Advent Calendar – 11th December, 2020
Merry Christmas!
Danielle and Dave’s Advent Calendar
11th December, 2020
Blue Christmas
Elvis Presley
Blue Christmas was written by Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson and first recorded by Doye O’Dell in 1948, but it was Elvis’s version, released on his 1957 Christmas album which is the most well-known.
It was Elvis’s own favourite of the Christmas songs he sang and he revived it for the so-called Come-back Special in 1968, where he was dressed in black.
There’s also a version (you can see it on YouTube) where Martina McBride apparently sings a duet with Elvis but as she was not yet 2 years old back then, it’s obviously been cleverly edited.
Although this song is about lost or unrequited love, I thought about recording it when Danielle was away, as the words (until the lines just before the end, at least) seemed apt.
They still seem so as we won’t have my parents here this year.
I’ll have a blue Christmas without you
I’ll be so blue just thinking about you
Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree
Won’t be the same dear, if you’re not here with me
And when those blue snowflakes start falling
That’s when those blue memories start calling
You’ll be doing all right
With your Christmas of white
But I’ll have a blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas
As it’s basically a Country song I went for a kind of Duane Eddy style playing my new Gretsch Jet guitar.
There are 3 guitars on this recording. As well as the Gretsch, the accompaniment is played on my brother’s Gibson ES137, because it’s like a slightly smaller version of the Gibson Super 400 CES which Elvis plays in the 68 concert.
And the little harmonised fill at the end is played on my blue Epiphone 355 (because I had to use my blue guitar!)