Musical Fruitcake

In 1931, cartoonist Oscar E. “Otto” Soglow created a playful mini-monarch, whose greatest joys were sliding down palace banisters, eating lunch from a regular workman’s pail and indulging in a daily constitutional to the palace mailbox.

The Little King became a popular feature in The New Yorker magazine. Soglow’s minimalist illustration and even sparser dialogue were part of the King’s appeal. For the next few decades, The Little King popped up in various media, from books to animated cartoons to his own comic title. He experienced global success, as producers and publishers discovered that the cartoon’s pantomime style required little to no translation.

In 1933 and 1934, RKO Pictures made a series of cartoons based on The Little King, and they released a Christmas cartoon called “Christmas Night” (aka “Pals”). The Little King joins two tramps at a Christmas display window, then invites them home to the castle. The three undress and enjoy a bath together, and then go downstairs to nail up their stockings, then retire to bed. Santa comes down the chimney and grows a fully decorated tree from a “Xmas Tree Seed”. The three race around the castle in the miniature cars and planes left behind by Santa. A big crash brings the festivities to a close.

Homer and Jethro were an American country music duo, with a long career from the 1940s through the 1960s, specializing in comedy records and satirical versions of popular songs.

Guitarist Henry D. “Homer” Haynes (1920 - 1971) and mandolin player Kenneth C. “Jethro” Burns (1920 - 1989) met at a radio audition when they were 12 years old. They were both outstanding musicians, who were deeply influenced by the European Gypsy string jazz of Django Reinhardt. They performed exaggerated hillbilly-styled versions of pop standards as their comedic hook. They also worked as session musicians backing other artists.

The duet won a Grammy in 1959 for “The Battle of Kookamonga“, their parody of Johnny Horton’s hit “The Battle Of New Orleans.” The majority of their recordings were similar parodies of famous old and new popular songs.

Here are Homer and Jethro performing “Guess Things Happen That Way” with Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash:

They also were spokesmen for an advertising campaign for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes in the mid 1960s, releasing an album based on the ad’s catch phrase, “Ooh, That’s Corny!”

Homer and Jethro were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985. Haynes died in 1971 of a heart attack and Burns continued working as a musician, recording and performing solo and working as a sidemen with musicians including his brother-in-law Chet Atkins, Steve Goodman and others. At times, he appeared in the “All-Star Band” on TV’s Hee-Haw with Atkins and swing fiddler Johnny Gimble. He died in 1989 after a bout with prostate cancer.

In 1968, Homer and Jethro released a Christmas album, called “Cool Crazy Christmas,” with the song “Santa Claus, The Original Hippie.”

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Homer_and_Jethro_-_Santa_Claus__The_Original_Hippie.mp3

Around 1890, rural southern musicians started playing songs on homemade instruments, starting a craze called “jug music,” which is a mixture of blues, ragtime, and Appalachian music. Jug bands are usually made up of a jug player who blows in to empty liquor jugs (”the poor man’s tuba”), and a mixture of traditional and homemade instruments, such as the washtub bass (”gutbucket”), washboard, stovepipe, tin cans, pots, pans, spoons and combs with tissue paper (kazoos). In the early days of jug band music, guitar and mandolins were sometimes made from the necks of discarded guitars fastened to large gourds, and banjos were often made from a guitar neck and a metal pie plate.

The history of jug bands is related to the development of the Blues, and the informal and energetic music of the jug bands contributed to the development of rock and roll, especially the San Francisco sound. Many Bay-area bands, such as The Grateful Dead, Country Joe & The Fish and Mungo Jerry started out as jug bands.

In the mid 1970s, some of the members of Commander Cody’s Lost Planet Airmen and Country Joe & The Fish, as well as Dan Hicks and other San Francisco area musicians, formed the Monday Night Wild Turkey Jug Band. The jug-jam sessions were about creating new tunes, new lyrics, or just new grooves with an acoustic, backwoods, jug sound.

In late 1977, they performed a Christmas Eve show as as The Three Wise Men +4 -1 Jug Band, and it became an annual tradition. In 1987, they released their first album, “Mistletoe Jam” (on green vinyl) and the group officially became The Christmas Jug Band. In 2002, they released “Uncorked,” which features the off-color song “Santa Lost a Ho.” This innuendo-laden ditty gives us a possible unwelcome insight into Santa’s off-duty activities.

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The_Christmas_Jug_Band_-_Santa_Lost_A_Ho.mp3

Benjamin Bertram Leight (1893-1962) had a long career, performing under the name “Ben Light.” From the 1930s to the late 1950s, he made hundreds of recordings, and sold millions of records.

For 15 years, Ben was a headliner on the Vaudeville circuit, working alongside plate spinners and dog acts. He also appeared with theatrical greats such as Sophie Tucker, George M. Cohan and Ethel Barrymore.

In 1936, Ben Light recorded “party” records for Hollywood Hot Shots, a low-budget record label which supplied jukebox records. While Ben accompanied on piano, an anonymous male singer did the singing. These songs, with titles like “The Guy Who Put the Dix in Dixie” and “Christmas Balls,” were considered raunchy material in their day, filled with sexual innuendo and “teasing” lyrics.

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Ben_Light_-_Christmas_Balls.mp3

The Ramones were one of the most influential rock bands in music history, and they pioneered a straightforward, stripped-down sound that became known as punk rock. In 2002, The Ramones were inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in a Spin Magazine readers poll they were voted the second greatest rock and roll band ever, trailing only the Beatles. Although most of the band members have passed away, their legacy lives on, and they continue to have a legion of dedicated fans.

In an interview, Joey Ramone stated that the Ramones liked the Bay City Rollers‘ hit song “Saturday Night“, and that they set out to imitate its catchy, sing along quality, inspiring the “Hey-ho, let’s go” chant on their first single, “Blitzkrieg Bop.” Here are the Ramones performing “Blitzkrieg Bop” in the cult film “Rock & Roll High School“:

The Ramones have spawned many “tribute bands” around the world, such as “The Gabba Heys” from Sweden, and “The Pinheads,” from Germany. The Ramonas are an all-female Ramones tribute band, from the USA, and they contributed the song “Santa’s Got a GTO,” to a 1997 benefit album of the same name (Dionysys Records 123353). The subtitle to this album is “Rodney on the ROQ’s Fav X-mas Songs” and it was assembled by Rodney Bingenheimer, a legendary DJ from KROQ in Los Angeles, and subject of the documentary movie “Mayor of the Sunset Strip.”

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The_Ramonas_-_Santas_Got_A_GTO.mp3

Stop thinking of Ringo Starr as the “funny Beatle,” he’s the Christmas Beatle! Ringo is the only member of the Beatles to release an album of holiday music, and he was also the honorary “Santa tracker” for NORAD in 2003.

In 1964 Beatlemania was riding it’s first wave of popularity, and there were many Beatles-inspired Christmas songs, such as “I Want A Beatle For Christmas,” by Becky Lee Beck, “All I Want for Christmas Is a Beatle” by Dora Bryan, “I Want A Beatle For Christmas” by Patty Surby And The Canadian V.I.P’s, “Christmas with the Beatles” by Judy and the Duets and “I Want the Beatles for Christmas” by Jackie and Jill.

There were also many songs that paid special tribute to Ringo Starr alone, such as “Ringo I Love You” by Bonnie Jo Mason (aka Cher) and “I Want Ringo For Christmas” by The Four Sisters. There were also at least two Christmas songs released in 1964 titled “Santa Bring Me Ringo,” one by a group called Tich and Quackers and another by a girl named Christine Hunter.

A high-school girl named Dottie Kolzauski, along with some friends, formed a group called Three Blonde Mice, after writing a song called “Ringo Bells.” They recorded the song for Atco (a division of Atlantic Recording), and released it for the 1964 holiday season, with a squeaky rendition of “The 12 Days of Christmas” on the B-side (Atco 45-6324). The song features sped-up vocals to make it sound like singing mice, with Dottie taking lead vocals. There was also another song released the same year, with the same title, recorded by Bobby Roberts and the Ravons.

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Three_Blonde_Mice_-_Ringo_Bells.mp3

Johnny Bond (1915 - 1978) was a popular country music entertainer from the 1940s through the 1960s, and is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Bond got his first break working for Jimmy Wakely in the late 1930s and went on to join Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch in 1940. Johnny Bond was Gene’s singing duo “pardner” and did the comedy, too. Meanwhile, Bond was also a member and leader of Tex Ritter’s studio band, the Red River Valley Boys, and was playing on his records as well as those of other West Coast country stars.

He also acted in over 30 films, and was a regular on the 1950s country music television series “Town Hall Party,” and “Ranch Party.”

Bond had his first big solo hit in 1947, with “Divorce Me C.O.D. In 1965 at age 50 he scored the biggest hit of his career with the comic “Ten Little Bottles” which spent four weeks in the #2 position.

Bond’s other hits include “So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed,” and “Sick Sober and Sorry.” As a songwriter, he was responsible for several compositions that have become country standards, including “Cimarron,” “I Wonder Where You Are Tonight,” “Conversation With a Gun,” “Tomorrow Never Comes,” and “I’ll Step Aside,” which became hits for everyone from Billy Vaughn & His Orchestra to Johnny Rodriguez.

Unlike a lot of country artists of his generation, he wasn’t threatened by the coming of rock & roll, and even tried to adapt his sound to the new beat, which, he recognized wasn’t too far from country music.

In September of 1950, Johnny Bond also released a Christmas record on Columbia (HCO4254), called “I Wanna Do Something For Santa Claus,” which was later covered by 13 year old Ruby Bateman, also known as “Sunshine Ruby.” In a shamefully obvious attempt to cash in on other Christmas novelty records, the song includes creepy references to “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth,” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (which was first made popular by Johnny’s old partner, Gene Autry), and giving Santa a present of a box filled with teeth and noses. Here is the song, as performed by an animated plush bear:

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Johnny_Bond_-_I_Wanna_Do_Something_For_Santa_Claus.mp3