It's that time of year, isn't it?

Been checking in daily with my fingers crossed.

Probably only one new RGM Christmas CD release likely for this year.

Thanks!

One is better than zero!

Agreed!

FYI: The 2022 Real Gone Music Christmas CD releases boil down to this: A repackaged expanded edition of Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé's 1964 Christmas album and B.J. Thomas's 1997 Christmas album.

The Steve & Eydie CD is welcome news, anyway.

I hope one of these years Real Gone reissues the Hollyridge Strings' Christmas Favorites. The Collectors Choice CD is almost impossible to find, and ridiculously expensive when it turns up.

That's highly doubtful as things stand right now. The Big Three (UMG, WMG and SME) are not playing ball right now -- especially UMG, which owns the rights to the Capitol Records recordings that includes the Hollyridge Strings Christmas album.

Gordon is trying hard to get back to a pace we had before the pandemic. But unfortunately, so much has changed in the industry now. I've still got some big ones that Gordon never had a chance to get out: Jack Halloran, Frank Chacksfield, LeRoy Holmes, Vincent Lopez, Lenny Dee, Big Tiny Little and The Pete King Chorale, among others.

Perhaps, but it's just too hard to say right now.

Chip,

Do you think it has anything to do with record companines releasing music on Vinyl?  Not just new releases by artist's, but reissues of other albums.  Walmart has a lot of new re-releases on Vinyl.  I saw several older Christmas album reissures in their store on Monday, and their website has a lot more.  But the vinyl is considerably more expensive than it was before they stopped releasing on vinyl in the 1980's or very early 1990's.

It would also be nice to be able to buy songs on a 45 RPM again.  That way if one doesn't like an entire album, they at least have the song that they wanted by a particular artist.

Walmart Christmas Music

It's a number of things, Susan: streaming, vinyl, and of course the pandemic in general which changed the industry's priorities.

Thank you Chip,

I don't know if anyone here is into Reel-to-Reel tapes or not, but from what I have seen in groups I belong to, they are making a resurgence.  In many ways, I like them more than Vinyl.  Yes, both are Analog recordings, but the tapes take up much less space for storing.  Though they are susceptible to breakang and could easily be erased.

If I am able to get the heads in my R2R replaced and aligned properly, I am going to transfer some of my Vinyl to tape.  I have already replaced about a dozen with tape, but those tapes are 50 years old.

Yes indeed, I have some 7½ IPS Reel-to-Reel tapes in my collection and their fidelity integrity is impeccable and unsurpassed. But like you said, because of their fragile nature regarding the possibility of breaking and the ever present danger of accidental erasure, they just never caught on back then. However, they were the best as far as audio fidelity is concerned, and I'm lucky enough to have some of my Top Christmas albums in that format -- including the biggest of them all, Percy Faith's 1959 stereo re-recording of Music Of Christmas.

Do you know if the Steve & Eydie album will include Steve's version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas", which (I believe) was only released as part of The Great Songs of Christmas Album Seven?