WHAT "War On Christmas"?

 

This "War on Christmas" hogwash is what it is. Hogwash.

The only ones declaring any kind of "war" on this holiday are in my opinion, those who have to nitpick over other people's beliefs to get others worked up and angry at a time we should be doing better things.

Let it go. It's the holiday season. Cheers!

Christmas Greetings Vol. 3 (Columbia Special Products for A&P, 1972)

This would be yet another by now fairly typical Columbia Special Products '70s Christmas compilation album were it not for two tracks on it whose artist names literally jumped off the back cover when I found my copy in a Goodwill a few years ago.

 "The Christmas Song" Carol Burnett...


...and "Here's To You" Cary Grant, which was also released as a B-side 45 RPM single in 1967.

 This 45 is extremely hard to find in merely acceptable condition. The single's equally classy A-side "Christmas Lullaby" can also be found on the 1971 A Very Merry Christmas Volume 3 CSP compilation for the now defunct East Coast department store chain, Grant's.

That Christmas Feeling (Columbia Special Products for JCPenney, 1973)

I swear between Columbia and RCA, these two former rivals (ironically, they're now both subsidiaries of Sony Music) were in a race to tie in as many custom Christmas compilation albums for retail businesses as possible in the '70s.

Columbia released albums for Goodyear, JCPenney, A&P, Safeway, Firestone and several others. RCA had Firestone, True Value Hardware, Radio Shack, Piggly Wiggly and others.

Most of these compilations contained music heard on older compilations, but with different track listings.

"Christmas Countdown" Frank Kelly (1983)

Hysterical twist on "The Twelve Days of Christmas"

A KJR Rock N' Roll Christmas (1975)

"(A KJR) Rock N' Roll Christmas" Ric Hansen & Julie Miller (1975)

Listen Here

In the '70s, the most listened to Top 40 radio station in Seattle was "Channel 95" KJR (950 AM.)

The station could easily claim to as many as 1/4 to even 1/3rd of all the radios in Puget Sound were tuned in to KJR at any given time and they would be pretty much spot on. You heard KJR everywhere in the '70s.

And back then, this sticker on the window or bumper of any car in the Seattle area meant the driver was pretty cool.

While FM rock was available (KJR's FM sister station in the '70s was KISW.), it was still a niche and would remain so until the 1979 disco implosion that drove everyone to harder rock or Adult Contemporary pop in Seattle. (KJR-AM today is All Sports.) 

But KJR was a Seattle institution in the thick of the '70s. So much so, it was revived on 95.7 FM during the '70s nostalgia wave of the '90s. (Somehow, I never got used to the FM-upgraded tagline in their '90s jingles "KJR Seattle.....Channel 95.7!")

And when you're THIS big, you can put out your own Christmas song and have it easily become a local hit. And that's what KJR did in 1975.

Julie Miller (who?) does an eerily accurate Karen Carpenter imitation while powerhouse jock Ric Hansen runs down the kind of stuff you heard on KJR in 1975 and before joining the chorus (yes, he sings on this one.)

If you're from Seattle and you remember KJR back in the day, it's an awesome holiday flashback. If not, it's probably pretty much 3 minutes of WTF.

Enjoy!