The Spirit of Christmas
Compact Disc DLCD 122
White Christmas
My Favourite Things
Do You Hear What I Hear
Ring Christmas Bells - We Wish You A Merry Christmas
Deck The Halls; It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
The long-awaited The Living Strings Christmas album: The Spirit of Christmas
The Living Strings Christmas Albums ‘The Spirit of Christmas’, ‘White Christmas’ and ‘A Christmas Songbook’ digitally re-mastered on to a double album entitled ‘The Spirit of Christmas’.
Christmas is a time of emotions. In this digitally re-mastered double album the Johnny Douglas orchestra and singers musically express every emotion, memory and feeling, which traditionally accompanies this glorious season, with a mixture of Christmas songs and traditional carols. Johnny Douglas recorded the three original Living Strings albums between 1963 and 1974. A few of the titles are repeated, once even twice, but with different arrangements. To delete the repeats would render the original albums incomplete and deprive the listener of the opportunity to experience the versatile arranging by Johnny Douglas.
Disc 1 – Instrumental, featuring the lush, rich sound of the velvety strings.
Disc 2 – With voices, warmly blended as instruments of the orchestra.
The Living Strings Series was created by RCA Producer Ethel Gabriel. She worked on the Melachrino Strings’ “Moods in Music” series and in the late 1950s developed the Living Strings as a package for RCA’s budget label, Camden, using various orchestras, mainly from Europe. The albums were all centred on a theme; the sea; Broadway; night music.
Johnny Douglas was one of England’s masters of string arranging and a primary arranger and conductor of the series recorded in England.
He brought great songs to a new life with his arrangements of a mass of pure velvety strings, mellow brass and superb solos played by the cream of the British musicians of that era.
The recordings made by The Living Strings became a mainstay of easy-listening radio and commercial venues.
Disc 1
- White Christmas, 3.35
- Silver Bells, 3.19
- Wassail Song – The First Noel – Angels We Have Heard on High – Joy to the World, 3.39
- Mary’s Boy Child, 3.21
- Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, 2.44
- We Wish You a Merry Christmas – We Three Kings – It Came Upon a Midnight Clear – O Holy Night – Silent Night, 4.44
- O Come, All Ye Faithful – Oh Little Town of Bethlehem – Coventry Carol – Away in a Manager, 4.25
- It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas – intro, Deck the Halls, 2.45
- Home for the Holidays, 3.56
- The Christmas Song, 3.22
- I’ll be Home for Christmas, 3.18
- The Little Drummer Boy, 3.14
Disc 2
- White Christmas, 3.20
- Happy Holiday, 2.01
- Here’s To You, 2.58
- My Favourite Things, 2.45
- Christmas Lullaby – Silent Night, 5.34
- Do You Hear What I Hear, 2.34
- Ring Christmas Bells – We Wish You a Merry Christmas, 2.21
- The Little Drummer Boy, 3.24
- Buon Natale – Jingo Jango – Jingle Bells – Bossa Nova Noel, 6.23
- A Merry Christmas Song, 1.51
- Deck the Halls – Hark! The Herald Angels Sing – O Come, All Ye Faithful – Joy to the World, 4.10
- I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day – White Christmas, 3.25
- O Little Town of Bethlehem – Silent Night – Away in a Manger – Angels We Have Heard on High, 4.09
- Out of the East, 5.01
- We Three Kings of Orient Are – Coventry Carol – It Came Upon the Midnight Clear – O Holy Night, 3.50
- Jingle Bells – Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer – God Rest Ye Merry Christmas, 4.14
- Wassail Song – The First Noel – O Christmas Tree – Green Needles, 3.58
- The Little Drummer Boy – Toyland, 3.49
- Do You Hear What I Hear, 2.46
- Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus – I’ll be Home for Christmas, 3.59
