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Don't ignore your health concerns. Our expert team is ready to help. That's very much the sound of Christmas there, a Phil Spector wall of sound, the Ronettes with sleigh ride from the enduring classic A Christmas Gift for You, which was released in late 1963.

It's John fired his pick for Greatest Crispell Christmas album of all time, host of Screentime John Friday. Good morning and welcome.

Hi, Pat. How are you? I'm very well. Now, this album is extraordinary. First of all, it's your pick for the great Christmas album of all time.

And it's possibly, but not necessarily. I'm not sure about this. The only Christmas album produced by a convicted murderer.

Yeah. I mean, he wasn't a convicted murderer at that time, it must be said, although he was definitely signs there. Yes, I think that may be true. Someone out in Switzerland may be able to correct us on that. But that's certainly my understanding as well. For people who don't know Phil Spector was this you know, people called him a genius producer. He invented this technique called the wall of Sound and revolutionized popular music and worked with everyone from Leonard Cohen to John Lennon to all these acts in the 60s like the Ronettes and Darlene Love.

And then in later life, his interest in guns and just his weird, weird way in the world. He's now in prison for murdering an actress called Lana Clarkson. So, yes, I think you're right. He is the only convicted murderer who ever produced a Christmas album. You know, I want to be very careful saying something like, I don't like most Christmas albums, because the last time I said to you, I don't like most duets.

I think you lampoon me for about six weeks solid. We did.

We played brilliant duets. Yeah, exactly. So I want to be really careful here.

Put right that said, Phil Spector in a way, invented the Christmas album. Before that, there hadn't really been like pop and rock albums that did just Christmas songs. But I'm not sure it's ever been bettered since, like, I love Christmas songs and there's brilliant ones out there. But the majority of Christmas albums I don't think are very good because it's hard to maintain that over 10 or 12 songs like there's one or two exceptions, you know, James Brown, Funky Christmas, the Frank Sinatra one has got.

There's one by the band called Low. But if you take like Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas, a great version of that song.

She is brilliant. But that album that it's from is kind of pants, to be honest. So to me, this is the best one because it's it's only 34 minutes. It's 13 songs. But every one of them is a Christmas classic.

Yeah, everyone has a Christmas classic. And what he did was to get his stable of favorite artists who had all featured in their own hits with the wall of sound and get them to do a new take on a Christmas classic. So we had we heard the Ronettes there. But the Crystals also feature on this. And they're they're short, which is for DJs is often a blessing, mercifully short.

Yeah, they are. But they're they're the perfect Christmas songs. And some of them are standards like White Christmas. But Darlene Love, just a gorgeous version of it. And, you know, the studio sessions were bizarre by all accounts, like the way he was in studio.

You know, guns hadn't entered the studio setting as of yet, but working all hours had, you know, some of the singers said they were in there from one p.m. to one a.m. and, you know, he would throw out songs. He records a really weird kind of spoken outro at the end, the last one Silent Night.

And he talks about that is ghastly. I have to say, that is truly ghastly. It's frightening. And he's like, this is Phil Spector thanking you. And it's really weird. So maybe in a way, it's a perfect Christmas album if you stop a track 12 as opposed to going all the way to 13. And there's outtakes of that somewhere on the Internet where he says all kinds of weird stuff as well. But let's not go into darkness now.

It's Christmas.

OK, well, let's hear another one. At this time, Santa Claus is coming to town from the crystals.

You watch out. That's a true classic, the crystals and the Santa Claus is coming to town, and that's a great example of the wall of sound.

I mean, think Ike and Tina Turner, but listen to that. It's just solid, solid, sound and originally released in mono, I believe.

Yeah, apparently so. And, you know, I was listening out there. Most people will know that from Bruce Springsteen's version. He doesn't leverage.

And back in the 70s, which has become another Christmas classic, but it was this album that made people like Bruce Springsteen and all sorts of other people want to do Christmas songs, not that Bruce ever did a Christmas album. Bruce, his explanation is you have to do them in July. Who wanted Christmas in July, incidentally. But the idea of doing Christmas albums and Christmas material kind of hadn't been on the landscape until Phil Spector. And even this year, Jamie Cullum released one, which again, this one or two good songs on it.

But I just I don't really see the point, to be honest. But anyway, I'm getting off topic again on material.

One of the listeners, by the way, Thomas in Waterford, suggests that Perry Como Christmas album on vinyl is truly amazing. What Perry Como used to do, an annual Christmas show on television, if you remember, there was he came to Ireland to do one. And I think what was then the point and Twink was involved in the whole thing.

There was a big saga, but pantomimes being cancelled and all the rest of it. Yes. And he I interviewed him actually on telly about it, and he came on his overcoat.

I remember well, oddly enough, the first vinyl thing that I ever remember was four years of age. My father had a copy of Magic Moments. That's Perry Como, isn't it? I've got that right. I have no magic moments.

I think it is.

Let's just stick together for the rest of the show. Now, the recording of this album, as you say, you've got to record if you wanted to release it for Christmas, you've got a record in the summer. And the sessions may have been difficult, although he knew all the artists, but then it dropped you know, it was released on the twenty third of November 1963, and it didn't really go down well.

And you might remind us why.

Yeah, well, JFK was assassinated and you know, the country had the blues and had them for a long time. So it may be the most ill fated release day in the history of popular music. You know, the country went into a depression and there's Phil Spector saying, I have a Christmas gift for you. No one wanted to hear it. And it was it was almost an absurdity at the time. And it dwindled away and no one really heard about it.

But Dan, he was very keen to find another life, which is fair enough, because it's a great album. And then it was released on the Beatles Apple Records in 72, I think it was. And it slowly started to garner respect. And then fast forward to now, and it's a Christmas staple, you know. It really is. Yeah.

Now, his own chequered career then when this body was found at his home and it turned out this actress was dead, he initially suggested it was some sort of a suicide.

He was tried once acquitted or was a mistrial really at the jury disagreed and they couldn't get a verdict. And then they changed the charge, I think, to murder two. And they did get a conviction of murder two. And he's in the slammer for 19 years. That's the sentence. Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, there is a fascinating documentary. The name of Momentarily Escapes Me when he was in between that first trial in the second trial. And he's talking about it and he is just terrifying in his almost what's the word, dissociative state like.

He was clearly like we know now. But when you see him in that documentary, he was deeply, deeply odd.

He really was.

And he had an obsession with guns. Like Leonard Cohen famously told this story that, you know, he was recording Death of a Ladies Man with him and a sound engineer bit into a burger on some break and found a bullet in it like he was just it was it was incredible that something like this hadn't happened sooner.

And I suppose it brings the whole thing, you know, should you really be listening to an album that's the product of, you know, in essence a convicted murderer? But, you know, if we start getting rid of the artworks of people who have questionable moral lives, there won't be any art left.

I always say Caravaggio murdered a man. You know, the list is endless of the foibles and the horror of some of these artists over the years.

You know, now we'll play one more track from the album. But before we do that, I want to ask you about Screen Christmas Day special. What have you got?

Yeah, eleven o'clock right after yours. I think I'm bringing you kind of my favorite Christmas movies, Christmas TV shows, Christmas music from those TV shows. So odd things like, you know, have The Sopranos did their Christmas special, things like that. That Music by Tom Waits Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis. So you know, slightly. An Orthodox Christmas stuff that you might enjoy or you might not, of course, but, you know, I'll take a gamble.

Well, I'll certainly be tuning in and the idea of, you know, this bizarre Christmas that exists in the artistic community, I'm trying to get, if you like, a sideways look at Christmas. I'm really looking forward to actually hearing all of that. And you have a regular screen time before the New Year.

I do indeed. On the 27th of January and all sorts of great things.

And I just can't remember what they are now because I'm having such a all merges into one of the big Christmas blocks.

Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. We're going to play out with the best song of the album, though, right? Christmas, baby, please come home. And you're talking about the strange Christmas we're having. Like, there's a great line and this doesn't feel like Christmas at all. It seems very apt for, you know, the Christmas we're all having.

All right. Well, John Fogerty, presenter of Screentime, thank you very much for joining us. And this is Darlene Love.

All right, that's Darlene Love Christmas, baby, please come home from Phil Spector's Christmas album.

Hey, Sarah, you also for Christmas? I hello, Rob Iure first time cooking the dinner, but at least it's for a smaller crowd on the same day mentioned getting a crown.

But I don't know if that's a hint for a present or something to do with the turkey.

Sounds like you need more help than I can give you, should you ask for. But it has lots of recipes and cooking advice. It's on Facebook, Alexa and Google assistant. You're a lifesaver now.

I better get my prince and princess home for chocolate is the real life saver. Happy Christmas.