Your Favorite Non-BBs Christmas Album

[JK]

Not a Christmas album and don’t know if it was ever recorded on a record, but I just heard online The Monkees singing Riu Chiu.
A cappella. Excellent blend.
The folk group I was in sang this song, same arrangement, every Christmas season. I believe it was popular in folk music circles back in the 60s.

Thanks for the heads up, Lizzie. According to Wikipedia:

"In 1967, the Monkees performed the song live on a Christmas episode of their TV series entitled 'The Monkees' Christmas Show'. A studio version was released on subsequent compilation albums (and later on the 2018 album Christmas Party.) It is likely the Monkees learned the song from their producer, Chip Douglas, who himself had performed it with his former band, the Modern Folk Quartet, on their 1964 album Changes."

This must be the studio version. Sounds great to me! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_NQytR1zKk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%ADu_R%C3%ADu_Ch%C3%ADu

[pixletwin]

No, just love a variety of orchestral versions of the nutcracker

Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky ballet is my go-to... but I have had to watch it 7 times in the last three weeks for my teaching job and I am definitely Nutcrackered out. 

[JK]

No, just love a variety of orchestral versions of the nutcracker

Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky ballet is my go-to... but I have had to watch it 7 times in the last three weeks for my teaching job and I am definitely Nutcrackered out. 

Really? My wife and I are huge Gergiev fans and have attended dozens of his concerts, including a goodly few with the Mariinsky Orchestra. While in St Petersburg last year we attended a performance at the Mariinsky Theatre of Prokofiev's opera Betrothal in a Monastery but Gergiev didn't conduct it. It was a fantastic experience all the same.   

[guitarfool2002]

Not a Christmas album and don’t know if it was ever recorded on a record, but I just heard online The Monkees singing Riu Chiu.
A cappella. Excellent blend.
The folk group I was in sang this song, same arrangement, every Christmas season. I believe it was popular in folk music circles back in the 60s.

Thanks for the heads up, Lizzie. According to Wikipedia:

"In 1967, the Monkees performed the song live on a Christmas episode of their TV series entitled 'The Monkees' Christmas Show'. A studio version was released on subsequent compilation albums (and later on the 2018 album Christmas Party.) It is likely the Monkees learned the song from their producer, Chip Douglas, who himself had performed it with his former band, the Modern Folk Quartet, on their 1964 album Changes."

This must be the studio version. Sounds great to me! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_NQytR1zKk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%ADu_R%C3%ADu_Ch%C3%ADu

Forget Wikipedia, click on this link to read probably all you would need to know about Riu Chiu and how the Monkees came to perform it on their TV show. This is part of an old blog I had with H called "Classic Studio Sessions", and Riu Chiu was one that had an entry along with a handful of other Christmas tunes I explored (with audio samples too). Entry #8 in my "Twelve Songs Of Christmas" series which I never finished.

Check it out: http://classicstudiosessions.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-twelve-songs-of-christmas-series-8.html