hathaway's first crossover hit, number 8R B and number 29 pop during the same 1971 summer that James Taylor had a hit with the song. The following year, Flack and Hathaway climbed even higher with the breezy Easy Listener, Where Is the Love? Which hit number five pop, Number one R B.
- [53:37]
B
And you were gonna say Goodbye.
- [53:41]
A
It was later, in 1972, at the first flush of his fame with Roberta Flack that Donny Hathaway cracked the charts, and then only briefly, with a solo song he had recorded and co written back in 1970. Just creating the song was one of his proudest achievements.
- [54:05]
B
Presents and cards are here My world is filled with cheer and beauty.
- [54:14]
A
This.
- [54:14]
B
Christmas and as I look around your eyes outshine the town of you this.
- [54:22]
A
Christmas was a deliberate attempt by Donny Hathaway and co writer Nadine McKinner to create the ultimate black Christmas song. Steeped in the soul tradition and on trend with 70s RB. Producer and percussionist Rick Powell recalled that Hathaway, quote, knew what he wanted to do musically and the impact he wanted to make. Indeed, musically, everything about this Christmas is near flawless, from its sleigh bells to its brass breakdown, Hathaway's impassioned vocal and a wonderfully casual soul piano bridge. Though it would eventually become a black radio staple during Hathaway's lifetime, the only chart this Christmas touched was Billboard's seasonal Christmas singles chart, where it spent a solitary week at number 11 in 1972. It was a blip at a time when Hathaway's friendship with Roberta Flack was making him a fairly regular R B chart presence. Late in the decade, the duo scored one more huge crossover hit with the Closer I Get to youo, a number two pop, number one R&B smash in 1978.
- [56:04]
B
True love in a special way.
- [56:12]
A
The.
- [56:12]
B
Closer I get to you.
- [56:19]
A
Sadly, this would be the last time Donny Hathaway would get to hear one of his songs spreading across the airwaves. In early 1979, after a psychotic episode during a studio session, Hathaway took his own life in New York City. The loss devastated Roberta Flack as well as the entire R B community community later that year, vocal troupe the Whispers released the tribute A Song for Donnie, which interpolated the melody of this Christmas.
- [57:07]
B
So very, very special to me.
- [57:20]
A
It was an appropriate homage, acknowledging the holiday song's emerging status as a standard in the black community and helping to kick off its long, slow climb to cross cultural renown. This Christmas was reissued in 1990 on an ATGO Records Soul Christmas CD release, which helped to solidify the song's status as a radio recurrent. In 2007, the song lent its title to a movie, Last Christmas, starring Loretta Devine, Delroy Lindo, Idris Elba and Regina King on the soundtrack. Hathaway's composition was covered by Chris Brown. In the mid 10? S covers of this Christmas by both the American rock band Train and British soul singer Seal topped the Adult Contemporary chart. Finally, last year in 2020, Donny Hathaway's original recording of this Christmas made its Hot 100 debut, cracking the top 40 at number 39, fueled by nearly 11,000 radio spins and 63 million streams.
- [58:50]
B
We're Carolin through the Night and this Christmas.
- [59:00]
A
In short, it took literally half a century for Donny Hathaway's Soul Perennial to become a pop hit. But it was immortal from the day he recorded it. When we come back, how the streaming era has flattened legendary careers by enshrining holiday hits, including the Wham song Hit Parade. Listeners are begging me not to play again the Brenda Lee song that has rocked the tree while eclipsing the rest of her work, the 21st century crooners who are giving the merry what they want, and two ex bandmates named John and Paul whose post divorce catalogues might someday be reduced to just their jolliest hits. Seriously, former Beatles, I've got the data to back it up. Non slate plus listeners will hear the rest of this episode in two weeks. For now, I hope you've been enjoying this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Melanfy. That's me. My producer is is Asha Saludja. Special thanks this month go to radio researcher Sean Ross and the staff at MRC Data. June Thomas is the senior managing producer and Gabriel Roth, the editorial director of Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows@slate.com podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening, and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. We'll see you for part two in a couple of weeks. Until then, simply have yourself a wonderful Christmas time and keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Melanphe.