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Plays Santa Claus: Christmas Music for Those Who've | 
 enlarge | Artist: Ira Ironstrings
Label: Collector's Choice
Category: Music
List Price: $13.98
Buy New: $10.51
You Save: $3.47 (25%)
New (9) Used (3) from $8.95
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 114243
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 617742040821
EAN: 0617742040821
ASIN: B0000DG014
Release Date: November 11, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new Item. CD, DVD, Book, VHS more than 400 000 titles to choose from. ALL days Low Price !
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| Tracks:
| • | Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! | | • | Jingle Bells Stomp | | • | Skater's Nightmare | | • | I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus | | • | Christmas Is For The Birds | | • | My Two Front Teeth | | • | Deck Them Halls | | • | Over The River And Through The Woods | | • | Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer | | • | Frosty The Snow Man | | • | Sleigh Ride | | • | Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Album Description
Now, 'here's' a holiday album that just might ring a (sleigh) bell! Ira Ironstrings was Fritz Guckenheimer's fictional Dixieland cousin, whose real identity, it can now be revealed, was big band guitarist Alvino Rey of "talking" steel guitar fame! Ira a.k.a. Alvino made a bunch of wacky albums for Warner Brothers right when the label started back in the '50s, but this one is without a doubt the most beloved of the bunch if you're to believe the various collector's chat rooms on the internet. Original artwork, crystal-clear mastering and notes by one of the legions of kids who grew up listening to Ira and his band round out the kind of Christmas release you'd only find on our 'Collectors' Choice Music' label! Includes 'Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!; Jingle Bells Stomp; Skater's Nightmare; I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus; Christmas Is for the Birds; My Two Front Teeth; Deck Them Halls; Over the River and Through the Woods; Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; ! Frosty the Snow Man; Sleigh Ride, and Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town'.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
Great (lost) Album December 24, 2008
Tomasco (Fort Worth, TX)
I obtained an original copy of this album around Christmas 1959. I was working for a furniture store when the new "HiFi" players came in and this album was brought in as a demo by a salesman. I loved the sound and after Christmas my boss gave me the LP. Sometime later I made the mistake of loaning it and it was never returned... I've been looking for a copy ever since. Now the search is over!
oh the memories... March 1, 2008
D. Brown (Hudson Falls, NY)
My dad listened to this when I was a kid so I was very happy to see it released on CD.
You can not listen to this and not tap your toes- The best Christmas music ever.
Ira Ironstrings Play Santa claus January 1, 2008
James M. Lackey (Charlotte, North Carolina)
I owned the original vinyl in 1961 when the album was a Christmas "give away" from the Firestone Company. The album has long since be gone but I had made a cassette tape copy and was thrilled to find that this music (is) still available on c.d. format. some of the very happiest Christmas music ever !!
Best All Time Christmas December 21, 2007
Melissa Dickens (Alpharetta, GA and various points beyond)
Dixieland type arrangements of old chestnuts. Upbeat, jazzy, but true to the original melodies. No off key "jazz" like you hear so often now. These selections are guaranteed to bring a smile to your face, and tapping to your toes!
At Last...But.... December 15, 2006
G. Schneider (VA United States)
Cheers and Jeers here. First the cheers: I've had this album on LP for many years, and like so many other customers, I've considered it my favorite holiday album. And like others, I was thrilled to see it on CD. (I'll admit: I found it at Barnes & Noble before I spotted it here at Amazon.) I figured out a long time ago that Ira Ironstrings was really Alvino Rey. (A banjo-player friend of mine said he could tell from listening to the playing that it was a guitarist playing banjo, not a banjoist. I'm a pianist, so I wouldn't know!) I never knew who the sidemen were, but for me, the big surprise when I first heard the album was the unbilled appearance of producer/arranger Lou Busch in the guise of Joe "Fingers" Carr on "Frosty the Snow Man." There's one album that Carr and Ironstrings did together (TOGETHER FOR THE LAST TIME, vol. 1) and this was a nice encore. Warner Brothers is notoriously stingy with its now-uncommercial early recordings, generally refusing to grant licencing to other labels. Let's hope that this is the first of many reissues. Joe "Fingers" Carr and Matty Matlock did some superb recordings for that label in the late 50s-early 60s that cry out to be reissued. Fun music from an age when labels weren't averse to experimenting and releasing things that weren't necessarily geared to selling a million copies in the first 10 minutes.
Okay, now the Jeers: Here was a golden opportunity to set the record straight about who Ira and his musicians were and who did the arranging and what was the background story, etc. And what do we get in the new liner notes? 80% of the notes tell us of the wonderful idyllic childhood of Dave Kapp, who wrote these useless words. He does reveal that "Ira" was Alvino Rey, and he says the arrangements for the Ira albums were by someone named Warren Barker. But there is no mention whatsoever of Lou Busch, who produced the albums, not even in connection with his composition "Christmas Is for the Birds," which is singled out as a typically whimsical piece of music. Nothing about sidemen at all. Surely he could have done some research. Warren Barker may have written some Ira arrangements, but "Christmas Is for the Birds" and "Frosty the Snow Man" are very much Lou Busch arrangements, using many of the same sidemen he used on his Joe "Fingers" Carr recordings, both at Capitol and Warner Brothers. Let's hope if there are future reissues of these gems someone else is hired to write the notes!
If you're not really into the historical part of it and just want to enjoy a really fun album, stick with the Cheers section of this review and enjoy a wonderful album. I'm still grateful to Collectors' Choice.
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