Wednesday, December 06, 2017

The Advent Jukebox, Day 6.... The Little Drummer Weird.


We'reNotInBerlinAnymoreIggy
GoldenYearsVille


Yup.

That's right.

'Twas Bing and Bowie, together, in the year punk broke...

One of the most successful duets in Christmas music history -- and surely the weirdest -- might never have happened if it weren't for some last-minute musical surgery. David Bowie thought "The Little Drummer Boy" was all wrong for him. So when the producers of Bing Crosby's Christmas TV special asked Bowie to sing it in 1977, he refused.

Just hours before he was supposed to go before the cameras, though, a team of composers and writers frantically retooled the song. They added another melody and new lyrics as a counterpoint to all those pah-rumpa-pum-pums and called it "Peace on Earth." Bowie liked it. More important, Bowie sang it.

The result was an epic, and epically bizarre, recording in which David Bowie, the androgynous Ziggy Stardust, joined in song with none other than Mr. "White Christmas" himself, Bing Crosby...



The show was taped in September for broadcast during 1977's Christmas season.

Unfortunately, Mr. Crosby never saw it because he died in October of that year.

Mr. Bowie, of course, kept on keepin' on for another 40 years.

Here's my version of the tune in question...



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You can see and hear the dynamic duo do LDB, after a bit of bizarre pre-amble....Here....The whole show is...Here.
As for the sub-header....Well....This.
You can peruse and/or listen to all this year's Advent Juke tunes, and find a few more odds and ends...Here. 



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