The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) While White Christmas is the biggest selling Christmas song of all-time, it is not the most performed. ASCAPs number 1 and number 2 songs of the last century have the advantage of number of different artists who have recorded them combined with their being a favorite on holiday radio. At number 2 is The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire), most commonly heard in recordings by Nat King Cole but also recorded by hundreds of others. The song was written by Bob Wells and Mel Torme in 1945. Wells and Torme collaborated between 1945 and 1949 on many songs including Country Fair from the movie So Dear To My Heart for which they received an Academy Award nomination. Post-1949, Wells went on to write with the likes of Duke Ellington, Cy Coleman and Henry Mancini and later moved into television production with The Dinah Shore Chevy Show and the 1970s Shirley McLaine special If They Could See Me Now. Torme, of course, carved out a career as a singer with hits such as Careless Hands, Again and Bewitched. He also was a writer and acted in almost two dozen films. As with other Christmas hits, The Christmas Song was written during a blistering summer with the songwriters trying to stay cool by thinking cool. Torme said of the creation of the song I saw a spiral pad on his (Wells) piano with four lines written in pencil. They started, Chestnuts roasting..., Jack Frost nipping..., Yuletide carols..., Folks dressed up like Eskimos. Bob didnt think he was writing a song lyric. He said he thought if he could immerse himself in winter he could cool off. Forty minutes later that song was written. I wrote all the music and some of the lyrics. The Nat King Cole Trio was the first to record the song in early 1946 with just his small group. Cole wasnt happy with the arrangement on that original recording and, even though the record company didnt think it was necessary, he went back in the studio to rerecord the song with a string section. It was that version that became a massive hit for the 1946 Christmas season and a number of years thereafter. During the summer of 1953, Cole went back into the studio to record a third version of the song with a full orchestra conducted by Nelson Riddle. He recorded it a fourth and final time in March 1961 for a stereo recording which is the most played today. Other versions over the years included those by Dick Haymes, Eddy Howard and Torme himself who recorded the song in 1954, 1961, 1970, 1990 and 1992. Christina Aguilera put a dance remix on the charts in 2000 while Justin Bieber and Usher and a minor hit of the song in 2011. https://youtube/watch?v=jcttnJQBzQ0
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 13:04:55 +0000
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