I received all 4 new Real Gone Christmas releases in the mail today - it was almost like Christmas opening these !!

I've been listening to bits and pieces of each so far -- the sound quality (stereo) is impressive on Bobby Darin's "The 25th Day Of December" and Patti Page's "Christmas With" sounds equally good in mono.

It doesn't look like The New Christy Minstrels "Complete" was remastered - it appears to be a straight reissue of the CCM release audio-wise - but the liner notes and photos in the CD booklet are totally different, as well as the photo on the cover. Its a takeoff of the cover photo on the "Merry Christmas!" LP except a snowy forest background is added and the strangest thing -- the group member that is seated in the middle of the center of the sleigh had his head replaced with someone else's !!

Not sure why this was done -- other than Barry McGuire and Larry Ramos I'm not that familiar with any of the other Christies from the era of that album. And I'm not sure who's head that is that was (poorly) photo shopped in !!

The Andy Williams set is my favorite of all 4 releases -- a very Christmasy cover and good liner notes, although the writer confuses Andy's chart activity on the Billboard Christmas charts with Billboard's pop (Hot/Top 100) charts. And I had to laugh that the color photo of Andy on the back of the liner notes is the same photo that Sony used on their new 2013 "Classic Christmas Album" CD release.

I'm not sure if Andy's "Complete Christmas Recordings" was remastered as nothing is mentioned in the liner notes or on the back of the tray card. The sound however is bright and crisp throughout.

I was a bit disappointed in the quality of the Cadence 45 "The Wind, The Sand And The Star" -- it was taken from a "noisy" vinyl source. I had e-mailed Real Gone Music back when I first heard that they were releasing this collection telling them that I had a perfect recording of this rare track that I offered them but they never replied....  

The Spanish (which I have on a 45) and Italian versions of "White Christmas" sound great, as does the rare single version of "Ave Maria" (although Sony trumped Real Gone by using this version on their previously mentioned "Classic Christmas Album" CD from this year).

I highly recommend all four releases and I hope that Real Gone continues putting out fine "lost" Christmas CD's like these in years to come !!

Rich
 

10-28-13 @ 21:08 PM
Follow-up to above message:

I also want to mention to be VERY careful removing the Andy Williams Real Gone CD's from the inside tray -- it is extremely hard to get these off the center spindle.....

*Message edited by the Yule Log.com Message Board Administrator on 10/28/13 to combine two consecutive reply posts by the same member. Also, double-post was deleted.