Best of Burl Ives: 20th Century Masters/The Christmas Collection

by Burl Ives

Overview

This edition in Universal's discount-priced compilation series 20th Century Masters/The Christmas Collection is actually a re-titled reissue of the 1999 collection The Very Best of Burl Ives Christmas. That album, in turn, was drawn from several previous Ives albums, the 1952 set Christmas Day in the Morning, Christmas Eve (1956), Have a Holly Jolly Christmas (1965), and the TV soundtrack Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1966). Ives came to be closely associated with Christmas when he served as narrator for the animated TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in 1964 and scored a hit with the then-newly written "A Holly Jolly Christmas." But his earlier seasonal recordings had been of a more folk-ish and traditional cast, particularly on the Christmas Eve LP. Appropriately, his Have a Holly Jolly Christmas LP contained cheerier, more pop-oriented fare, and by combining four tracks from the former and seven from the latter with a few other selections, compiler Laura Graven achieves a good blend of different kinds of material. Ives' appealing tenor is what holds it together, however, as he performs the songs with warmth and enthusiasm. ~ William Ruhlmann

Product Details

Release Date:	09/23/2003
Label:	Mca
UPC:	0008811323523
Rank:	30727

Tracks

1. Overture/A Holly Jolly Christmas
2. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
3. White Christmas
4. Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem
5. Silver Bells
6. Twelve Days of Christmas
7. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
8. The Little Drummer Boy
9. What Child Is This?
10. Silver and Gold
11. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
12. Winter Wonderland
13. I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
14. Silent Night
15. A Holly Jolly Christmas

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Burl Ives   Primary Artist
Owen Bradley   Conductor
Decca Concert Orchestra   Ensemble,Orchestra
Herbert Rehbein   Conductor
Maury Laws   Musical Director

Technical Credits

Beth Stempel   Production Coordination
Andy McKaie   Producer
J. Fred Coots   Composer
Irving Berlin   Composer
Edmund Sears   Composer
Franz Gruber   Composer
Joseph F. Laredo   Liner Notes
Joseph Mohr   Composer
Ray Evans   Composer
Milt Gabler   Producer
Henry Onorati   Composer
Lewis Redner   Composer
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow   Composer
Laura Graven   Producer
William Chatterton Dix   Composer
Haven Gillespie   Composer
Felix Bernard   Composer
Jay Livingston   Composer
Vartan   Art Direction
Rose Smith   Design
Katherine K. Davis   Composer
Harry Simeone   Composer
Dick Smith   Composer
Richard Storrs Willis   Composer
Adam Abrams   Production Coordination
Traditional   Composer
Johnny Marks   Composer