Today's seasonal duo were both found in charity shops, beginning with the Scrooged Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, for which I paid 50p.
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| Scrooged - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1989) |
Scrooged was a 1989 update of A Christmas Carol, and stars the wonderful Bill Murray as Frank Crass, a TV exec who's forgotten the true meaning of Christmas and who needs his icy heart warming up a touch. The soundtrack features a couple of Yuletide standards in Natalie Cole's version of The Christmas Song and a cool-as-heck rendition of We Three Kings by Miles Davies, Larry Carlton, David Sanborn and Paul Shaffer, who also appear in the film as a group of street musicians insulted by Frank:
The rest is a mixture of pop covers and original material, the best being Annie Lennox and Al Green's feelgood Put A Little Love In Your Heart (as opposed to the also very good version sung by the cast as the credits roll, with Bill shouting "Feed me, Seymour!"), U2's The Sweetest Thing performed by gospel group New Voices of Freedom, and the lightweight but fun Get Up 'N' Dance from Kool Moe Dee. Low points are Robbie Robertson's Christmas Must Be Tonight and Dan Hartman and Denise Lopez's The Love You Take, which both display the worst kind of eighties bland forgettability.
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| From rear sleeve |
Even with the weaker tracks, if you're a fan of the film this LP is a must-have. If you've never seen Scrooged before, for goodness sake go and watch it this Christmas! It's guaranteed to appear somewhere on the schedules, usually on Film 4 in the UK.
For some reason I don't have this next record written in my car boot notebook, but I'm fairly certain that it cost a pound.
Christmas And James Last is one of several Christmas LPs from this most prolific of easy listening bandleaders and composers, but the only one I've seen so far, despite the seemingly endless supply of J-La at car boots and chazzas. It features mostly traditional tunes, plus four pieces written by "Hansi" himself, and is all instrumental except for the choir's charming but wordless contributions. It isn't in his trademark "non-stop dancing" style, but many tracks segue into the next in a totally non-cheesy fashion, including a version of German folk song Heidschi Bumbeidschi known here as Cheidschi Bumbeidshi, which flows sweetly into German carol Tomorrow, Children Is The Day.
The whole album is a thing of tinkling, swoonsome loveliness, stately in parts, but always giving off a warmth just perfect for December evenings by the fireside with a large Baileys. Grab it if you see it, especially if it's only a pound!
Join me again tomorrow (Saturday the 17th of December) for Day 3 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016, this time for three albums by some country gents. In the meantime you can hear me play over an hour's worth of all-vinyl Christmas music on the Car Boot Christmas cloudcast via the player below, or click the link to hear it on the Mixcloud page.
https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/
For some reason I don't have this next record written in my car boot notebook, but I'm fairly certain that it cost a pound.
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| Christmas And James Last (1973) |
Christmas And James Last is one of several Christmas LPs from this most prolific of easy listening bandleaders and composers, but the only one I've seen so far, despite the seemingly endless supply of J-La at car boots and chazzas. It features mostly traditional tunes, plus four pieces written by "Hansi" himself, and is all instrumental except for the choir's charming but wordless contributions. It isn't in his trademark "non-stop dancing" style, but many tracks segue into the next in a totally non-cheesy fashion, including a version of German folk song Heidschi Bumbeidschi known here as Cheidschi Bumbeidshi, which flows sweetly into German carol Tomorrow, Children Is The Day.
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| German cover art |
The whole album is a thing of tinkling, swoonsome loveliness, stately in parts, but always giving off a warmth just perfect for December evenings by the fireside with a large Baileys. Grab it if you see it, especially if it's only a pound!
Join me again tomorrow (Saturday the 17th of December) for Day 3 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016, this time for three albums by some country gents. In the meantime you can hear me play over an hour's worth of all-vinyl Christmas music on the Car Boot Christmas cloudcast via the player below, or click the link to hear it on the Mixcloud page.
https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/
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