If you’re like me sometimes you’ll be doing something and perhaps a comment, a phrase, or perhaps even a tone will whisk you away to somewhere or some when in time or location. For me it was a forgotten song or nearly a forgotten song. This just happened to me . . . and one thing of course leads to another.
I had already read the Seattle Times and done part of the crossword puzzle and was walking back downstairs to my office. Sitting at my desk and looking out the window I kept humming and thinking . . . it started with a blues beat . . . the words escaped me for a while . . . and then they started to form . . . “Home for Christmas” . . . I did a search on Youtube and got the standard “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, The Carpenters and even Rascal Flatts. That was definitely the wrong title and phrase . . . but it was close. I was looking for blues and a not quite walking bass on piano. I added “Come” to the title and found Charles Brown singing “Please, Come Home for Christmas.”
Choirs will be singing “Silent Night”
Christmas carols by candlelight
Please come home for Christmas
Please come home for Christmas
If not for Christmas, by New Year’s night
– Charles Brown
We’re months away from Christmas, but the blues can be sung anytime of year.
Please, Come Home for Christmas
I loved the piano and the singing and what made it really stand out was the chimes, which I’m guessing were tubular bells struck with a wooden mallet. You just don’t hear tubular bells in most blues numbers. Very nice.
I had to find out more about Charles Brown. Although “Please, Come Home for Christmas” was recorded in 1960, Charles Brown began as the blues started getting popular after World War II with white teenagers in the South. He had a number of R&B (Rhythm & Blues) hits in the early 50s. “Hard Times” remained a hit for some time, but rock and roll didn’t fit his slow blues style. “Please, Come Home for Christmas” was a seasonal favorite and finally went gold in 1968.
I don’t know where “I Stepped in Quicksand” fits in but I found it on YouTube…
I loved how Brown beat out the tune on the piano and adjusted his pinky finger ring without losing a beat.
In the 1980s Brown toured widely as the opening act for Bonnie Raitt. I really like “Never Make Your Move Too Soon” with Bonnie Raitt, Ruth Brown (a female blues/R&B/rock and roll singer also popular in the 1950s), and Charles Brown…
Charles Brown died on January 21, 1999.
Between 1949 and 1952, Brown had seven Top 10 hits in the U.S. Billboard R&B chart. His best-selling recordings included “Driftin’ Blues” and “Merry Christmas Baby”. – Wikipedia
Charles Brown made it into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1996 and in 1999 along with Billy Joel, Curtis Mayfield, Paul McCartney, Del Shannon, Dusty Springfield, Bruce Springsteen, and The Staple Singers he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.