"I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day," Wizzard (EMI)

Electric Light Orchestra was formed out of the ruins of The Move by Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood, but after the first ELO album Wood decided the group was being motivated more by Lynne's orchestral Beatleisms than Wood's vision of Phil Spector meets the Count Basie Orchestra, and he left ELO to form Wizzard, initially storming the British charts with a string of brilliant singles that couldn't get a foothold in the U.S. This 1973 winner was one of those singles, a Spector cop from its wall of sound to its jingle bells, with a kids' chorus thrown in for good measure. Classic moment: just before the kids start singing, Wood yells, "OK you lot, let's hear it!" Wood revisited the genre with "Rock and Roll Winter" a few years later, with less chart success. And in 1991 he recorded "Sing Out the Old, Ring In the New," which looked to clone the success of "I Wish," right down to kids singing the chorus near the end. Then he hooked up with The Wombles for the mashup "Wombling Christmas Every Day"....