Huey “Piano” Smith & the Clowns
Christmas With Babyface
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
With the arrival of doo-wop and rock ‘n’ roll, a new generation of variously talented–and not necessarily reverent or even sane–performers put its mark on the classics (the Drifters’ nutty “White Christmas” may be driving one last poor Pottery Barn shopper over the edge even as you read this) and baked up an impressive batch of its own sweet potatoes, including the Penguins’ “Jingle Jangle,” Chuck Berry’s “Run Rudolph Run,” and the Youngsters’ “Christmas in Jail.” In the mid-60s, soul greats like James Brown, Marvin Gaye, and Booker T. & the MG’s added their own chestnut-rattling carols to the canon. The late 60s, however, put a kink in the yuletide pop trend: a rise in self-deification rendered Mary’s boy child unnecessary. Hendrix’s benediction at Monterey Pop might as well have been, “You’ll never hear Christmas music again.”
We would, of course. When the Ramones and their ilk made the world safe for girl groups again, Christmas music came along for the ride. The Damned, the Dickies, and the Pretenders participated admirably in the resurrection, which has continued unabated since. Nowadays the average music megastore’s shelves groan under the weight of an annual avalanche of Christmas CDs. The classics are back in print, and the superstars–some Christian, some not–weigh in on a rotating basis. Acts major and marginal from all radio formats are represented, cottage industries have emerged–Mannheim Steamroller, anyone?–and waning fads like Windham Hill and cocktail culture hang on for dear life. And–hold on to your elf hat–shockingly, many of these artists are more interested in filling a five-pound box of money than in bearing tidings of joy. What makes this weird segment of the music machine bearable and even fascinating is that it’s almost totally unpredictable. Great artists are fully capable of making abysmal holiday records, and irritating swill merchants occasionally morph into stars of wonder. Whole genres can flip-flop in one’s estimation based on their adaptability to holiday music.
The Clowns’ set is split evenly between originals and perennials, and the originals often feature Santa in their titles. Every song begins with a big fat rock ‘n’ roll riff, often lifted from some secular Clowns classic. Among the standards, a jaunty “Jingle Bells” is as mellow as things get. “White Christmas Blues” lifts the Drifters’ arrangement of “White Christmas” and injects a thumping tale of lost love into the middle. And “Silent Night” is anything but, with a screaming horn chart and a vocal choir so obnoxious and irreligious that it’s been rumored (albeit wrongly) to have sparked a churchgoer revolt that knocked the record out of circulation in the first place.
