CD Review: "A Christmas Gift For You"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Thursday, 02 December 2010 12:45

Written by Lloyd Carroll

Various Artists
A Christmas Gift For You
(Legacy Records)
Legendary record producer Phil Spector was found guilty in Spring of 2009 of killing actress Lana Clarkson at his LA home in February 2003. At his trial, the flamboyant Spector wore garish suits and his toupee looked as if 10,000 volts of electricity has just gone through it. So it is hard to shake the most recent images of Phil Spector -- once the pop music world's greatest pioneer creators. This pop music fan would rather much remember Spector as the creative mastermind behind some of the 20th century’s best pop singles than as this unhinged loon rotting in prison.

As the holiday season kicks off, it brings to mind one of his greatest albums, A Christmas Gift For You, which was eerily released on November 22, 1963. The 1963 holiday season couldn't have been very cheery in light of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and that's probably why this album didn't sell as well out of the box as was expected back then. Like fine wine however, A Christmas Gift For You gets better with age.

Spector’s album was one of the first rock & roll holiday LPs and it opened the door for others such as the Beach Boys to release a Christmas album the following year.

Legacy Records has had Spector’s monaural recording digitally remastered so that old seasonal friends such as the Ronettes’ versions of “Sleigh Ride,” “Frosty The Snowman,” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” or the Crystals’ “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer” and “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” sound as if they were recorded last month instead of 46 years ago.

The best cut remains the one song that made its debut on “A Gift For You” --Darlene Love’s riveting tale of romantic heartbreak, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” This tune remained rather obscure until Irish rockers U2 recorded its version in 1987 giving the Spector-penned tune a new and rather large audience. David Letterman books Darlene Love on The Late Show every December for the sole purpose of having the pleasure of hearing her sing this classic.

If for no other reason, this album is a wonder to hear every Christmas season so that Spector is remembered by on-going generations for something other a music-industry wacko.

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