GOD SO LOVED MAN THAT HE GAVE US BING:

9.08 Christmas Albums Yule Love – Or Your Holiday Cheer Back (Kevin Gosa, December 10, 2010, Curator)

The Voice of Christmas – The Complete Decca Christmas Songbook, Bing Crosby, 1935-1956, Decca Records

He truly is the voice of Christmas, and perhaps the most recognizable, stunning, and perfect voice ever recorded. If I had a million years to imagine things, I still couldn’t imagine what it feels like to sing like Bing.

While listening to Bing bellow, it’s interesting to be reminded that people have been opening gifts and sharing time with family to the strains of these exact versions of classic Christmas songs for almost seventy years. It’s one thing for the song itself to belong to antiquity, it’s another for an actual performance of one to endure. Plus, the whole recording has that “old-timey” feel. Probably because it was made in the “old times.”

He Is Christmas, Take 6, 1991, Word Entertainment

Before I made it big as a writer, I was an editorial intern for an industry trade magazine. I was in charge of compiling a list of “desert island discs,” or “moon mission music” as I called it. An artist submitted this recording as one of the five he would take on a one-way trip to the moon. That’s high praise since the magazine was for musicians about chamber music.

Normally I’d tread lightly when recommending an a cappella group to an unknown audience, it’s sort of like sweetbreads, you either love them, or the thought of it sends you hurtling towards the water closet like Santa after a night of drinking warm, spoiled milk.

But, with all the Glee fanaticism these days, maybe now is a good time to dip your toe into the post-doo-wop-gospel-second-wave-jazz-a cappella-vocal-pop scene.

These guys are just like the cast of Glee, except middle-aged, African-American, all-male, probably bad actors and dancers, but can sing circles around the faux-teens any day.