Top 5: Christmas Crooners

There’s been a dearth of Yuletide material here at Big Hollywood this month, so as The Most Wonderful Day of the Year draws nigh, let’s spend some time saluting the five men whose voices echo most strongly through the Christmas chapters of the Great American songbook.

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5. Johnny Mathis (b. 1935)

A host of other crooners fought tooth and nail for this fifth slot — Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Jim Reeves, Gene Autry, Nat King Cole — but Mathis wins the day via an impressive five Christmas-themed albums, the best of which are immeasurably improved by the melodic mastery of maestro Percy Faith (1908-1976), whose inventive yet unashamedly unambiguous orchestrations make him my favorite instrumental interpreter of Christmas tunes.

The only one of our Top 5 who is still alive, Mathis made his Xmas bones by singing what is, for my money, the single most beautiful rendition of “Ave Maria” ever recorded — a feat accomplished when he was just twenty-two. Fifty years on, no one has matched the infectious, jingling energy Mathis and Faith brought to “Sleigh Ride.” And despite a good showing by Andy Williams, I daresay he takes the prize for “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and “Winter Wonderland” as well.

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4. Louis Armstrong (1901-1971)

A national treasure and one of the twentieth-century’s premier musical icons, Pops’ affinity for Christmas stemmed from the fact that his poverty-stricken youth was utterly bereft of holiday cheer (his grandparents were slaves). Armstrong’s fourth wife once told of the childlike delight he expressed when she presented him, at the ripe old age of forty, with his first decorated tree. In the following decades, his many Xmas performances never failed to capture the singular joys of the season.

Many singers try to out-cool Satchmo in this arena — Dino, Elvis, Frank, et al. — but all of their “red-beaked reindeer” and “big black Cadillac” stuff, fun as it is, can’t match the authentic jazzy hipness of tunes like “Christmas in New Orleans,” “Christmas Night in Harlem,” “Cool Yule,” and “‘Zat You, Santa Claus?” His live nightclub take on “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” accompanied by a game Velma Middleton, captures the humorous ribaldry at the heart of the song better than anyone else, making it the only “essential” variant to the classic Margaret Whiting/Johnny Mercer duet.

Even at the end of his life, wracked by failing health, Armstrong knocked several more Christmas standards out of the park, virtually whispering his way through “White Christmas” and “Winter Wonderland.” The way his weak, perilously quivering voice evinces holiday enthusiasm despite his palpable pain is quite moving. And in February, 1971 he gave us one last bit of holiday gold: a tender, intimate performance of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (a.k.a. “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”) captured on tape at his home just a few months before his death.

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3. Burl Ives (1909-1995)

A young Boy Scout turned wandering itinerant folk-singer during the Great Depression, a veteran of World War II, a target of the House Un-American Activities Committee (who ticked off his commie folk-singing friends by cooperating with the investigation), and a powerful Academy Award-winning actor in the 1950s, Burl Ives had already led an eventful life before appearing in Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer in 1964. That stop-motion animated special singlehandedly cemented both his visage and voice in the Christmas pantheon, and his renditions of “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Silver and Gold,” and the show’s title tune are unlikely ever to be surpassed.

While not as prolific a Christmas crooner as some others, Ives followed up Rudolph with some wonderful songs both standard and new. His longstanding love of Christian-themed folk anthems served him in good stead, lending unparalleled emotional authenticity to pieces like “Christmas Child” (“Loo, loo, loo….”), “Christmas is a Birthday,” and “Happy Birthday Jesus,” all of which would have sounded hopelessly corny in other hands. “Snow for Johnny” is one of those songs that should be a popular standard but isn’t, and his “Christmas Can’t Be Far Away” is in my opinion the most underrated song in the entire holiday canon, deserving of a fame comparable to “White Christmas” and “Silver Bells.”

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2. Bing Crosby (1903-1977)

When we think of the classic Christmas sound, the one that conjures up thoughts of our grandparents decorating a tree by firelight in the wake of the Second World War while listening to the crackling radio, we think of Bing and his seemingly effortless warm and inviting baritone.

Whether solo or accompanied by the Andrews Sisters, from the staggeringly successful “White Christmas,” to holiday staples like “The Christmas Song (“Chestnuts Roasting….”), “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “A Marshmallow World,” and “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,” to unheralded gems like “The First Snowfall” “Little Jack Frost Get Lost,” and “The Secret of Christmas,” he’s one of those guys who couldn’t screw up a Christmas song if he tried. Add to that the respectful and reverent Father O’Malley aura gracing his readings of the overtly Christian lyrics of “Silent Night,” “The First Noel,” “Away in a Manger,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and “Faith of Our Fathers,” and you have the quintessential sound of the season.

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1. Perry Como (1912-2001)

If you’re under forty, you likely don’t have a full appreciation of how central Perry Como is to Christmas. A baritone so influenced by Bing Crosby that the two are often confused, he nevertheless became immensely popular in his own right. Known far and wide as a devout family man (whose marriage lasted sixty-five years), he was also that precious rarity: one of the genuine class acts in show business. The rich, simple, honest voice that powers such perennial favorites as “O Holy Night,” “Do You Hear What I Hear?”, “Bless This House,” and “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays” resonates with the same eternal vibration that courses through our shared recollections of the holiday itself.

But it was his decades of televised Christmas specials that secured his place in the hearts of our parents and grandparents. From 1948 until 1994 — a span of almost fifty years! — he routinely warmed the wintry living rooms of America with his music and personality. That makes him the Iron Man of holiday crooning, hands down, the one singer who can purr “There is No Christmas Like a Home Christmas” and mean it.

I still remember the sparkle that would fill my late grandmother’s eyes whenever a Como tune would play. His was the voice of an era, her era. Her brood of youngsters were long grown and scattered across the country, her husband was dead and gone. But thanks to the miracle of sound recording, Perry Como’s voice remained as vibrant as ever, and his dulcet tones never failed to imbue ol’ Grandma with a deep comfort and satisfaction borne by memories of a life — and many, many Christmases — well-lived.