Thanks to a steady diet of Christmas cartoon specials when I was
\ngrowing up, one of the things I associate most with Christmas is
\nCharlie Brown. Every year, I make it a point to watch “A Charlie
\nBrown Christmas,” and I’ve often entertained the notion of buying a
\ncopy for my daughter (though my wife reminds me we could always
\ntape it from TV).<\/p>\n
Seeing we reviewed the soundtrack to “A Charlie Brown Christmas”
\nsome time ago, and seeing that I needed a CD copy of the song
\n“Linus And Lucy” for my buddy’s wedding last month, I discovered
\nthe latest disc from the late Vince Guaraldi that encompasses the
\nmusic from countless specials I grew up with:
\nCharlie Brown’s Holiday Hits<\/i>. It’s a sad choice this time of
\nyear, with Charles Schulz’s recent announcement that he will be
\nretiring. (I don’t know if anyone associated with Mr. Schulz reads
\nthis – but if someone is, please pass along this message for me:
\nThank you.)<\/p>\n
Now, I’ll admit this isn’t a Christmas album per se; only two of
\nthe songs have anything to do with Christmas, and three of them
\ncome from the album
\nA Charlie Brown Christmas<\/i>. But not everything on
\nA Charlie Brown Christmas<\/i> was strictly Yuletide music, so
\nI’m willing to bend the rules a little bit. Besides, I recognize
\none song on this disc that was on the special and not on the album
\n– “Surfin’ Snoopy”. (Oh, wait… maybe that song was on the “book
\nand record” set I used to have as a kid.)<\/p>\n
The nicest thing about
\nCharlie Brown’s Holiday Hits<\/i> is that this disc is sure to
\nbring back some great memories if you grew up glued to the TV
\nawaiting every Peanuts special. Remember “Thanksgiving Theme,”
\nwhere Snoopy and Woodstock enjoy a meal together? It has been at
\nleast a decade since I saw that special, but as soon as I heard
\nthat song, almost the whole show started playing in my mind
\nagain.<\/p>\n
And the two definite selections for the holiday season are
\nalways pleasures to listen to. Both the vocal and the instrumental
\nversions of “Christmas Time Is Here” show just how talented a
\nmusician that Guaraldi was. (Side note: The liner notes of this
\ndisc say that Guaraldi actually sat in with The Grateful Dead for a
\nfew Bay Area shows after Tom Constanten left the band. I never knew
\nthat – and it gives me, a
\nnouveau<\/i> Deadhead, a new reason to love Guaraldi’s work.)<\/p>\n
All of this said, there are a few disappointments. First is the
\nvocal track “Oh, Good Grief,” which is done a capella by a
\nchildren’s chorus. What Guaraldi had to do with this I don’t know,
\nbut I honestly don’t think it belongs in this collection. Likewise,
\n“Joe Cool” is not the version I remember from my childhood, though
\nit does grow on you a bit after about twelve listens.<\/p>\n
The other disappointment is hearing how some themes are
\nrecycled; one would have thought that Guaraldi would have wanted to
\ncreate different pieces for different moods. Okay, I can understand
\nthe piece “Schroeder” and how its musical line is the same as “Oh,
\nGood Grief” (and possibly answers the question I raised above), but
\n“Track Meet” is the same musical motif as the song “Christmas Is
\nComing” from
\nA Charlie Brown Christmas<\/i>… disappointing, to say the
\nleast.<\/p>\n
Still, there are some gems on
\nCharlie Brown’s Holiday Hits<\/i>, and if you’re looking at
\nreclaiming a piece of your childhood (short of renting all the
\nspecials from Blockbuster), this disc is a nice way to be a kid
\nagain for just under 40 minutes. If you’re looking for a decent
\nChristmas album, though, I’d still suggest grabbing
\nA Charlie Brown Christmas<\/i> instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5897],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-36413","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-vince-guaraldi-trio","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36413"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36413"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}