While Bobby Darin (1936-1973) remained popular until his premature death in 1973 at the age of 37 from chronic heart problems, he was a superstar during the pre-Beatles era. Hit songs such as \u201cSplish Splash,\u201d\u00a0 \u201cBeyond The Sea,\u201d \u201cDream Lover,\u201d and his huge number one hit \u201cMack The Knife\u201d propelled him into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. He was a crooner whose smooth style crossed over into pop and rock and roll. He was also an actor who won a Golden Globe Award for his performance in Come September <\/i>and in 1963 was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for Captain Newman M.D. <\/i>He was also the guy who actually married Sandra Dee of Grease <\/i>fame.<\/p>\n
Right in the middle of all his popularity, he released the only Christmas album of his career in 1960. The 25th<\/sup> Of December <\/i>has now been reissued by Real Gone Music.<\/p>\n Darin created a thematic album combining Christmas hymns and American spirituals that all dealt with the birth of Jesus. Up until this point in his career, he had been strictly a solo artist, but given the material, he used the Bobby Scott Chorale as his backing vocalists.<\/p>\n Today, the album sounds a little dated, but it was a leap of faith for Darin as he moved the material in a number of directions. He gives \u201cPoor Little Jesus\u201d a bluesy treatment. \u201cChild Of God\u201d and \u201cBaby Born Today\u201d are right out of a Southern revival tent meeting with the latter being a shout and answer presentation with the backing choir. On the other hand, \u201cSilent Night,\u201d \u201cWhile Shepherds Watch Their Flocks,\u201d and \u201cHoly Holy Holy\u201d are given a traditional treatment.<\/p>\n \u201cJehovah Hallelujah\u201d is another fundamentalist revival piece. The most unusual song is Dona Nobis Pacem from the Catholic Mass. The only bonus track is \u201cChristmas Auld Lang Syne,\u201d which was recorded at the same time but only released as a single. <\/p>\n While the original album was released in mono and stereo, all future reissues were mono as for 50 years it was presumed the original stereo masters had been lost. That proved not the case as they were recently discovered in The Warner vaults. Now the album has returned in pristine stereo condition. <\/p>\n Much of Darin\u2019s material was playful but this Christmas album is very serious. It remains a very different approach when compared to his other releases. It may not be the best Christmas release of its era but it represents the time that Bobby Darin took a chance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":31733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9296],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-43443","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bobby-darin","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43443","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43443"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}