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Published: June 28, 2020, 2:45 p.m.

Alan Thicke - Wondrous Bobby Orr (1967) 

Alan Thicke - That Boston Dandy (1967) Charles Saba wrote both of these, and I can't find any information on him.

Roberta Flack (featuring Donny Hathaway) - Don't Make Me Wait Too Long (1979) Anthony Jackson on bass. 

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - I Can Tell When Christmas Is Near (1970)

Beach Boys - I Do Love You (1985) Stevie on drums, bass keyboards, harmonica, Fender Rhodes. A terrible, terrible album in every sense. 

John Denver - If Ever (1985)

 

Jeff Beck - Thelonius (1975)

Jermaine Jackson - You're Supposed To Keep Your Love For Me (1980)  

Labelle - Open Up Your Heart (1973) 

Sergio Mendes and The New Brasil '77 - The Real Thing 

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - It's Christmas Time (1970)

Syreeta - Come and Get This Stuff (1974) So pretty. So good. I love Syreeta. 

Syreeta - Black Maybe (1972)

Syreeta - How Many Days (1972) 

Syreeta - Spinnin' and Spinnin' (1974)

Orange Colored Sky - Mr. Peacock (1969) 

The Flying Burrito Brothers - She's a Sailor (1976)

The Pointer Sisters - Sleeping Alone (1975) 

The Pointer Sisters - Sweet Stuff (1977)

Rotary Connection - This Town (1969) 

The Free Design - Christmas is The Day (1969) 

The Free Design - Shut Your Moth (It's Christmas) (1969)

The Beatles Christmas Record 1966 

From a good Rolling Stone article:

The Beatles’ fourth Christmas message was effectively everything they had attempted to achieve the prior year: a full-blown extended production featuring sound effects, music and a (loose) narrative. It was recorded on November 25th, one day after the group reconvened at Abbey Road following a three-month hiatus. The break had allowed them to indulge their independent pursuits for essentially the first time in their adult lives and, more crucially, offered a respite from the increasingly chaotic and confining Beatle existence. The mania that surrounded them wherever they went led the group to swear off touring that August, immediately prior to their solo sabbaticals. The effect was rejuvenating for all, and they returned flush with potent new ideas and creative vigor. The first session held upon their November 24th  reunion yielded an early take of Lennon’s haunting “Strawberry Fields Forever,” a song that marked the start of the Beatles’ reinvention as studio auteurs.

The next day, after catching the U.K. debut of an American import named Jimi Hendrix at the newly opened Bag o’ Nails club, the Beatles gathered at a small studio in the New Oxford Street office of their music publisher, Dick James, to tape their latest holiday record. “We thought it was time we had an entirely different approach,” McCartney later said. Ultimately, the final product would contain no greetings, and very few references to the holidays. In retrospect, “Pantomime: Everywhere It’s Christmas,” a 10-part endeavor nearly seven minutes in length, is a signpost for what was to come for the band. Rather than address fans directly with messages of gratitude, the Beatles performed as distinct characters, foreshadowing the approach they would take when recording Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in the coming weeks. In keeping with the tradition of pantomime – a uniquely English brand of stage production blending music, slapstick comedy and folk tales – the snippets of original songs are rooted in English vaudevillian music-hall style. The title tune, a whirlwind pub piano sing-along played by McCartney, is not far removed from “When I’m Sixty-Four,” which they would begin recording in a matter of days.

Much like Sgt. Pepper, “Pantomime: Everywhere It’s Christmas” feels largely driven by McCartney, who also drew the full-color art-nouveau illustration for the sleeve. The imaginative original story defies any logical description, ping-ponging from Corsica, where a “bearded man in glasses” conducts a small choir, to the Swiss Alps where “a pair of elderly Scotsmen munch on a rare cheese,” and to the “long, dark corridor of Felpin mansion,” home of the Germanic Count Balder. Instead of relying on Barrow, the Beatles took full use of George Martin’s experience producing comedy records with British radio legends like Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. Together they created vivid soundscapes ranging from a rowdy royal celebration onboard the good ship H.M.S. Tremendous, to the charmingly gentle fairy tale of Podgy the Bear and Jasper. Though brief, the songs are evocative, and in some cases quite memorable. “Orowayna,” ostensibly sung by a Corsican choir, is a strangely beautiful pop hymnal that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a Smile-era Beach Boys album, and the vaudevillian wink of “Please Don’t Bring Your Banjo Back (I Don’t Know Where it’s Been)” is as funny as it is bawdy. The Beatles’ loyal roadie Mal Evans delivers a sincere “Yes, everywhere it’s Christmas” before the proceedings skid to a stop with a reprise of the title song. As on their groundbreaking next LP, we come out the way we came in. 

The Beatles Christmas Record 1967

Now that the band had mastered their studio domain, the Beatles’ 1967 seasonal message – wrapped in a Sgt. Pepper–like collage of vintage photos created by Lennon and Starr – would be the apex of their Christmas recordings. Recorded back at Abbey Road’s Studio Two on November 28th during a nine-hour marathon session, “Christmas Time Is Here Again!” expands on the sketches of the previous year by adding the only performance among the Beatles’ holiday recordings that could safely be categorized as a proper “Christmas song.” The tune is little more than a holiday mantra, but the Beatles sell it through their full-throated commitment and a clever arrangement reminiscent of their new single, “Hello, Goodbye.” Lennon, ever fond of unusual count-ins (he can be heard intoning “Sugar plum fairy, sugar plum fairy” on early takes of “A Day in the Life”), introduces the song with a hastily exhaled “Interplanetary remix, take 444!” before a lushly multi-tracked chorus of Beatle voices remind listeners that Christmas time is indeed here again.

The plot, scripted by the band the day before, makes about as much sense as “Everywhere It’s Christmas.” The story begins with the Beatles portraying a fictitious group called the Ravellers, on a quest to audition for the BBC. Once they’ve made it past the gatekeeper (played by their friend Victor Spinetti, who had appeared in A Hard Day’s Night, Help! and the yet-to-be-released Magical Mystery Tour) they perform a tap-dance in the “fluffy rehearsal room.” From there it all becomes a bit difficult to follow as the record fades into a fever dream of fractured broadcast clichés including jingles (“Wonderlust for your trousers!”), a noir radio drama called Theater Hour and a game show where the grand prize is a trip to Denver and automatic appointment to “independent candidate for Paddington.” The Ravellers, having apparently passed the audition, return to croon a tune about jam jars across the airwaves for the benefit of injured woman in Blackpool.

A haze of maniacal echo-drenched laughter gives way to the regal voice of George Martin, addressing fans for the first time on the disc. “They’d like to thank you for a wonderful year,” he says with the tone of a kindly but exasperated schoolteacher, before the students repeat his words with mock reverence. Lennon signs off with a Goonish original poem, a sort of lonely Christmas “Jabberwocky” delivered in a thick Scottish brogue over the sound of a wintery gale. “When the beasty brangom button to the heather and little inn,” he says while “Auld Lang Syne” plays softly. “And be strattened oot in ma-tether to yer arms once back again. Och away, ye bonnie.” So ends the Beatles’ last documented recording of their extraordinary year. It would also be the final Christmas disc recorded together by the group as a unit.