While we're still on the subject of "The Stingiest Man in Town," one thing I had been wondering about was Johnny Desmond's 45 rpm single of "Old Fashioned Christmas" and "The Birthday Party of the King," the two songs he had sung in the 1956 live production.
The original cast album was on Columbia Records, the then-current home of Johnny's castmates Vic Damone and the Four Lads. But Johnny was under contract to Coral Records (a subsidiary of Decca) at that time. Obviously some deal was worked out between the companies for Johnny to appear on the album, but did they use the same recordings that were on the Columbia album for the Coral single?
Well, a bit of sleuthing shows the running times are not the same. Hmmm...
The label of the single shows "Music by Camarata" (rather than, say, Dick Jacobs, the house arranger for Coral) as does the album. So, are they edited versions of the same recording?
How does one find this out if the single doesn't seem to be posted anywhere online? Track down a copy of the 45 and buy it!
So, I now do have my mitts on that 45 shown above!
And while the arrangements are similar, these are clearly different recordings from the ones on the album. Now we know! I can rest!
So, check out the single version of "Old Fashioned Christmas" right here:
And the album version:
While we're talking about Johnny Desmond, I had mentioned when discussing the cast of the 1956 production of "The Stingiest Man in Town" that Johnny had really come into prominence when singing with Glenn Miller's AAF band during WWII. That was a terrific band and Johnny, the G.I. Sinatra, was terrific with them. So for a bonus bonus, here he is singing a topical song:
Good stuff!
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