New Year's Eve with Guy Lombardo

While some Americans might get nostalgic for the days when Dick Clark was young and hosting the nation's New Year's Eve party on television, I have to go back further to when Guy Lombardo reigned as King of the New Year's Eve festivities.

His sound had a unique corniness and charm. It was called "The Sweetest Music This Side Of Heaven." His brother sang many of the songs in his strange but endearing way.

Lombardo was from London, Ontario and up until 2007 there was a Lombardo museum. Apparently and unfortunately time marches on and the collective memories of pop music have gotten Alzheimers and the museum was closed due to lack of interest.

Here at the Nostalgic Rambler, we haven't forgotten, so turn the clocks back and relive some Lombardo.

Click here for "Powder Your Face With Sunshine" from 1957 and here for a summary welcoming in the year 1958.

Click here for "Enjoy Yourself, It's Later Than You Think" with some great Lombardo pictures and here for "Boo Hoo," a great video from the Lombardo tv show featuring the Lombardo trio.

For more info on Guy Lombardo visit The Guy Lombardo Society, which also has some great audio from his radio programs. Happy New Year Everyone!

A Perry Christmas...Como that is...

It's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTmas....everywhere except on television. In years gone by there were some wonderful classic CHRISTmas programs featuring the CHRISTmas carols America loved. Click here for an excerpt from the "Hollywood Palace" starring Perry Como from the days when Hollywood had class!

About two minutes into this clip Perry sings the song "Christ is Born." Several years ago I found out that Perry had donated much of his music library to the University of Colorado at Boulder. I contacted the archivist there and sure enough, Perry 's original orchestrations for "Christ is Born" is in their archives. It cost a small fortune, but I commissioned the archives to make me copies of the entire orchestration. It is quite interesting to look over all of the parts for various instruments and actually have them in my possession. Of course I used this song for a church CHRISTmas presentation several years ago. What a thrill it was to have Perry's actual arrangement and music to use. Too bad Nick Perito, Perry's musical arranger has also long since passed on as he would have been a fascinating man to talk to.

I found the cassette we recorded my performance on. Unfortunately it wasn't done on a professional sound board and was a one take live performance. I thought I'd share it with you here anyhow as this is an absolutely delightfuly CHRISTmas melody....Along with the song you will also see some of our CHRISTmas decor we have around the house this year.



Click here or try on the box below to see/hear "Christ is Born"



Merry CHRISTmas to you all.....

Jeff

Nostalgic Christmas

Back in the 1950s and 60s my grandpa took plenty of slides. Christmas of course was a favorite photo op. I have edited several of these family classics together in the following video. I hope you enjoy this time travel when the guys dressed up in suits and the women in beautiful dresses and things were a bit simpler than they are now.

In this clip you also get to listen to my rendition of a Perry Como classic "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" so be sure to turn the sound up. Click here or you can also try the little screen below to view.

After I completed this video and watched it, I shed some tears. I was touched at how after all these years, the vibrant images of long gone family jump off the screen as if to beckon us back to those Christmases of long ago.

Merry CHRISTmas