My grown-up Christmas list
|  | | A music chart expert and professional journalist, Fred Bronson is the author of The Billboard Book of Number One Hits and writes for numerous television and radio projects. | Dear Fred. As always, I enjoy the year-end issue (which I have been buying every year since 1977). I also enjoy reading your favorites of the past year as well. Could you also share with us your all-time favorite Christmas recordings and artists?
Happy Holidays. Richard K. Rogers, Astoria, N. Y. Dear Richard. I'm going to be honest - I read your e-mail just minutes before reaching my deadline to turn in this week's Chart Beat Chat. So there isn't time to do a definitive list, and while I have loved Christmas music for years, I have never assembled my own personal top 10 before, so I don't have anything prepared.
Totally off the top of my head, my all-time favorite Christmas recording would be "All I Want for Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey. I also love all of the tracks on "A Holiday Gift for You", the legendary album produced by Phil Spector, so let's put all of those songs in second place, especially the songs by Darlene Love, the Ronettes and the Crystals, followed by "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" by Wizzard.
I do love some of the biggest, most popular Christmas recordings, like "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" by Brenda Lee, "Jingle Bell Rock" by Bobby Helms, "Blue Christmas" by Elvis Presley and "Santa Baby" by Eartha Kitt, along with some more relatively recent tracks, like Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas", Wham's "Last Christmas", the Waitresses' "Christmas Wrapping", Celine Dion's "Christmas Eve" and Ally & AJ's "Greatest Time of Year".
Speaking of Wham! (and Wizzard), some of my favorite Christmas songs have been recorded in the U.K., like Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody" and Mud's "Lonely This Christmas". I love some Christmas singles from the '60s, like "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" by the Four Seasons and "Little Saint Nick" by the Beach Boys.
And I love entire Christmas albums recorded by Diana Ross and the Supremes, Neil Sedaka, Cliff Richard, Shakin' Stevens, Tatsuro Yamashita from Japan, Kimberley Locke, Frank Sinatra (and family), Mindy Smith (listen to her "My Holiday" - one of my favorite albums of 2007), Rotary Connection, Bobby Vee, Peggy Lee and the multi-artist Stax/Volt holiday album released in the '60s. Some of my lesser-known favorites are: "The Man With the Bag", Kay Starr
"Christmas Time Forever", Southern All Stars
"I Was Born on Christmas Day", Saint Etienne
"I'm Sending a Letter to Santa Claus", Phyllis Robins
"It Doesn't Often Snow at Christmas", Pet Shop Boys
"The Christmas Song/Dedicated to the One I Love", Laura Nyro
"December Will Be Magic Again", Kate Bush
"Home for Christmas", Kate Bush
"Christmas Boogie", Davis Sisters
"Hooray for Santa Claus", Al Hirt
"It's Gonna Be a Cold, Cold Christmas", Dana I know I'll think of others as soon as I turn the column in, so as long as this list is, it's not complete. Can you imagine how long it would be if I had more time? (Billboard's Chart Beat Chat)
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