I believe the reasoning behind this at least rights wise is that although later recordings fit in better I believe at the time the album was released Decca and MCA along with Capitol were all owned by UMe by then. It made sense instead of licensing songs from Sony, as the Crosby Estate wasn’t running the release, and the 1964 “12 Songs Of Christmas” was still with Warner along with the Frank Sinatra Reprise albums. The reasoning behind the song choice, from my guesses, is that with the popularity of the Rankin/Bass TV specials each year of Rudolph and Frosty they wanted to cash in on those specials by including Rudolph the most famous one. In fact it includes Rudolph, Frosty, and The Little Drummer Boy all songs that were featured in Rankin/Bass specials, so the addition of Rudolph from that standpoint doesn’t seem as out of place to me.

No, that's not correct, John. Capitol Records was not owned by UMG at the time of the 1999 and 2006 Christmas Classics CD reissues. It was not until 2012 that UMG acquired Capitol Records from EMI.

Oh never mind then. I bet it’s easier for UMG and Capitol to release now though with no licensed tracks. I just wonder why the I Wish You A Merry Christmas got transferred to Capitol from Warner.

John,

Bing Crosby's 1962 Christmas LP, I Wish You A Merry Christmas, didn't "get transferred" as you say from Warner Bros. Records to Capitol Records, because it was never owned by Warner Bros. Records in the first place. The album was exclusively produced by Bing's own production company of Project Records. Warner Bros. only had distribution rights to the album for a limited period of time as agreed to contractually by Bing.

Bing, and Bing alone, owned the copyrights to the album and he later ceded over distribution rights of the recording to Capitol Records, the label founded by his good friend Johnny Mercer. There were other major labels that also distributed various albums which were produced by Bing's production company Project Records; among them were RCA, MGM and Decca.

Thank you, I forgot this was one of Bing's Project Records albums, as I do have a few most notably the recently reissued Holiday In Europe, released just last year, and the 101 Gang Songs CD released by Sepia around 3 years ago. Thank you for correcting my on this.

Sure thing.

Hey Chip, I was wondering what you thought about this album (both the original I Wish You A Merry Christmas and the added bonus tracks on this release). I didn’t seem to notice it on any of your lists, although my eyes might’ve missed it going through all those albums. I find this one to be my favorite Bing Christmas album, although I do agree that A Time To Be Jolly is sadly overlooked and under appreciated.

This album by Bing resides in the 1st Tier of my Top 500, coming in at #65 (click here).

My Top 500 listing on the message board is broken down into 40 album increments for viewing because that's all each page will hold; but for this album, it's only the second increment down: First Tier (Albums 41-80). So I imagine that you probably didn't delve to deep into my listing.

I think I just missed it as I went through first tier to honorable mentions. This Christmas Classics release gets very popular on iTunes on the album charts I’ve noticed.

If you're ever on a webpage and you are trying to find something, then just hit Ctrl F and then type what you're searching for in the box that pops up. A lot of people aren't aware of that function.

I’ll usually use crtl-f on my computer, but I was on my phone looking last night, just like right now. You did remind me about the Chrome browser on phone having a find feature which I forgot about though, so I thank you for that. 

I find this album to have my favorite version of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.