Some words about Bret Morrison's "The Christmas Carol," recorded in 1953 for Cricket Records...
I really like these old kiddie records if they're well done and I think this one is. Bret Morrison has a great voice and has the right level of enthusiasm yet authority that would make a kid listen!
Despite the label claiming there's a "full cast" involved, I think Bret's doing all the voices. This puts me in mind of Ireene Wicker's recording from 1949, which I discussed here.
Bret gets about twice as long to tell the story as Ireene did and manages to get a lot in there, getting the main points across.
(You do need to hear the scratchy old 78 to get the full story, as the later LP compilations have an edited version that makes some questionable cuts at the end, although the sound is much better.)
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come speaks on this record and this plus what he says about newer buildings make me think of the 1941 Ronald Colman recording. But I think about that one a lot!
This spirit says that the people talking about Scrooge refer to him as "Old Scratch," but we resolved that issue here - I think!
All in all, something fun to keep those kids entertained in those pre-video dark ages!
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