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Yesterday (December 11, 2024), I shared Part 1 of my holiday LPs shopping list, which you can read right here. And now, as promised for today (December 12, 2024), here in Part 2, I move on to discussing six of my own favorite holiday albums from over the years — and, yes, please take note that some of them are admittedly somewhat obscure. But, hey, if they really appeal to you, then you should be able to find mostly reasonably priced copies of them out there on Discogs. Tis the season, am I right?

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU!
1LP (Capitol)

This mono 1954 LP is one of the more perfect mid-century holiday collections. Curiously, it was initially released with 16 tracks on it, but in 1957, it was reissued and revised downwardly to a perhaps more digestible and sonically more satisfying 12 tracks. Either way you listen to the Merry Christmas to You! LP, you’ll hear tracks from Les Paul, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Johnny Mercer, and other great Capitol artists of the period. It is also packaged in perhaps the most classic album cover art ever for any holiday release. You can find a copy of Merry Christmas to You! easily enough on Discogs (as of this posting, it runs between $10 and $50), but it sometimes shows up at thrift shops and flea markets, so keep an eye out for it if you plan to do any holiday crate digging.

FERRANTE AND TEICHER
XMAS HI-FIVORIES / ADVENTURE IN CAROLS
1LP (Westminster)

Before they became easy-listening icons in the late 1950s and on into the ’70s, Arthur Ferrante and Louis Teicher were actually very advanced musical technicians, creating highly unusual music featuring eclectic arrangements often employing otherworldly-sounding “prepared piano,” techniques pioneered by the likes of John Cage and Henry Cowell. Ferrante and Teicher’s first 10in LP from 1954 is actually a grand holiday release called Xmas Hi-Fivories, on Westminster. I was very lucky to find this one at a garage sale some years ago, as it turns out to be quite elusive.

Equally hard to find is the 1956 12in expanded edition that was retitled Adventure in Carols, and it took me years to finally locate one in my area. Amazingly enough, I discovered that a local shop, Grooves Records, had a nice NM copy of it on their Discogs page, so they brought it in to their brick-and-mortar store for me to purchase. As of this posting, you’ll have to go elsewhere to find Hi-Fivories, but copies of range on Discogs from $28 to $150. No matter which version you can get your hands on, you are in for a strange and magical holiday mystery tour listening to either of these fine Ferrante and Teicher releases.

A CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR YOU FROM PHILLES RECORDS
1LP (Phillies Records)

So much has been written about this classic 1963 holiday LP that I won’t spend much time recounting its many influential glories. In short, Phil Spector’s masterful A Christmas Gift for You From Philles Records is ground zero for rock ’n’ roll holiday music, full stop.

That said, I was hepped to a very cool variant by a music journalist friend of mine, and it’s a variant you might want to seek out. By the mid-1970s, Spector had negotiated one of several reissues for the, up to then, monaural-only album after Apple went under. So, keep an eye out for the 1975 reissue on the short-lived Warner-Spector label (shown above) that was both retitled Phil Spector’s Christmas Album and was remixed in stereo! Apparently, the later-still 1981 version on Pavillion was also in stereo — go figure. Well, it’s still a cool way to hear favorite old music we love with a fresh perspective — anywhere from $10 to $70, that is.

THE BEATLES
HAPPY CHRISTMAS BEATLE PEOPLE! – THE BEATLES’ CHRISTMAS RECORD
7 45s box set (Apple/UMG)

Initially issued as fan club singles and eventually compiled into a much sought after 12in LP that was often called The Beatles Christmas Album, Apple and The Beatles came full circle for the fans and wound up releasing a box set of all the 45rpm singles in 2017. While I still hope to find that earlier LP version someday (it was widely bootlegged, but originals remain scarce), I was more than thrilled to get Apple/UMG’s Happy Christmas Beatle People! box set when it came out. It features all the original picture sleeves, and new color vinyl variants. Long out of print, you can find used copies of this 7-disc box set on Discogs in prices ranging from $130 to $250.

THE JOY STRINGS
WELL SEASONED
1LP (Epic)

Some years ago while crate digging, I found an intriguing holiday album titled Well Seasoned, from the early psychedelic era, circa 1967. Those responsible for making it were The Joy Strings, a sort-of folk-rock band formed by actual members of a Salvation Army band in the U.K. Now, if you are even just passingly familiar with The Beatles’ June 1967 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, you know The Fab Four were loosely mimicking that sort of quasi-military band on the cover of their watershed psychedelic masterpiece. In its wake, untold numbers of bands donned any vintage olde tyme war outfits they could grab to follow that lead — see period albums by The Buckinghams, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Gary Puckett and The Union Gap, et al, as examples.

Anyhow, The Joy Strings’ Well Seasoned album that I found had rubber stamps on the back cover indicating it had been in the library of Rolling Stone magazine back in its early heyday, so I had to try it — and I’m glad I did. The album is perfectly ok, but it contains one brilliant master stroke that will leave your mind bent and twisted — an electric, Bob Dylan-inspired arrangement of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” set to the music of (get this) “The House of the Rising Sun.” If you know what the latter song is about, you’ll appreciate the mad irony going on here. Check it out for yourself via the YouTube clip above — and if you want to hear more, you can find this LP on Discogs for a quite reasonable price range of $4 to $25.

PAUL REVERE & THE RAIDERS FEATURING MARK LINDSAY
A CHRISTMAS PRESENT. . . AND PAST
1LP (Columbia)

While we’re discussing The Beatles’ influence on holiday music, I have to at least mention Seattle’s great garage pop-rockers Paul Revere & The Raiders, a group well ahead of the curve who built their image playing off their leader’s real name by playfully donning vintage military garb. I can only imagine what the band thought when Sgt. Pepper came out, but their December 1967 holiday release on Columbia, A Christmas Present. . . And Past holds a special place in my heart, if only for the cover. The music is admittedly spotty — a rough concept album (yes, and with faux street bands performing at points) with a couple of great, hard-rocking moments amidst other weird period trippiness. Regardless, I think the cover is brilliant.

Since The Raiders (as they were later called) were known for their military outfits, they seemingly paid homage to Pepper by shedding their military outfits and donning regular winter clothing of the times. The homage only becomes apparent when you look at the back cover and see them posing similarly to The Beatles, with all members facing away except one — “Paul Revere” himself. A fun one to spin, either way — and readily available through Discogs from $18 to $26, to boot.

And there you have it! We hope you enjoyed Part 2 of our holiday LPs list. Let us know about some of your own holiday-oriented favorites and obscurities in the Comments section below. Happy continued holiday LP hunting!

Mark Smotroff is an avid vinyl collector who has also worked in marketing communications for decades. He has reviewed music for AudiophileReview.com, among others, and you can see more of his impressive C.V. at LinkedIn.