Ellen's Musical Picks for the Holidays

with an exceptional number of footnotes, even for me, including but not limited to a whole separate substack about the life and times of public radio in America, + some other stuff

P.S. (Added 12/24)
If you want a great Holiday Music Stream of taste and charm, I recommend:
WUMB Christmas Music

“We’ve combed through the WUMB music library and came up with a selection of folk and acoustic Christmas songs for you to enjoy. Many of your favorite artists are represented including Judy Collins, Shawn Colvin and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
You can listen whenever you want, 24 hours a day! The playlist rotates daily.”

FIRST

A long INTRODUCTION about why I need to play you some music right now

As some of you know, between acts as a writer of fantastic¹ literature, I had a 16-year career as a local radio host, writer & national presenter on WGBH-fm, one of bluestocking Boston’s two public radio stations. I was incredibly fortunate to enter public radio in 1987, when it was still quirky and independent, a mix of music and talk and odd local personalities, with national news from NPR² - though that was all going to change over the next 25 years.³

I started out in the usual starter spot, the Graveyard Shift, doing a classical music show called NightAir from midnight to 5:00 a.m., and worked my way up to my own national series, Sound & Spirit, a one-hour weekly show that played on up to 200 stations nationwide, and gave me the chance not only to travel to a lot of towns & stations for public appearances, but to create my own one-woman shows, which I could also tour and perform live.

That’s me standing, second from the right, between tuba player Jim Gutman & keyboards/music director Michael McLaughlin. Band leader/clarinetist Glen Dickson crouches center.

I love a live audience like a dog loves a bone. In fact, one of them, The Golden Dreydl: a Klezmer Nutcracker for Chanukah, which I created and performed with Boston’s Shirim Klezmer Orchestra, has had more lives than an empty jam jar: first it was a holiday radio special, then an album, then a book, then a kids’ play in NYC. You can hear the album on streaming services like Spotify, with my narration.

Sorry for the slight digression! But ‘tis the season. More about the book at the bottom of this increasingly long letter - but now,

BACK TO MUSIC

All of which is to say that I was definitely one of those people who used to obsessively make cassette mixtapes for friends & lovers. Getting to have my own freeform radio shows was a blessing (between overnight classical and Sound & Spirit, I also got to do weekend folk shows, world music . . . in fact, the only music I’ve never covered is jazz.)

But you know . . . I miss making thousands of people listen to whatever songs I happen to be playing.

You understand, right?

So if you don’t mind, I am now going to enthuse about a few⁴

Tunes for the Holidays

I can't believe I only just discovered the Best Hanukkah Pop Song ever, “from Brooklyn's finest purveyors of classic funk, soul and R&B,”

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings!

Take a listen. These are the best lyrics describing how modern American Jews⁵ engage with the 8-day holiday, from blessings to brisket.

A recent Comment on Youtube: "It really is a beautiful, joyous thing hearing an African-American singer, fronting a multiethnic band, performing a song celebrating Hanukkah. This is the way Americans are supposed to behave.”

It’s from the 2017 album HOLIDAY SOUL PARTY, whose NPR review oddly did not mention this song, but is pretty entertaining anyway:

"There should be Commandments-style prerequisites for recording an entire album of holiday songs, and chief among them is: "Thou shalt not simply pad the coffers of Saint Irving Berlin's estate, or build false idols based on the work of the mysterious songsmith, 'Traditional.' Instead, thou shalt write some original tunes." Equally important, "Remember 'Joy.'" Thankfully, It's A Holiday Soul Party, from Brooklyn's finest purveyors of classic funk, soul and R&B, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, fulfills these essential obligations . . .

Everything here hints at a "passion project": It's knowing like Grandma's sugar cookies and proficient like a dad placing the star atop a tree — or lighting the menorah. Thematically, Jones' "Ain't No Chimneys In The Projects" updates the Godfather's "Santa Claus Goes Straight To The Ghetto," but stylistically it's all Curtis and Philly (dig those strings) under a lyric about Mom's gift-giving wisdom. Homer's "Just Another Christmas Song" nods to everyone from Run-D.M.C. to James Lord Pierpont . . . there are carol versions and reinterpretations, too, including a wonderful sleigh-bell blues "Silent Night" and a "God Rest Ye Merry Gents" built on brassy ska-meets-Galt MacDermot vibes. . . ."

OMG - a friend just sent me a link to “the Cast of Hadestown” - in this case, the 3 women who play the Fates - singing the same song here! This in turn leads me to the previously unknown fact that there exists "If The Fates Allow: A Hadestown Holiday Album", released in December 2020 from lockdown.

What a perfect title, eh?

You already know [HAMILTON star, Jewish biracial] Daveed Diggs’ 2020 hit Puppy for Hanukkah, right?

I love it - AND it made me feel less alone about the fact that - even though my family DOES NOT EVEN DO 8 NIGHTS OF PRESENTS - we kids still got socks. Socks for Chanukah. Yep.

Got the Holiday Blues?

I understand.

So many people I know get sad this time of year for any number of reasons.

Don’t worry, I’ve got a song for you.

For my money you cannot possible do better for Christmas Cheer than going to the Bahamas for the great singer/guitarist Joseph Spence’s attempt to remember the words to “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” and finally deciding no one really cares, and just doing it his way.

It will make you laugh. It has been test-driven in the Kushner/Sherman household is how I know.⁶

There.

How was that for you?

Oh, go ahead, listen again. It only gets better.

My Chanukah Book

I am not kidding when I say I nearly forgot to put this in this newsletter. It makes a great holiday present for kids & families! I was trying to do a Narnia-style adventure with Jewish ethics and Jewish folkloric characters - only shorter, and not as good. Still, it has its moments.

THE GOLDEN DREIDEL on display at New York’s wonderful children’s bookstore, Books of Wonder

I just found out that Charlesbridge Press even did an ACTIVITY GUIDE for it! As my favorite character in the book, The Fool (loosely based on Danny Kaye) would say,

Who knew?

Finally

I’m still working on a very bright and very shiny new website, with the great Heather Vee of Media Oscura. We’re hoping to have even more of my original Sound & Spirit radio programs available there; but meanwhile, you can listen to some of my old favoraites here.⁷

And that’s a good place to stop.

Written this Sunday, December 22nd, 2024, the day after the Solstice Shortest Day. May we all walk into the light together.

Your pal,

Ellen

1. As in “the genre of the fantastic,” not WOW MY WRITING IS SO GREAT! IT’S FANTASTIC! which of course it does not behoove me to say. Also, some days I think I am a writer of OMG THIS SUCKS WHY DID I EVER THINK I COULD DO THIS?? and when you’re reading this, this may be one of them. I do my best to keep this Substack to the Eternal Verities when possible.

2. Everyone thinks that NPR is public radio. This is mainly because during the weekday news shows (Morning Edition & All Things Considered) which is what the majority of public radio listen to, you hear “This is NPR, National Public Radio” every few minutes, since that is who produces said news shows. There have been other producing companies - all my national series were under the aegis of American Public Radio in Mpls, who at the time were also producing A Prairie Home Companion, St Paul Sunday, and others. By the time I was hosting the Nakamichi International Music Series, they’d changed the name to PRI, Public Radio International; Ira Glass launched This American Life with them shortly after I launched my Sound & Spirit . . . Many more stories can be told, but that’s not why you’re here.

3. Contributing factors to the downfall of creative local public radio included the Reagan Administration’s dramatic cutting of funds to public broadcasting, which made us a lot more dependent on listener contributions, which sent our managers to the bean counters… and it was all downhill from there: I’ll never forget the first music conference where we were told that it was a mistake to play entire symphonies because listeners’ attention span could only endure one movement. The other factor was the Invasion of Iraq: suddenly, everyone in the U.S. wanted news updates ‘round the clock. Stations that offered them gained listeners, and never went back to their previous formats, increasingly privileging talk over music, since it drew more listeners.

4. With the understanding that these are by no means my only picks, my favorites, or anything like that; just some stuff I’m excited about that I thought you might enjoy this week.

5. Jews of MY generation, I gotta say: I mean, who still has an Uncle Sol? And those $5 checks from Great Grandma Selma are probably more like $50 from Early Boomer GG Linda or Deborah….

6. My partner’s father died on Christmas Eve, 1995. My job was to distract her, divert her, cheer her up….

7. They are not available as podcasts or downloading, because of music rights issues.