A Million Dollars Worth of Christmas Doo-Wop, various artists (Live Gold)

They mean it literally; these doo-wop Christmas songs collected for this 1997 album are all collector's items of some value. The book Merry Christmas Baby lists some of these tunes among the rarest Christmas songs on the market. Many of these tunes were mastered to CD directly from the cleanest vinyl copies the producers could find because in most cases, the original tapes simply don't exist. Some of these turn up on other compilations, like "Christmas in Jail" by the Youngsters and "Rockin' and Rollin' With Santa Claus" by the Hepsters, but a lot of these probably are making their CD debut here. Songs here range from The Robins' 1951 "Have a Merry Xmas" to "The Christmas Spirit" by The Motivations from 1970. The producers give the listener value for money too; there are 27 songs on this CD. I'm partial to "Santa Claus Baby" by The Voices, "Mambo Santa Mambo" by The Enchanters and "All I Want For Christmas Is You" by The C. Quents, but you may have some other favorites. There are two New Year's tunes, "I'll Stay Home New Year's Eve" by The Creators and "New Year's Eve" by The Cameos.