A Look at Elvis' Christmas Albums

You’ve probably been listening to Elvis Christmas songs for the past three weeks or so.   Do you know how many he recorded?  The answer is twenty.  Eight were for Elvis’ Christmas Album back in 1957 and are shown below.  The other four songs on the LP were gospel standards recorded at the same session on September 5-7 in Hollywood.

              
                        

Nine years later, Elvis recorded a single titled, “If Every Day was Like Christmas.”  It was written by his friend and bodyguard Red West and was recorded on June 10, 1966 in Nashville.

 
1966 45 RPM Single

 

Elvis recorded his second Christmas album on May 15-16, 1971 in Nashville.  ELVIS sings The Wonderful World of Christmas contained the eleven holiday songs listed below. 

         
               

Did you know that nine of Elvis’ Christmas recordings had never been released by any other artist previously?  The songs that were written just for him include the 1966 single and two from Elvis’ Christmas Album: “Santa Claus is Back in Town” and “Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me.”   The Elvis original Christmas songs on his second album were all but the first two and last two and “Winter Wonderland” on the list above.

When CDs became the dominant format for recorded music in the 70s, RCA started a steady string of repackaging of Elvis’ Christmas songs.  The following is probably not the complete catalog, but it’s got most of them.

 

           

1982                                  1990                                    1992

 

               

1992                                  1994                                       1997

 

             

2000                                   2000                                    2001

 

                 

2003                                   2006                                    2007

 

         

2007                                            2008

So, hopefully you own one or more of these Elvis Christmas albums and have played them a lot this season.

Have a Merry Christmas everybody.

      Phil Arnold
      Original Elvis Blogmeister,
      ElvisBlog

©  2009    Philip R Arnold    All Rights Reserved    www.ElvisBlog.net

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