If there’s one song that accurately depicts the short time between Thanksgiving and December 1st, it’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” With a title like that, songwriter Meredith Willson set expectations exactly where he wanted them. Using familiar sights like candy canes, holly, and a variety of toys, Willson paints both downtown and domestic scenes with vivid detail and poetry – a suburban “picture print by Currier and Ives.”
Meredith Willson had plenty of experience telling stories. He started his show business career first as a musician in John Philip Sousa’s band and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra before moving to California to become a concert director for KRFC in San Francisco and later musical director for NBC in Hollywood. These behind-the-scenes jobs soon led to more time in the spotlight, hosting his own programs like Meredith Willson’s Music (1942) and Sparkle Time (1946). During this time, Willson was also gaining accolades as a film composer, earning two Academy Award Nominations – one for Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” and one for William Wyler’s “The Little Foxes.” All of this storytelling insight went to good use: in 1957, his original musical production, “The Music Man,” premiered on Broadway and became a smash hit. The musical became so big that many of the show’s numbers are now considered standards, including “Till There Was You,” made even more popular by The Beatles (Paul McCartney owns the rights to Willson’s song catalogue).
I could spend the rest of this post discussing what I consider to be the best version of this song, the 1951 version by Perry Como and the Fontane Sisters. I could even talk about how the best version isn’t without its faults (that fake laughter makes me cringe). Instead, I’d like to talk about the worst version, featured on one of the worst Christmas albums ever made.
Johnny Mathis is a very popular and successful singer. As of today, he has recorded 73 studio albums. 43 of his songs have made it into Billboard Magazine’s Hot 100. His compilation album, “The Johnny Mathis Collection,” released in 1976, went Platinum. So he’s not hurting.
In 1986, Mathis decided to release a Christmas album. Entitled “Christmas with Johnny Mathis,” it featured an assortment of holiday standards and a new arrangement of “Jingle Bells” by Ray Ellis, famous for his work with Billie Holiday and Emmylou Harris. All the ingredients were there – famous and successful singer, a trio of world-class arrangers (Ellis, Jeremy Lubbock, and Henry Mancini), and a legendary producer, Denny Diante. Diante’s credits include B.B. King’s “How Blue Can You Get Classic Live Recordings 1964-1994,” Grateful Dead’s “Blues of Allah,” and Sheena Easton’s “My Cherie.” How did it all go so wrong?
At its best, holiday music is an honest expression of nostalgia for youthful days, enjoyment of present company, and wide-eyed hope for the future. At its worst, it’s “Christmas with Johnny Mathis.” Dripping with the slick, emotionless reverb and the worst of 80s production tendencies and overblown with MIDI-level phony keyboard strings, it’s exactly what you’d expect from an aging pop singer’s FOURTH Christmas album. There is no warmth. There is no passion. Frankly, it sounds like Bing Crosby’s life.
Merry 