WHITE CHRISTMAS

Et Cetera feat. Carl Wayne 

Major Oak Records CD 181.556 / 181.557 (Distributed by MCP Sound & Media AG) 

History

White Christmas was written by a Jew, Irving Berlin, for a 1942 movie Holiday Inn starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. Berlin’s assignment was to write a song about each of the major holidays of the year. He found that writing a song about Christmas was the most challenging. When Bing first heard Berlin audition White Christmas in 1941 he reassured Irving that he had created a winner. Bing's preliminary evaluation turned out to be a gross understatement.  

White Christmas, a song of peace and yearning for "the ones we used to know," was released to a war-torn public during the darkest days of World War II. By the end of the War it had become the biggest-selling single of all time. Bing's recording hit the charts on October 3rd, 1942, and rose to Number 1 on October 31st, where it stayed for an amazing 11 weeks. In the following years Bing's recording hit the top-30 pop charts another 16 times, even topping the charts again in 1945 and January 1947. The song remains Bing's best-selling recording, and the best-selling Christmas single of all time.

The success of the song led eventually to a movie based on the song. The movie White Christmas was released in 1954 and became the leading box-office draw of the year. The movie was supposed to reunite Crosby and Astaire for their third Irving Berlin extravaganza of song and dance. However, Astaire bowed out after reading the script. Donald O'Connor was selected to replace Astaire, but he, too, had to exit because of a back injury. O'Connor was replaced by Danny Kaye.

Crosby's recording of "White Christmas” sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and was recognized as the best-selling single in any music category for more than 50 years until 1998 when Elton John's tribute to Princess Diana, "Candle in the Wind," overtook it in a matter of months. 

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