I Still Believe in Santa Claus | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 1990 | |||
Recorded | 1990 | |||
Genre |
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Length | 32:29 | |||
Label | Curb | |||
Producer | Michael Lloyd | |||
Andy Williams chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Allmusic | [1] |
I Still Believe in Santa Claus is a Christmas album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released by Curb Records in 1990. It was his fourth solo album of Christmas music, following The Andy Williams Christmas Album (1963), Merry Christmas (1965) and Christmas Present (1974). As with the 1965 LP, this album focuses exclusively on 20th-century compositions, including two new songs: "Christmas Needs Love to Be Christmas" and "My Christmas Vow (This Is My Promise)", the latter of which Williams describes in the liner notes as "a new lyric set to an old Hawaiian melody". [2]
"Toyland" originated in the 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland . [3] "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" by George Hall & the Hotel Taft Orchestra with Sonny Schuyler on vocal is the only recording of the song to have charted in conjunction with its publication in 1934, reaching number 12. [4] "When You Wish upon a Star" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for its inclusion in the 1940 film Pinocchio [5] and had separate renditions make the charts that same year by Cliff Edwards, Horace Heidt, Guy Lombardo, and Glenn Miller, [6] and Bing Crosby's recording of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" spent two weeks at number three upon its first release in 1943. [7]
In 1949, recordings of "Blue Christmas" by Russ Morgan, Ernest Tubb, and Hugo Winterhalter made the Billboard charts. [8] That same year marked the first charting of "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?", thanks to The Orioles. [9] 1952 saw the release of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus", with versions by Molly Bee, Jimmy Boyd, and Spike Jones all making the charts that holiday season. [10] Frank Sinatra's recording of "The Christmas Waltz" was released in 1954, [11] and John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)" first made Billboard's Christmas Singles chart in 1971. [12]
Adapted from the album credits. [2]
A Partridge Family Christmas Card is a Christmas album by the Partridge Family, released in November 1971. The album's case contains a reproduction of a Christmas card signed by the whole Partridge Family, the stars of a 1970s sitcom. The song "My Christmas Card to You" was original, but the remainder of the tracks were standards. Like most of the Partridge Family songs, the lead vocals are sung by David Cassidy, who played Keith Partridge in the show. The album also features one of the few Partridge Family recordings featuring Shirley Jones as the lead singer.
"Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" is a Christmas song released in 1971 as a single by John & Yoko/The Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir. It was the seventh single released by John Lennon outside his work with the Beatles. The song reached number four in the UK, where its release was delayed until November 1972, and has occasionally re-emerged on the UK Singles Chart, most notably after Lennon's murder in December 1980, when it peaked at number two.
"Blue Christmas" is a Christmas song written by Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson and most famously recorded by Elvis Presley, although it was first recorded by Doye O'Dell in 1948. It is a tale of unrequited love during the holidays and is a longstanding staple of Christmas music, especially in the country genre.
"My Hometown" is a single by Bruce Springsteen off his Born in the U.S.A. album as its closing track, that was the then-record-tying seventh and last top 10 single to come from it, peaking at #7 on the Cash Box Top 100 and #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. It also topped the U.S. adult contemporary chart, making the song Springsteen's only #1 song on this chart to date. The song is a synthesizer-based, low-tempo number that features Springsteen on vocals.
Christmas Present is the third Christmas album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released in October 1974 by Columbia Records and, apart from the title track, focused strictly on traditional carols. While his previous holiday LPs were released during the run of his variety series, which ended in 1971, this album was promoted the December following its release through one of his many Christmas specials. An article titled "MOR Artists Are Ailing" in Billboard magazine's November 23, 1974, issue describes the hopes that the record company had for the album: "Columbia is releasing Andy Williams' newest LP, 'Christmas Present,' with considerable advance orders and expects it to become a holiday classic to continue the string of album winners for the artist."
Merry Christmas is the second Christmas album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released by Columbia Records in 1965, and his seventeenth studio album overall. This seasonal LP is focused exclusively on 20th century compositions, unlike 1963's The Andy Williams Christmas Album, which, of its 12 tracks, had six with origins predating the turn of the century.
Moon River: The Very Best of Andy Williams is a compilation album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released on October 13, 2009. A note from Williams inside the CD booklet explains that the album "was put together to coincide with my memoir Moon River and Me, published by Viking/Penguin. It includes many of the songs that you made hits. I truly appreciate that, and I hope you enjoy the songs we selected for this CD." The collection covers a wide assortment of his material, including crossover hits, stabs at the youth market, a pair of Mancini-Mercer Oscar winners, a Christmas classic, and a eulogy to Robert F. Kennedy.
Days of Wine and Roses and Other TV Requests is the eleventh studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams and was released in April 1963 by Columbia Records following his first season as host of his variety series, The Andy Williams Show. The LP has a studio recording of the closing theme from the show, "May Each Day", and continues the format of his previous Columbia releases by including songs from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.
The Great Songs from "My Fair Lady" and Other Broadway Hits is the fifteenth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams and was released in September 1964 by Columbia Records, one month before the premiere of the film version of My Fair Lady starring Audrey Hepburn.
The Andy Williams Show is the twenty-sixth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released in the fall of 1970 by Columbia Records. In his review on AllMusic.com, William Ruhlmann writes that "The Andy Williams Show LP was not a soundtrack recording from the TV series, and it was not really a live album, although it gets categorized as such. What appears to be the case is that Columbia Records took a group of Williams' studio recordings, most of them made during the summer of 1970 and consisting of his versions of recent soft rock hits, and added a lot of canned applause along with some of the kind of musical interludes used to usher numbers on and off on the show, including bits of its "Moon River" theme music at the start and the finish."
You Lay So Easy on My Mind is the thirty-fourth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in November 1974 by Columbia Records. The idea for this LP was mentioned in an interview with Williams in the November 3, 1973, issue of Billboard magazine that emphasized his desire to move away from recording albums of Easy Listening covers of hits by other artists, noting that he was "planning an album to be cut in Nashville with Columbia's high-flying country-pop producer, Billy Sherrill." The article coincided with the release of his first attempt to shift directions, Solitaire, which performed poorly. A return to the Easy Listening hits formula, The Way We Were, followed in the spring of 1974 but failed to even chart, so this next attempt to eschew soft rock songs leaned heavily on Country hits.
Andy is the thirty-sixth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in the fall of 1976 by Columbia Records. Williams is not as focused on covering pop hits and standards on this album and instead relies mainly on original or lesser-known songs. In the liner notes for the album's 2002 CD release, writer Richard M. Erickson explains that the album "was recorded at six different studios to accommodate Andy's touring schedule. One recording session was at a portable studio set up at a Marriott hotel."
Let's Love While We Can is the thirty-seventh studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in the U.K. in 1980 by CBS Records. For this project Williams eschews covering well-known pop hits and standards and relies mostly on original or lesser-known country songs.
B Sides and Rarities is a compilation album by the American pop singer Andy Williams that was released by Collectables Records on May 27, 2003. Although the collection starts with two 1947 recordings by Kay Thompson and The Williams Brothers, the rest of the material comes from his time at Columbia Records and includes covers of contemporary hits as well as lesser-known material from the songwriters of "Can't Get Used to Losing You", "Home Lovin' Man" and "Moon River".
The New Andy Williams Christmas Album is a live Christmas album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was digitally recorded live in concert at the Andy Williams Moon River Theatre in Branson, Missouri in 1993 and released by the LaserLight division of Delta Music Inc. in 1994. It includes performances of songs that he had previously recorded for his four solo holiday releases as well as a new spoken word track that briefly summarizes the life of Jesus Christ.
I Don't Remember Ever Growing Up is the forty-third and final studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in the UK by the Demon Music Group in 2007. In the liner notes of the album Williams writes, "Over the past few years I have come across songs that I really wanted to record. I picked 13 of my favorites and set out to make a new record." While the title track is the only new song, the other 12 selections were chart hits for other artists or, as is the case with "Desperado" by the Eagles, received critical acclaim without having been released as a single.
Christmas Eve with Johnny Mathis is the fourth Christmas album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on September 23, 1986, by Columbia Records. This was Mathis's fourth holiday-themed LP and focused exclusively on secular material.
You've Got a Friend is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on August 11, 1971, by Columbia Records. The phrase "Today's Great Hits" can be found above the title on both sides of the record jacket as well as both sides of the LP label as if to emphasize that this is essentially an album covering songs that were recently on the charts. This was a common practice of many vocalists of the period, so much so in fact that fellow Columbia artist Andy Williams also released an album titled You've Got a Friend in August 1971 on which he coincidentally covers seven of the 11 tracks that Mathis recorded for this album.
The Christmas Music of Johnny Mathis: A Personal Collection is a compilation album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released in October 1993 by Columbia Records and included selections from the four Christmas albums that he had recorded to date: Merry Christmas, Sounds of Christmas, Give Me Your Love for Christmas, and Christmas Eve with Johnny Mathis.