Various Artists - 1973 - A Motown Christmas

Various Artists

1973

A Motown Christmas

01. The Jackson 5– Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

02. Stevie Wonder– What Christmas Means To Me

03. The Temptations– Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer

04. Diana Ross & The Supremes– My Favorite Things

05. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles– Deck The Halls/ Bring A Torch, Jeannette, Isabella

06. The Jackson 5– I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

07. Stevie Wonder– Ave Maria

08. The Temptations– Silent Night

09. Michael Jackson– Little Christmas Tree

10. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles– God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

11. The Jackson 5– The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You)

12. Diana Ross & The Supremes– Joy To The World

13. The Temptations– The Little Drummer Boy

14. Diana Ross & The Supremes– Silver Bells

15. Stevie Wonder– Someday At Christmas

16. The Jackson 5– Frosty The Snowman

17. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles– Jingle Bells

18. The Temptations– My Christmas Tree

19. Diana Ross & The Supremes– White Christmas

20. Stevie Wonder– One Little Christmas Tree

21. The Jackson 5– Give Love On Christmas Day

22. Smokey Robinson & The Miracles– It's Christmas Time

23. Diana Ross & The Supremes– Children's Christmas Song

24. The Jackson 5– Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

CD reissue has additional track by Marvin Gaye ("I Want To Come Home For Christmas").

Every holiday season, I marvel that every record collector - hell, every person - on the face of the planet doesn't own A MOTOWN CHRISTMAS. A remastered, expanded (25 tracks!), budget-priced version of a 1973 two-LP set, this CD contains highlights from a variety of Christmas albums and singles released by the Detroit-based rhythm & blues label during their "Golden Decade" from 1962 to 1971

A Motown Christmas is simply magnificent, but it tends to gather dust in record store bins. Perhaps this is because oldies radio stations play the same handful of Motown songs over and over and over, obscuring the fact that the label was an incredibly inventive and prolific hit factory for more than a decade. Containing nearly all the best Christmas tracks from Motown's vaults, A Motown Christmas qualifies as a consumer's delight, and it is far superior to the rest of Motown's many other various artist Christmas packages, which tend to be brief and random in their selection (more below). I recommend it without reservation.

The important thing to remember about Motown's Christmas songs is that they were more Motown than Christmas, translating the big beat and pop savvy of Hitsville USA into yuletide cheer. To name just a few of the highlights: the Temptations' lush "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer;" the Jackson Five's frenetic "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town;" and Stevie Wonder's earnest "Someday At Christmas." In addition, two tracks are otherwise hard-to-find: Michael Jackson's "Little Christmas Tree" (recorded specifically for the original 1973 LP), and Marvin Gaye's gently pacifist "I Want To Come Home For Christmas" (recorded but not released in 1972, then added to the CD reissue). Even at their most maudlin - the Supremes tracks, for instance - these songs are hipper than almost anything else released for the holidays throughout the 60's and early 70's.

As mentioned, A Motown Christmas culls tracks from a variety of sources. These include six full-length albums, all of which yield their own rewards. Foremost among them is the Temptations' mighty Christmas Card (1970) and the Jackson 5's wonderful Christmas Album (1970). Smokey Robinson and the Miracles contributed two solid albums, Christmas With The Miracles (1963) and A Season For Miracles (1970), followed by lesser efforts from the Supremes (Merry Christmas, 1965) and Stevie Wonder (Someday At Christmas, 1967). Even further, Motown released a handful of non-LP Christmas singles and a 1968 compilation entitled Merry Christmas From Motown. Collectors should note that the latter album was repackaged (literally - the record label remained unchanged) in 1970 as Christmas Gift 'Rap, and then it was reissued on CD in 1993 in a rather bowdlerized version.

And, that's a bunch of Christmas records, despite the fact that such Motown stalwarts as Gladys Knight, the Four Tops, and Marvin Gaye never released formal Christmas albums - not, at least, during Motown's fabled Golden Decade, if at all. Which is to say, a lot of great music remains beyond A Motown Christmas - some of it never even officially released.

Thankfully, the label eventually unleashed a motherlode of such rare treasures, both as bonus tracks on individual CD reissues and on subsequent compilations. The first - and still the greatest - such anthology was CHRISTMAS IN THE CITY (1993). Consisting exclusively of elusive Detroit pearls, it's a collector's delight. Among the highlights: the Motown house band (aka the Funk Brothers), romping through "Winter Wonderland;" Kim Weston's chimerical "Wish You A Merry Christmas;" an unreleased Supremes track better than anything on their Merry Christmas album; and no fewer than four Marvin Gaye cuts, including his lovely "Purple Snowflakes."

In 2001, the astute marketing department at Motown took the best cuts from Christmas In The City, added a few more rarities, and tossed in some leftovers from their catalog. They released this hodgepodge as A MOTOWN CHRISTMAS VOL. 2. The inclusion of such heretofore unreleased cuts as the Funk Brothers' "Xmas Twist" (credited to the Twistin' Kings) and the Supremes' "O Holy Night" (featuring a rare Florence Ballard lead vocal) make Motown Christmas Vol. 2 more attractive (not less) to major Motown fans (like me). But, the overall quality cannot compare to the original collection - especially to casual fans. And, at a mere 14 tracks (compared to 25 on the first volume), Motown Christmas Vol. 2 smacks of exploitation. If, like the first volume, Motown Christmas Vol. 2 had been stretched to 25 tracks, consumers could have purchased nearly the complete Motown Christmas catalog in two easy steps.

Instead, Motown Christmas Vol. 2 functions as an imperfect - though perfectly enjoyable - sequel to the 1973 masterpiece. Still, the two discs combined contain about two-thirds of the Motown Christmas songs I consider "essential," and I purchased well over ten CD's to collect them all. Most people have better sense....

But what of all those other Motown Christmas albums - the dozens upon dozens of choices you'll encounter when flipping through the CD racks or browsing sites like Amazon? Motown, you see, has become a master of catalog exploitation, shoddily packaging brief bits of their rich legacy for impulse purchase nearly everywhere - from record stores to truck stops. Take, for instance, the widely distributed, 12-song 20th Century Masters: The Best Of Motown Christmas (2003) (and its 2005 sequel). Those are twelve great songs, but they'll cost you about the same as the 25 great songs on the original Motown Christmas. So, buyer beware.

Still, Motown's Christmas legacy is almost as deep as it is broad. All those myriad collections are mined from the same rich vein, and at least one, A MOTOWN CHRISTMAS CAROL (1995), rises nearly to the level of the original Motown Christmas. Consisting of 19 songs (mainly traditional Christmas carols) interspersed with spoken greetings from Hitsville's brightest stars, A Motown Christmas Carol proves what the label can do when they, well, try. Here, they even threw in a previously unreleased Supremes track (later added as a bonus track to the girls' Merry Christmas) to induce holiday rapture in Diana Ross' legions of fans.

All the same, it's no substitute for A Motown Christmas. Besides, at the risk of repeating myself, each individual piece of the Motown Christmas catalog has wonderful moments not included on Motown Christmas or similar albums. For instance, the Miracles' "Christmas Everyday" (1963) - one of the best original Motown Christmas songs - is available only on discs such as the group's highly recommended Our Very Best Christmas (1999). Translated, that means I bought them all. A Motown Christmas will suffice for almost everyone else....

I wrote this article - the first draft of it, anyway - around the turn of the 21st century. Thereafter, Motown, as had long been their habit, continued to exploit their catalog, and it's worth noting that I am just skimming the cream off the top. There are dozens - perhaps hundreds - of Motown Christmas albums on the market, especially in Europe where "Tamla" is practically a holy sacrament. Still, along the way, the label pulled some impressive tricks out of their bag. In 2009, Motown released The Ultimate Motown Christmas Collection, a 2-CD, 51-track compilation that pulls tracks from virtually every album described herein. It's great, though less so than it first appears. For starters, 16 of those tracks are brief "season's greetings" from the label's roster - charming but inconsequential. Mainly, however, there's just no matching the distilled brilliance of the original Motown Christmas. Unless....

If you're not a "collector" in the pure, obsessive sense of the word, then you'll appreciate Classic Motown Christmas (2014), an eleven "disc" digital download featuring just about every holiday track the label has ever released - including the complete original Motown Christmas. You can't hold it in your hands, but Classic Motown Christmas will provide literally hours of listening pleasure. (Sadly, the label later deleted the download, though the package remained available for streaming.)

Of course, Motown didn't cease to exist after their "Golden Decade." The Temptations recorded another holiday record, Give Love At Christmas (1980), and the Four Tops finally waxed theirs - Christmas Here With You - in 1995. Gladys Knight and the Pips recorded nary a noel note for Motown, but they ultimately recorded two Christmas albums after they left the label for greener pastures (read more).

But, more to the point, Motown continued to sign and record young artists during the decades that followed. In 1989, the label put together MOTOWN CHRISTMAS ALBUM: CHRISTMAS CHEERS FROM MOTOWN, a brand new collection mingling stars from their current roster (The Boys, Johnny Gill) with stars from their glorious past (Temptations, Smokey Robinson). More than 30 years later, a completely fresh batch of artists recorded an EP called A MOTOWN HOLIDAY (2020), and the following year the label expanded it into an album, CHRISTMAS WITH MOTOWN, drawing on catalog recordings going as far back as the 1960's.

Anyway, Christmas Cheers From Motown and A Motown Holiday have their moments, and I certainly won't stand in the way of progress. But, they serve mainly to remind us of what once was, and what would never again be - that Motown once was a sound, and not merely a record label.

This is such a fun and joyeous album. Virtually every song is terrific with my personal favorites being Miss Diana Ross and The Supremes’ version of “My Favorite Things,” Stevie Wonder’s “What Christmas Means to Me” which was unfortunately used in an Old Navy commercial a few years ago, and all the Smokey Robinson songs. Of course, it’s alway fun to hear young Michael Jackson alongside his brothers and remember how he was before he turned into the King of Weird. However, I think Miss Diana Ross’ “Children’s Christmas Song” to be the weakest song, but it’s followed up by a pretty decent “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by the Jackson 5 featuring Jermaine on lead which ends by going into an early 70’s style version of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas!” with the Jackson brothers wishing “everybody a Merry Christmas and a GROOVY New Year!”