Chip - Thanks for the interesting and exciting info on all of Real Gone's Christmas CD releases !!! I can't wait to get all of them.

Getting the Leroy Anderson albums on properly done CD's is great - as well as the Jim Reeves album !! I love the Stanley Black album and tracked down a mint LP a few years back - can't wait to get this on CD as well !!

The Eugene Ormandy and Chet Atkins releases sound like must-haves too

The release I'm most curious about is Great Songs Of Christmas: Classic Carols and Pop Favorites (a selection of songs from the Goodyear and Grants series).

Do you have a track listing yet ?

Rich

P.S. Thanks again as always for getting all of the these great albums properly released on CD !!

Good evening Chip,

What a truly stupendous and historic set of Christmas albums that you and Gordon have managed to secure for remaster and release on CD for 2019. Just when everyone thought that each year was going to be less than the year before, with all the crazy rumors surrounding the music biz, you guys managed to score 6 major releases from the major labels and around nine full albums, if I am calculating correctly. Wow, and you also also managed to secure four albums from your glorious top 30 of your Top 500 Christmas albums of all time.

I am obviously particularly excited about the Jim Reeves and Leroy Anderson holiday albums for so many different reasons. Jim Reeves magnificent holiday fare, The Twelve Songs Of Christmas, was in a similar situation as the great Percy Faith Music Of Christmas was for so many decades; widely available in print, but in a completely horrible and lackluster remaster that in no way was able show off the glorious beauty that lay within its digital potential. The fact that Sony Music's preferred remastering house in New York, Battery Studios, will be in charge of the remastering of Mr. Reeves' iconic holiday album, means that we will get a truly sublime and magnificent remaster of one of the most elegant country-pop Christmas albums that was ever produced in a Nashville recording studio. May I add that your two bonus song selections are just terrific as well? Scarlet Ribbons is one of my all time favorite songs, and Snowflake is a hidden gem as well and made it all the way to number two on the Billboard Country Singles Chart and number one on the Cashbox Country Singles Chart in 1966.

I still cannot believe that UMG managed to mistakenly pull the mono master tapes for Leroy Anderson's magnum opus, A Christmas Festival, when they reissued the album on CD for the first time. On top of that foolishness, they do not even use the original album cover. Wow, and we are also getting his wonderful Christmas Carols album as well. I am also almost equally excited about the Stanely Black, Eugene Ormandy and Chet Atkin's Christmas collections as well. Ormandy's fantastic Glorious Sounds Of Christmas album is about as close as any classical conductor got to emulating some of Percy Faith's great sweeping orchestral sounds, but nobody could ever seem to match Percy's Faith's angelic and heavenly touch with his singularly unique set of arranging skills.

I am also just as curious as board member RichD is regarding the track list for the Great Songs Of Christmas: Classic Carols and Pop Favorites. This has the potential to be a real gem of a collection, given how great many of those compilation albums were back in the day.

A big and heartfelt congratulations all around, Chip!

Best regards,

Steve

I am excited about all of these, especially the Chet Atkins reissue - this is one of my favorite Christmas albums!  The Razor & Tie release was just horrible, I'm excited about an upgrade.

Fantastic slate of titles this year! Lots of never-before-on-CD stuff. 

 Wonderful news Chip what a way to end the summer and give us all something to look forward to.

Thank you Rich, Steve, Randy, Mike and Bill for your posts and comments. 

Posted below are the tracks that are included on the Great Songs Of Christmas compilation CD; the songs are mostly from the Goodyear LPs, and some from Grants LPs. Many of the songs were unique to the series. If this CD sells well, there will be two more volumes.

Great Songs Of Christmas: Classic Carols And Pop Favorites

O Come All Ye Faithful / Gesu Bambino

Percy Faith

Ring Christmas Bells / The First Noel / We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Frank DeVol & The Rainbow Strings

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Andre Previn

The Holly And The Ivy / We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Andre Previn

Hark The Herald Angels Sing

Andre Previn

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

Andre Kostelanetz

The Christmas Song

Johnny Mathis

Hark The Herald Angels Sing

Ray Conniff

We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Ray Conniff

Away In The Manger (with Percy Faith and his Orchestra)

Mahalia Jackson

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

The Harry Simeone Chorale

Christmas Is

The Harry Simeone Chorale

The Christmas Waltz

Robert Goulet and Carol Lawrence

Silent Night

Mark Lindsay

O Little Town Of Bethlehem

Mark Lindsay

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

Gary Puckett

O Holy Night

Gary Puckett

What Child Is This

Mark Lindsay

We Need A Little Christmas

Skitch Henderson

Christmas Medley

Peter Nero

Thanks for the info Chip !!!

This "Great Songs Of Christmas" compilation CD will be a MUST-HAVE !!! I hope this CD sells well - I'd buy volumes 2 and 3 right now as well.

The Gary Puckett and Mark Lindsay tracks were always favorites for me from when these LP's were originally released, along with the GREAT version of The Christmas Waltz by Robert Goulet and Carol Lawrence !

Rich

Fantastic news!

I am intrigued by the goodyear compilation... Since i am not american there for me is this kinda romantic view from those times in the united states. As here in europe things were and still are quite different.

So the tale of a shop that sells tires which then sells an annual christmas album is so quirky from my perspective...

These songs are all especially recorded for these series or just culled from the records of the artists themselves?

Please tell me more i would love to have more reference when i buy and play that cd....

Thank you!

And thank you again mr Arcuri for your work!

Rick,

The exclusive yearly Christmas LPs that were once offered by retailers Goodyear, Grants, Firestone, Goodrich, A&P, J.C. Penny, True Value Hardware, and all of the other sponsoring companies over the years, were only in print for one year (the year of that LP's actual release). These record albums were promoted as "Limited Collector's Editions." If there happened to be unsold copies of the LP that year, they would be available in the store the next year (along with that year's new release).

The greatest of the company sponsored exclusive Christmas compilation LPs that were released in the 1960s and 1970s were by far the ones issued by Goodyear and Grants. The new RGM CD is a compilation mostly from the Goodyear series, and a few from the Grants. Many of songs were exclusives to the series, but not all.

Thank you for taking the time to give me more insight! I look forward to these albums!

I just logged in to see if you had announced the Real Gone releases for this year, and I am so excited about them.

Like others, I hope the Great Songs of Christmas sells well enough for them to put out future volumes. Count me as another that would buy them up in a heartbeat.

November cannot come soon enough.

 Chip,

Thank you for your hard and dedicated work with RGM in getting these classic Christmas albums released to CD with proper mastering of the tapes to CD.  I will be purchasing all of them to add to my collection.

Thanks again,

Jim

Rodney and Jim,

Glad you're both looking forward to the new releases.

Amazon is slowly adding the preorders for these.  It looks like they have everything up but Chet Atkins, although you cannot preorder the Jim Reeves yet.  I would have sworn I saw the Chet CD earlier, but it went away.

It now appears everything is available for pre-order on Amazon with the exception of Great Songs of Christmas: Classic Carols and Pop Favorites. I've pre-ordered all the others, just waiting for that one to become available.

I find it strange that they are not announced on either Real Gone Music's website, nor SecondDisc.

It's up on Amazon and will be available for pre-order: click here. And Gordon will have all the releases up on his Real Gone website soon.

Hey, I got an email from Amazon this morning that my order of the Great Songs of Christmas has been cancelled due to lack of availability.  Anybody else get this?  I've ordered a lot of CDs through Amazon and this is the first time this has happened.  It's no longer available for pre-order on their site.  Anybody have any info on this?

Unfortunately, this was a glitch with Amazon that we have now fixed. 

Regrettably, all the folks who received that cancellation letter will have to order the CD all over again.

Hello Chip:

Early Christmas Greetings, Jim here (Tennessee by way of New Jersey).  Well, it's finally starting to feel like Fall here in the midSouth and that means (thanks to Chip!), more Christmas releases from RealGone.   I have personally purchased at least 1 new release each Christmas for myself and my 5 siblings and parents from RealGone and then mail them (along with some local Memphis BBQ sauce) up north to Jersey in time for the big day..Well, it looks like this year is no exception.   I think we can preorder the new CDs from RealGone (they hit the street, November 8)?   Here by the way is a detailed listing of the new amazing, Great Songs of Christmas:  Classic Carols and Pop Festivals.   (this is from one of my favorite new release cd review sites, www.theseconddisc.com   :  

Various Artists, The Great Songs of Christmas: Classic Carols and Pop Favorites (Second Disc Records/Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)  with the original Columbia Special Products listing:     

1. Come All Ye Faithful/Gesu Bambino – Percy Faith (*)
2. Ring Christmas Bells/The First Noel/We Wish You a Merry Christmas – Frank DeVol and The Rainbow Strings (*)
3. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Andre Previn
4. The Holly and the Ivy/We Wish You a Merry Christmas – Andre Previn
5. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing – Andre Previn
6. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear – Andre Kostelanetz (*)
7. The Christmas Song – Johnny Mathis (*)
8. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing – Ray Conniff (*)
9. We Wish You a Merry Christmas – Ray Conniff (*)
10. Away in a Manger – Mahalia Jackson with Percy Faith’s Orchestra
11. Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer – The Harry Simeone Chorale
12. Christmas Is… – The Harry Simeone Chorale
13. The Christmas Waltz – Robert Goulet and Carol Lawrence
14. We Need a Little Christmas – Skitch Henderson and The Tonight Show Orchestra
15. Christmas Medley – Peter Nero
16. Holy Night – Gary Puckett
17. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear – Gary Puckett
18. What Child Is This – Mark Lindsay
19. Little Town of Bethlehem – Mark Lindsay
20. Silent Night – Mark Lindsay

(*) Great Songs of Christmas version

Tracks 1-2 from The Great Songs of Christmas Album One, Columbia Special Products XTV 69406, 1961
Track 3 from The Great Songs of Christmas Album Two, Columbia Special Products XTV 86101, 1962
Track 4 from The Great Songs of Christmas Album Three, Columbia Special Products CSP 117, 1963
Track 5 from The Great Songs of Christmas Album Four, Columbia Special Products CSP 155 S, 1964
Track 6 from The Great Songs of Christmas Album Five, Columbia Special Products CSP 238 S, 1965
Tracks 7-10 from The Great Songs of Christmas Album Six, Columbia Special Products CSS 388, 1966
Tracks 11-12 from The Great Songs of Christmas Album Seven, Columbia Special Products CSS 547, 1967
Track 13 from The Great Songs of Christmas Album Eight, Columbia Special Products CSS 888, 1968
Track 14 from A Very Merry Christmas, Volume 2, Columbia Special Products CS 788, 1968/Skitch Henderson and the Tonight Show Orchestra, Mame, Columbia CS 9318, 1966
Tracks 15-16, 18 from A Very Merry Christmas, Volume 4, Columbia Special Products CSS 1464, 1970
Tracks 16-17, 19-20 from A Rockin’ Christmas, Columbia Special Products P 12445, 1974

As always, Chip, thanks for all the great work!  In this all too 'broken' world of 2019, you are keeping us who love a traditional music Christmas, alive and well.  Cheers!

I'm hoping that what I just read on the IMWAN / ICE forum/board is wrong -- these upcoming Real Gone CD's have been pushed back to a November 22nd release ??

Only for the Anderson, Black and Goodyear CDs; the Reeves, Atkins and Ormandy are still on schedule for the 8th.

Good !! Thanks for the info Chip !

Chip,

Not sure if this is the correct spot for this question, but now that places like Wal-Mart, Best Buy and many other stores are selling vinyl again (Wal-Mart $22.97 I believe for a reissue) and the record companies are releasing some of the major titles from more popular artists, might the record companies be inclined to re-release their Christmas albums?

I have seen Michael Jackson "Thriller" -  KISS "Destroyer"  -  Prince "Purple Rain" just to name a few.  But there was even a Frank Sinatra album I saw when I was at Wal-Mart last week.

I know that some people do prefer CD's over vinyl, just because they take up less space and are more convenient to have CD's, especially to listen in theri vehicles.  But most audiophiles prefer vinyl in the long run.

I highly doubt it, Susan. LPs will never dominate the market like they did years ago.

Can anyone tell me if the Andre Previn tracks are in stereo?  I know three of them ('God Rest Ye Merry', 'Holly & Ivy', 'We Wish You') were on the mono-only GSC releases but they were most likely recorded when stereo was becoming standard.  'Herald Angels' was on the 4th GSC which was available in stereo, so I'm hoping that at least that one is on the new CD in stereo.

I wish they could have included the Steve Lawrence 'Night Before Christmas' from GSC 7.  There must be some serious issues around that one since they didn't even make it a bonus track when they remastered & re-released the 'That Holiday Feeling' album.  Crossing my fingers it appears on a later release.

I've talked about this on the board a few times, but just to reiterate: When Steve and Eydie first released their 1964 Christmas album That Holiday Feeling on CD through their private GL Music record label, I had mentioned to Steve Lawrence about adding "‘Twas The Night Before Christmas" as an additional bonus track. In addition, there's also Steve's solo rendition of "Go Tell It On The Mountain," as well as Eydie's solo rendition of "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear," which were both recorded in 1969 exclusively for RCA's Christmas In New York, Vol. 3. He said he'd look into it, but unfortunately nothing ever came of it. By the way, regarding Steve's "‘Twas The Night Before Christmas," which he recorded exclusively for Goodyear Volume 7, he had actually completely forgotten about it.

As for Real Gone Music, if this first Goodyear CD that is being released this year does well, there will be two more volumes. And yes, Steve's rendition of "‘Twas The Night Before Christmas" from Goodyear Volume 7 will definitely be included.

And regarding the tracks on this year's Real Gone Music Goodyear CD which came from Goodyear LPs that were only released in mono (Volumes 1, 2 & 3), they will appear on the new CD exactly as they were originally released on Goodyear LPs.

Hello Chip,

I will be receiving the rest of my Real Gone Music Christmas CD's on Wednesday, but I received the Jim Reeves Twelve Songs Of Christmas (Remastered & Expanded Edition) CD yesterday, and I just cannot stop playing it. Wow, remastering legend Vic Anesini has really brought out all the richness of Jim's great baritone voice as well as all the true dynamics of the instrumentation.  I have never heard this iconic holiday album of Jim's sound so stupendous.  A big congratulations to you Chip, for once again fighting to get Jim's Christmas album remastered properly. I am also grateful that you called on my services to write the liner notes for the CD booklet.  I think it was totally cool that Gordon (or was that your suggestion?) chose to put a sticker on the outside plastic wrap of the CD with the notation, "The All-time Christmas Classic Newly Remastered By Vic Anesini At Battery Studios."  Now that is what I call great marketing, my friend!  It makes me extremely eager to hear what Vic has done with the remastering on The Great Songs Of Christmas: Classic Carols And Pop Favorites.  Holy cow, what a treat that baby is going to be!

Best regards,

Steve

Got these in the mail today - can't wait to give them a listen tomorrow !!

Thanks Chip for getting these great titles released on CD !!

Rich

Wait a minute... I thought the Leroy Anderson, Stanley Black, and Great Songs CDs were bumped back to 11/22 for release? 

I always order directly from Real Gone -- always get the CD's before the release date.

Regarding getting the CD's before the 11/22 release date -- not sure but I had e-mailed Real gone as to whether my pre-order would be mailed in two shipments -- they said no; it would be shipped Thursday as they were waiting to get in one more title. Got the CD's Saturday !

Listening to the "Great Songs of Christmas" CD as I type this -- it's fantastic !!!

Rich

The Stanley Black "Christmas Holiday" CD sounds great !!! I'll be filing away my vinyl copy for good -- and the Leroy Anderson set sounds just as great !!! Listening to CD1 now !!

Thanks Chip for more great releases this Christmas !!!!

Rich

To all those who ordered this year's Christmas releases direct from Real Gone Music and received the CDs, thanks loads for all the positive comments! 

For all those who ordered from other retailers, the street date for the Stanley Black and Goodyear CDs remains at November 22nd. Unfortunately, however, the Leroy Anderson is probably going to be pushed back again; this time till November 29th.

The Jim Reeves, Chet Atkins and Eugene Ormandy CDs have all streeted on November 8th.