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Originally released in 1984 as two separate albums, they were later blended into a single CD called The Best of Cool Yule, but it apparently is no longer in print, though some Amazon merchants claim to have it. Some of the tunes appeared on other Rhino Christmas discs, but overall these are good compilations. The 50s includes Bobby Helms' "Jingle Bell Rock"; Buchanan and Goodman's "Santa and the Satellite" fake-interview recording; The Penguins' "Jingle Jangle"; and Oscar McLollie's "Dig That Crazy Santa Claus." The 60s bring us Bobby "Boris" Pickett's "Monster Mash" sequel, "Monster's Holiday"; Paul Revere and the Raiders with the dated "Wear a Smile at Christmas"; and other 60s semi-legends like the Trashmen, Wailers and Sonics weigh in as well. A dated item that's still a hoot is the Turtles' "Santa and the Sidewalk Surfer." And James Brown's "Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year" is here, too.

This 2000 compilation is the real deal, original 50s rockabilly Christmas singles, not a single re-creation in the bunch. The liner notes aren't real comprehensive, but they do list the original label and serial number of every one of the 30 songs, along with photographs of some of the actual labels. In some cases, both sides of the same single appear here, like Johnny Preston's "(I Want a) Rock 'n Roll Guitar," which takes off from "Night Before Christmas," and "New Baby For Christmas." If you don't know much about original rockabilly, you'll hear the many influences of rockabilly, some more country, some swing, others more rock, still others pop and novelty records. Not to mention a few borrowed licks from some non-Christmas tunes of the period and a few imitations of more famous artists. The period recording quality and tape hiss on some of these might put off the young'uns, but there are lots of great candidates for a Christmas mix on here. An interesting artifact is the Outlaws' version of "Run Rudolph Run" with a writing credit to Chuck Berry shown on a picture of the original label. "Rock Around the Christmas Tree" by Big Bud is not the familiar song, but it's just as good. The Cadillac fixation lives on with The Four Imperials' "Santa's Got a Coupe de Ville" and Little Joey Farr's "Big White Cadillac." Barry Richards' "Baby Sittin' Santa" and Marlene Paul's "I Wanna Spend Christmas With Elvis" are probably the best-known tunes here. Oldies fans will snarf this up, but everybody's likely to find something they like on this collection. UPDATE: Hey, I just noticed Amazon uses this very post to describe this disc to potential buyers! (I didn't post it there, but at least it's properly credited to this site.)

The rock 'n roll answer record to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," it's even co-written by the previous song's author, Johnny Marks, although most people assume Chuck Berry, who recorded it first, wrote it. Possibly they got that idea from early copies of the single that did credit him, and it sure doesn't sound dissimilar to his many other hits. UPDATE: Chuck's name on the original record was intended to obscure Marks' involvement, according to Wikipedia -- working on an R'nB/rock record was considered disreputable in those days. A classic rockin' Christmas record, it's been widely covered in the years since it was written, probably as much for its classic Berry arrangement as for its lyrics, which never seem to go out of style. Originally paired with "Merry Christmas Baby," the 1958 single is Chuck's total contribution to Christmas music and, as history shows, it was more than enough.

This was never released as a single, but is notable for the fact, as reported in the book Merry Christmas Baby by Dave Marsh and Steve Propes, that the composer, Irving Berlin, took it upon himself to call radio stations across the country and demand they not play The Pelvis' version of his treasured song. Few people paid any attention to him although, according to the liner notes of If Every Day Was Like Christmas, one Portland disc jockey was fired for playing it and the whole album was banned in Canada. As noted in the post about the Drifters' version from several years earlier, Elvis used their arrangement, but the original version appears to have escaped Berlin's notice for some reason appropriate to the era. Elvis did release "Blue Christmas" as a single in 1964, however, and "Merry Christmas Baby" in 1971.

The King never actually charted with a Christmas single, according to the book Rock On, but this LP no doubt did very well on the album charts on its release in 1957. It's been repackaged a number of times since and the track lineup has changed; my budget re-release copy has the standards "Silent Night," "White Christmas," "I'll Be Home For Christmas," "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem," "Here Comes Santa Claus," along with "Blue Christmas," the tough blues "Santa Claus Is Back In Town," the rocking "Santa Bring My Baby Back To Me," and "Mama Liked the Roses." Some of the repackages throw in gospel performances that have nothing to do with Christmas, like "Peace in the Valley." About 1970 or so, he released Elvis Sings the Wonderful World of Christmas, an album with a completely different track lineup, including "Merry Christmas Baby," "The First Noel," "Oh Come All Ye Faithful," "On a Snowy Christmas Night," "It Won't Seem Like Christmas (Without You)," "Silver Bells," and several more, a more serious and lugubrious performance than the original. Both albums remain available today, for download anyway, along with a CD compilation of all his original holiday performances, If Every Day Was Like Christmas, available in a gift box with a fold-out of a snow-covered Graceland. The near-frantic pace of reissues out of the Elvis universe in the past couple of years has resulted in a further number of repackagings of his Christmas repertoire, so a collector could make a mini-specialty of acquiring them all. Christmas Peace, a new 2-disc compilation for 2003, includes one disc of his traditional gospel tunes and one disc of Christmas tunes. UPDATE: Can't leave Elvis without mentioning 2008's Elvis Presley Christmas Duets, in which modern technology makes it possible for a bunch of latter-day female country singers to duet with Elvis. I'm not one to quibble about duetting with dead people; my objection to this collection is that only country singers are duet partners here. Elvis was the king of rock 'n roll; during his lifetime, he wasn't played much on country radio. It's only since his death that he's been considered sympatico with the country realm, to the point that he's being forgotten as a rock icon. Not to mention that some of the duet partners fall pretty short of stature for this exercise -- Carrie Underwood, really? That's about as appropriate as a John Lennon-Justin Bieber recording.

Although many songs mentioned on this site predate it, this 1957 song is probably the first one to cross rock 'n roll with Christmas in an overt way. Ironically, considering this site's reluctance to promote country music, Helms actually was a country singer with a number of Billboard chart hits before this song, and its wild holiday success at the time aligned him with rock 'n roll for all time in the public eye. This isn't as widely covered as a lot of contemporary holiday songs, but it's hardly neglected. Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checker did their own version in 1961, and the Hall and Oates cover was pretty big in its day; it was a 7-inch or 12-inch single between 1983 and 1985 and turns up on compilations from time to time. By the way, Helms' original B-side was "Captain Santa Claus (And His Reindeer Space Patrol)." Helms had several other hits in the 1956-7 time frame, and continued to record through the 1980s. His original "Jingle Bell Rock" even charted at no. 18 in the US adult contemporary charts upon re-release in 1996, a year before his death.