The Dean Martin Christmas Album

The Dean Martin Christmas Album
Studio album by Dean Martin
Released October 1966[1]
Recorded 1966
Genre Christmas music
Label Reprise - R/RS 6222
Producer Jimmy Bowen
Dean Martin chronology

The Hit Sound of Dean Martin
(1966)		 The Dean Martin Christmas Album
(1966)		 The Dean Martin TV Show
(1966)

The Dean Martin Christmas Album is a 1966 studio album by Dean Martin arranged by Ernie Freeman and Bill Justis.[2]

This was Martin's only album of Christmas music released on Reprise Records (his only other Christmas album, A Winter Romance, having been released in 1959 on Capitol Records). It was reissued on CD by Hip-O Records in 2008, retitled A Very Cool Christmas.[2]

Ricci James Martin, Martin's son, wrote in a biography of his father that The Dean Martin Christmas Album was the only one of his father's albums that was played in the Martin household, his parents seldom listening to Dean Martin's music.[3]

This was the fourth of five albums Martin released in 1966.[1] Billboard magazine reported in its December 3, 1966 issue that The Dean Martin Christmas Album was on top of its "Best Bets for Christmas" chart.[4]

The release of The Dean Martin Christmas Album in October and The Dean Martin TV Show in November 1966 were accompanied by what Billboard magazine described as a "merchandising avalanche"[5] by Reprise Records and their parent company Warner Music.[5] Billboard described Martin as running the "hottest streak of his career", and said that Reprise planned to sell $4 million of his records over the Christmas sales period.[5] Billboard later reported that Martin had sold 850,000 albums in December 1966.[6]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [2]

Reviewing A Very Cool Christmas, the 2008 reissue of the Dean Martin Christmas Album on Allmusic.com, William Ruhlmann gave the album three and a half stars out of five. Ruhlmann commented that Martin was in a "typically easygoing, good-natured mood on these tracks...He sings the seasonal material with the same nonchalance he gave to pop music of the period".[2]

Track listing

  1. "White Christmas" (Irving Berlin)
  2. "Jingle Bells" (James Pierpont)
  3. "I'll Be Home for Christmas" (Kim Cannon, Walter Kent, Buck Ram)
  4. "Blue Christmas" (Billy Hayes, Jay W. Johnson)
  5. "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" (Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne)
  6. "Marshmallow World" (Peter DeRose, Carl Sigman)
  7. "Silver Bells" (Ray Evans, Jay Livingston)
  8. "Winter Wonderland" (Felix Bernard, Richard B. Smith)
  9. "The Things We Did Last Summer" (Cahn, Styne)
  10. "Silent Night" (Franz Gruber, Josef Mohr)

Personnel

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Nick Tosches (13 April 1999). Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams. Random House Publishing Group. p. 539. ISBN 978-0-385-33429-7. Retrieved 16 February 2013.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 A Very Cool Christmas at AllMusic
  3. ↑ Ricci Martin; Christopher Smith (1 October 2004). That's Amore: A Son Remembers Dean Martin. Taylor Trade Publications. pp. 131–. ISBN 978-1-58979-140-4. Retrieved 3 March 2013.
  4. ↑ Nielsen Business Media, Inc. (3 December 1966). Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. pp. 56–. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved 17 February 2013.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Nielsen Business Media, Inc. (5 November 1966). Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. pp. 10–. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved 16 February 2013.
  6. ↑ Nielsen Business Media, Inc. (4 February 1967). Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. pp. 3–. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved 3 March 2013.