Christmas Present (album)

Christmas Present
Studio album by Andy Williams
Released October 11, 1974[1]
Recorded August 7-13, 1974
Genre Vocal pop
Christmas
Traditional pop[2]
Length 36:31
Label Columbia
Producer Dick Glasser
Larry Brown[3]
Andy Williams chronology
The Way We Were
(1974)		 Christmas Present
(1974)		 You Lay So Easy on My Mind
(1974)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[2]
BillboardRecommended[1]

Christmas Present is a Christmas album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released in late 1974 by Columbia Records. A brief blurb in Billboard magazine's Inside Track column in that year's November 23 issue revealed the album's television tie-in: "'Christmas Present' is title [sic] of Andy Williams' 11th Yule show, airing on NBC-TV Dec. 11".[4] An article entitled "MOR Artists Are Ailing" in that same 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."[5] That meant that Williams, who had previously hosted his own television program that bore his name, used his efforts to promote the album through his television special, as with other promotions in his years with Columbia.

Williams's two previous solo Christmas LPs (The Andy Williams Christmas Album and Merry Christmas) reached number one on Billboard magazine's Christmas Albums chart, but in 1974 the magazine reverted to incorporating holiday releases into its Top LP's and Tapes (now Billboard 200) rankings as well as its Bubbling Under the Top LP's chart, which, according to Joel Whitburn, "listed albums that were on the rise in sales that did not quite achieve the sales necessary to make Billboard's main 200-position pop albums chart."[6] As a result, Christmas Present "bubbled under" the Top LP's & Tapes chart for two weeks that began in the issue dated December 21, 1974, and took the album to a peak position at number 203.[7] It was reissued on CD in 1990.[2]

Track listing

  1. "Christmas Present" (Larry H. Brown,[8] Keats Tyler) – 2:30
  2. "Joy To The World" (Lowell Mason, Isaac Watts) – 2:52
  3. "O Little Town of Bethlehem" (Phillip Brooks, Lewis H. Redner) – 2:32
  4. "Christmas Bells" (Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych, Peter Wilhousky) – 1:52
  5. "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" (Edmund Hamilton Sears, Richard Storrs Willis) – 3:12
  6. "Ave Maria" (Franz Schubert) – 4:34
  7. "O Come All Ye Faithful" (Frederick Oakeley, John Francis Wade) – 2:35
  8. "Angels We Have Heard On High" (traditional) – 2:32
  9. "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" (Felix Mendelssohn, Charles Wesley) – 2:39
  10. "Ave Maria" (Johann Sebastian Bach, Charles Gounod) – 3:05
  11. "What Child Is This" (William Chatterton Dix) – 2:31
  12. "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" (John Baptiste Calkin, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) – 2:47
  13. "The Lord's Prayer" (Albert Hay Malotte) – 2:40

Personnel[3]

Title track

Recorded at Columbia Records Studios, New York.

All other tracks

Recorded at The Music Centre, London, England.

Notes

  1. 1 2 "Billboard's Top Album Picks". Billboard. 1974-10-26. p. 66.
  2. 1 2 3 "Christmas Present - Andy Williams". allmusic.com. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 23 September 2011.
  3. 1 2 (1974) Christmas Present by Andy Williams [album jacket]. New York: Columbia Records C 33191.
  4. ↑ "Inside Track". Billboard. 1974-11-23. p. 86.
  5. ↑ "MOR Artists Are Ailing". Billboard. 1974-11-23. p. 86.
  6. ↑ Whitburn 2004, pp. 106–107.
  7. ↑ Whitburn 2010, p. 844.
  8. ↑ BMI | Repertoire Search for song title "Christmas Present"

References

  • Whitburn, Joel (2004), Christmas in the Charts (1920-2004), Record Research Inc., ISBN 0-89820-161-6 
  • Whitburn, Joel (2010), Joel Whitburn Presents Top Pop Albums, Seventh Edition, Record Research Inc., ISBN 0-89820-183-7 
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