Personnel includes: Frank Sinatra (vocals); Alex Stordahl (arranger, conductor); Bobby Tucker Singers, Ken Lane Singers, B. Swanson Quartet, Jeff Alexander Orchestra & Chorus, Mitchell Boys Choir.
Recorded from 1944 to 1949. Includes liner notes by Roy Hemming.
Digitally remastered using Cedar and NoNoise technology by Tom Ruff (Sony Music Studios, New York, New York).
It should come as no surprise that Frank Sinatra would have a special way with Christmas songs just as he did with every other type of song. This welcome reissue is a slightly expanded version of Sinatra's original 1948 Christmas album and includes some 1945 V-Disc holiday performances especially recorded for the troops still stationed in Europe right after the war. The original 78s hold up incredibly well for Christmas music a half-century old.
Sinatra's approach to such chestnuts as "White Christmas"--only 2 years old in 1944--and "Silent Night" is straightforward, unsentimental and utterly convincing. It also owes nothing to Bing Crosby, who had a franchise on this kind of family fare. Sinatra's fresh, non-pietistic take on this material is geared more toward the unattached (young) man in the street rather than family men. The slightly sexy "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" and "Christmas Dreaming (A Little Early This Year)" were for the very same G.I.s Sinatra had once entertained through his V-Discs, back home now and considering the uncertain (and slightly sexy) future looming before them.
