So here we are in that lull after my birthday and between Xmas and New Year and as my family know what I like the next few blog entries will be out of alphabetical order new additions to my collection that have been kindly gifted to me over the past couple of weeks. Your normal scheduled programming will resume with the letter N in a few days time, by which time this will have become the 2024 Albums Thing.

The Jolt were a 3 piece New Wave band from the satellite towns around Glasgow, formed in 1976. They wore 60’s style matching suits, covered the Small Faces, were signed to Polydor Records and the And Son publishing company (for those that don’t know that was the publishing company run by John and Paul Weller)…beginning to see why I liked them yet ?

They were a curious mixture of Punk and Mod Revival. “Decoyed” and “All I Can Do” bear the unmistakable stamp of Punk whereas “I’m Leaving”, “(Can’t You Tell) It’s Over” and the Small Faces “Whatcha Gonna Do About It” point squarely at the Mod Revival. That may well be why they never really got any further than support slots for The Jam, they didn’t really know what they were. This album is a real facsimile of a sixties album release with flip backs on the rear of the sleeve and an inner sleeve mimicking the Parlophone rice paper inners on early Beatles albums but with The Jolt’s name on them so they seemed to have an eye set on the revival.

The Jolt are probably best known for a cover of The Jam’s “See Saw” on a later EP, a song that appeared as the B-side of “The Eton Rifles”, so Weller was still trying to help them out. It never happened for The Jolt, on their own terms or as part of the Mod Revival, but it’s an album I have a soft spot for and reminds me of a time long gone, when we were young…whoa oh oh…I’m happy to have it back in my collection.

Decoyed- https://youtu.be/3hBIFeuerUs?si=8vc16vBNMUqmJL1c

This was an album my Mom and Dad had and used to be played only on Christmas Day (of course !). My Mom has always been a big Johnny Mathis fan and the guy has a voice as smooth as silk and as rich as Mansa Musa (Google it).

The first track on Side 1 is “The Sounds Of Christmas” and that’s exactly what this LP is, this is what Christmas sounds like to me and has since I was a kid. Finding my very own copy in a charity shop a few years ago for 99p was a good day. There are Xmas classics like “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”, “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer” and “Let It Snow ! Let It Snow ! Let It Snow !” alongside some lesser known festive tunes, Bing Crosby’s “The Secret Of Christmas” and “Christmas Is A Feeling In Your Heart” plus some traditional songs like “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”. Johnny even has a crack at Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” !

Snigger all you like, I don’t care. This is the first thing that gets played in our house on Christmas morning, I have a few others as you’ve discovered but this is always first, and long may it continue.

The Sounds Of Christmas - https://youtu.be/Z8Mr3A4mPiQ?si=4FWmuXbGXcDYJw3j

As you may have noted following the last two blog posts and are surely about to realise with this one, my Christmas album collection, outside of one record, has a theme…coloured vinyl. This one is on Blue vinyl, a not very exciting shade of dull navy blue granted, but if you aren’t familiar with my penchant for coloured vinyl by now then you can’t have been paying very close attention for the past year.

It also helps that it’s a bloody great record regardless of the Christmas theme. It was originally released in 1963 under the title “A Christmas Gift For You From Philles Records”, Philles being the record company formed by Phil Spector and Les Sill in 1961, but these days is most commonly known as “Phil Spector’s Christmas Album”. It consists of the Philles artists of the time (Darlene Love, The Ronettes, Bob B Soxx & The Blue Jeans and The Crystals) belting out a selection of Christmas standards all supported by Spector’s patented “wall of sound” production.

You get “White Christmas”, “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”, “Frosty The Snowman”, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”, “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer”, “Winter Wonderland” etc. etc. and it all ends on an excruciatingly cheesy (American) “Silent Night”. Cher sings (uncredited) backing vocals throughout and the Beach Boys Brian Wilson played piano on “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”…but his performance was so bad it wasn’t included.

Special mention has to be made of the one song written for this record, Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”. It’s an absolute banger and unbelievably, on first release as a single in 1963 and again in 1964, it didn’t chart, not doing so for the first time until 2018 ! That tells you everything you need to know about the great record buying public, deaf as gate posts the lot of em !! Thankfully it’s now regarded as a Christmas standard.

Yes, Spector indelibly marked his copy book eventually but Christmas just wouldn’t seem like Christmas without this.

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - https://youtu.be/4EvZOXEoJ84?si=2mLhJ1mCzUjD9rYa