Songs that sleigh or need to go away Yuletide A-sides, rare long-players and mouldy oldies: Winnipeg’s record-shop owners weigh in on Christmas hits and misses By: David Sanderson Posted: 4:00 PM CST Friday, Dec. 20, 2024

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This article was published 20/12/2024 (298 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Do you hear what I hear?

Legendary crooner Bing Crosby is once again making noise on the Billboard charts. Sixty-four years after Crosby’s holiday classic Merry Christmas reached the Top 10 in December 1960, a new compilation of songs by the American entertainer, who died in 1977 at age 74, climbed to No. 9 for the week ending Dec. 14.

Ultimate Christmas boasts 28 festive tracks, including Winter Wonderland, Silent Night and White Christmas, spread over two gold-coloured vinyl records.

That Crosby remains popular with the music-buying public in 2024 doesn’t come as a big surprise to Brent Jackson, owner of Old Gold Vintage Vinyl in Osborne Village. Jackson guesses he’s sold at least 15 Crosby Christmas albums already this month, to shoppers of all ages.

“I’m not sure if they actually care about the music itself, because what I hear a lot of is ‘this reminds me of my grandma,’ so maybe they’re buying it out of a sense of nostalgia,” he says, filing away a just-arrived copy of Christmas With The California Raisins.

Inspired by Crosby’s return to the charts, we recently hit the streets, to talk Yuletide music with the proprietors of Winnipeg’s new-and-used record shops. Not only about what’s sought after by their clientele, but also about any personal faves they may have when it’s time to roast some chestnuts over an open fire. Here’s what everybody had to say.

Into the Music, 245 McDermot Ave.

As a rule, Greg Tonn disassembles his Christmas section a day or two after Santa leaves town, and transfers whatever remains to a less-prominent location in the Exchange District mainstay until next the December rolls around. Of course, rules are made to be broken… even when it comes to Christmas music.

“If a used copy of something like Boney M (Christmas Album) or Charlie Brown (A Charlie Brown Christmas) comes in during the spring or summer, we’ll put it out because we know it’s going to go right away,” Tonn says.

Tonn, who much prefers John Lennon’s Happy Xmas (War is Over) over Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime, cites Christmas Guitar, a 1982 release by the late American guitarist John Fahey, as the holiday album he’s most likely to throw on when Christmas dinner is on the table.

“He was a brilliant acoustic guitar player and I guess what I appreciate most is that he didn’t play the songs ironically; he played them genuinely.”

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Old Gold Vintage Vinyl, 187 Osborne St.

He’s making a list and chicken it twice.

Here, get a load of this one, Brent Jackson says, leading us to a fully-stocked bin of used Christmas records.

Flipping past titles by the Supremes, Air Supply and Connie Kaldor, Jackson retrieves what he’s looking for: Christmas With Colonel Sanders, a 55-year-old, uh, treasure boasting an image of Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Harlan Sanders on the cover sporting his trademark white suit along with a Santa tuque.

(Although we expected to turn the jacket over and spot song titles à la We Three Wings and The Little Drumstick Boy, it’s actually a compilation by various artists.)

Running a hand through his beard, Jackson says he’s never been one for Christmas music, aside from maybe a trio of James Brown albums (James Brown Sings Christmas Songs, A Soulful Christmas and Hey America) from the 1960s.

“My distaste probably stems from all those Christmas-morning car rides to my aunt’s place, when my mom would play Boney M all the way there, and then again, all the way home,” he reports.

Still, there is one Christmas record that came through his hands recently — one he wasn’t previously familiar with — that has caught his attention.

“I’ve been trying to turn shoppers on to a band called the Rotary Connection, an American psych-soul band from the late ’60s,” he says.

“The album is called Peace, has cover art featuring a hippie Santa Claus and is just (chef’s kiss).”

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Duly Records, 557 Portage Ave.

Seconds after Peter Dul brands himself a bah-humbug sort, a sales associate at the used-record emporium near the University of Winnipeg reminds Dul of something he said days before Duly Records officially opened for business in mid-October.

“You were like, ‘I can’t wait till it gets close to Christmas, so we can start playing some Christmas tunes in here.’”

Dul didn’t grow up in a “very Christmas-y” household. Furthermore, as a railway employee, he worked straight through the holidays for most of his adult life.

“I guess that’s why, to this day, my go-to Christmas songs are the sad, downtrodden ones like Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis (by Tom Waits) and Fairytale of New York (by the Pogues),” he says.

Besides essentials such as Once Upon a Christmas by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, and Blue Christmas by Elvis Presley, Dul also has a dozen still-sealed copies of Silent Night, Holy Night: K-Tel Brings You a Merry Christmas, from 1975, in a Christmas-themed bin parked steps away from the sales counter.

“And there’s a lot more from where those came from,” he points out. “The previous owner of the building (the late Jeff Bishop of Sound Exchange) had all these unopened boxes in the basement and one morning when I was going through them, I came across an entire box of that particular record, all of which were still brand new.”

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Winnipeg Record and Tape Co. 1079 Wellington Ave.

All he wants for Christmas is you… and everybody else to stop playing that (bad word) song.

Cavin Borody isn’t saying he doesn’t like Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You, voted the No. 1 holiday song, all-time, by the editors of Billboard.

What he is saying is that whenever he hears that holly-jolly number — whether it’s at the mall, the bank… you name it — he wants to grab the nearest sharp object and stab himself in both ears.

“To me, the only valid Christmas music is what my parents used to listen to: Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Mahalia Jackson, Julie Andrews…” says the 66-year-old.

“I also love the A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack, though I consider it more a great jazz-piano album that I can throw on all year long.”

Despite Borody’s general apathy for the genre, his West End shop — the only Canadian record store cited as a must-visit in the book A Beginner’s Guide to Vinyl — houses one of the city’s most eclectic selections of Christmas music. There you’ll find everything from A (Charles Aznavour) to Z (Zamfir), including a 1983 oddity titled Commercial Christmasland by the Scrooge Bros.

“This one’s so hilarious, even I can get behind it,” he laughs.

“It’s from Rhino Records and some of the songs are I Wish You Would Take Your Hat Off, Deck Yourself and What Smell Is This.”

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Frenchie’s Records & Coffee, 260 Tache Ave.

Ho-ho-hold on there!

On Nov. 30, Sam French, who runs Frenchie’s together with his dad Ryan, cued up a Christmas album — he thinks it was Full Rainbow of Light, a new release by Newfoundland singer-songwriter Tim Baker — when his father told him, not so fast.

“He said it was still too early for Christmas music and that I’d have to wait at least another week or two,” Sam says, listing Last Christmas by British pop duo Wham! — released 18 years before he was born — as a personal fave.

Admittedly, Ryan isn’t as big on Christmas tunes as his son is. When pressed however, he says he is partial to “cheesier stuff” like Gene Autry’s rendition of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Oh, and he’ll never turn the volume down on Bing Crosby and David Bowie’s duet of Peace on Earth/The Little Drummer Boy, recorded in September 1977, 33 days before Crosby’s death.

Sam says Sleigher, a holiday album by alt-rock star Ben Folds that came out in October, has been a steady seller. Same story with Evergreen, a 2019 effort by Canadian folk/country trio the Good Lovelies.

“And of course you can never go wrong with this one,” he says, showing off a used copy of Archie Wood and His Friends: Christmas Album, recorded by West End-raised ventriloquist “Uncle” Bob Swarts, whose noon-hour television program starring Archie, Marvin Mouse and Petite was required viewing for Winnipeggers who grew up in the ’60s and ’70s.

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Argy’s Records, 1604 St. Mary’s Rd.

Earlier this year Ray Giguere learned there doesn’t have to be snow on the ground for people to be in the mood for some jingle bells.

In late August, Giguere welcomed a couple who drove to Argy’s to shop for Christmas records on an afternoon when the temperature was in the mid-30s Celsius.

When he jokingly told them it seemed a tad early to be rocking around the Christmas tree, they assured him that in their household, Christmas albums take over the turntable the second the months of the year start ending in -ber.

Giguere calls an album that hit store shelves five years after Argy’s opened in 1982 a “game-changer,” when it comes to the Christmas canon.

“Sure it’s a Christmas album, but it’s a darned good album as well,” he says, displaying a factory-sealed reissue of A Very Special Christmas, the first of a set of all-star Christmas compilations that were produced into the 2000s to benefit the Special Olympics.

“This was the one that had Bruce Springsteen doing Merry Christmas Baby, Run-DMC doing Christmas in Hollis and Stevie (Nicks) doing Silent Night. I make sure to bring in new copies every year, because it’s still one of the top-selling Christmas records at the store.”

If there’s one thing Giguere has learned after 42 Yuletide seasons in business, it’s that you never know what Christmas album is going to appeal to a particular individual, which is why he keeps hundreds on hand.

For example, a woman was over the moon earlier this month when she was flipping through records and spotted one — Great Songs of Christmas — her grandparents used to own.

“It was put out on the Goodyear Tire label, likely as a promotion, and isn’t all that valuable, but she wanted it regardless,” Giguere says.

“She said that specific record had been a big part of her childhood, and whether she ended up playing it or not, she was happy to have a copy for herself.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca