Album Review: Frank Sinatra – Christmas on the Air

Frank Sinatra released A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra in 1957, and the LP reached No. 23 on the Billboard 200 chart. But Christmas albums predate the 12” LP format, and Sinatra had ventured into holiday-themed recordings and performance much earlier as well. His third “album” – at that point a booklet containing four 78rpm shellac discs – was released in 1948 as Christmas Songs by Sinatra. That set itself was a collection of earlier singles, with “White Christmas” dating back to 1944.

But even earlier, Ol’ Blue Eyes was singing holiday tunes. A new collection from Sing – the label that recently released the Long Ago, Far Away boxed set and the single-disc distillation of that box, At the Hollywood Bowl 1943-1948 –collects rarely-heard radio broadcasts featuring Sinatra singing Christmas songs and expressing (scripted) holiday greetings.

Christmas on the Air features 22 tracks, all dating from 1943 to the early ‘50s. The recordings are drawn from CBS station identification spots, and radio shows featuring the vocal icon (The Frank Sinatra Show from various years, Light Up Time, Your Hit Parade, Songs by Sinatra, etc.). There are even spots from U.S. Treasury Department broadcasts and an extended commercial for Lucky Strike cigarettes. The audio quality (and/or the results of Sing’s restoration efforts) make it an enjoyable listening experience.

And the songs, while familiar, are presented in warmly arranged style; when Sinatra quips aboot the forecast calling for “light snow and lighter music,” he’s right on target. He’s very much in gentle crooner mode on chestnuts like “White Christmas,” and even when taking on the playful (well, it was considered playful back then) “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” he still swings sweetly, without a hint of lascivious intent.

Some of the tracks are live, like “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” from 1951. For that one, he swings a bit, in the style that would bring him his biggest fame. Sometimes the holiday theme is stretched a bit, as on his duet with Toni Harper, “Button Up Your Overcoat,” but it’s fun enough to more than justify its inclusion.

The reverent “Ave Maria” finds Sinatra singing in Latin, with syrupy yet somehow plucky strings behind him; you can almost feel the fake snow as the choir trills along. “The Lord’s Prayer” is suitably reverent, too, with Sinatra leaning into the passion of the prayer’s words. To balance all that, there’s a deeply goofy “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.” It may well be the only recording of him tackling the novelty tune (but then, how many versions would we actually need?).

The spoken-word bits might render Christmas on the Air less than perfect for holiday background music, but there aren’t so many as to intrude too much. And as a time capsule of a much more innocent time – even with the warm messages to “Joe” who’s overseas fighting fascism because Americans used to be opposed to fascism  – they’re definitely worth hearing.

The inescapable fact about holiday albums is that almost nobody spins them any time outside the season (save for reviewers writing on deadline in, say, early November). And Christmas on the Air isn’t likely to change that paradigm. But when the season rolls around, this new set of Sinatra definitely deserves to go into rotation.

Note: the vinyl configuration of this set features 15 tracks; the CD has 22.