Bonanza – Christmas on the Ponderosa
Joe Siegler
- AllMyVinyl #44
- Band: Bonanza (the TV show)
- Album Title: Christmas on the Ponderosa
- Release Date: ?? 1963
- Date purchased: ?? 1963
- Location purchased: Unknown
- Color of vinyl: black
- Number of discs: 1
- Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website (N/A) | Complete album on Youtube ]
OK, this one is going to be a weird outlier in my collection. I say “my” collection, because the album is technically my wife’s. You see, I didn’t watch Bonanza. I knew of it from a cultural standpoint, but I didn’t know the show (it ran from 1959 to 1973 covering 14 seasons an 432 total episode). But my wife did. You see this particular album used to belong to her parents. When we got married, she got the album from them as a major childhood memory. This came out in 1963, and while that was still a few years before my wife was born, she said her parents listened to this all the time around Christmas. I get the concept of a draw to music as part of your childhood (see me and Harry Chapin). So this made it into the vinyl collection, and was I’m playing all the vinyl as part of this project, I’m playing this. I gave some thought to NOT playing it, but I wanted to do this entry for my wife and remember her father who has now passed on. This gets played all the time around Christmas here too.
The actual piece of vinyl was bought at some indeterminate time in the 60’s. I’m a little unclear if it was purchased in 1963 when it was first released (I can’t find the true release date, just the year), or at some point in the 60’s. But this is an original pressing, which is now 61 years old. It’s the physically oldest piece of vinyl in the collection. The vinyl itself is in shockingly good condition given the multiple decades in the past. It doesn’t skip or repeat or anything. it’s a little dirty, but it doesn’t affect the audio at all. The cardboard itself is a different story. It’s almost split in half. A few years back I had to add some tape to it to keep it from being 100% split down the side. But given I don’t get it out too often, it’s not a huge problem.
Normally in these reviews, I do a breakdown of the tracks, but I’m not doing that here. Critiquing the vocal delivery of Hoss on Track 7 seems wrong here. I’ll say this. If you were a fan of the TV show Bonanza, this is a cool side product. It’s not that long, the entire album is about 27 minutes. It kind of plays out like a half hour TV episode, there’s some songs sung and there’s stories told via just talking. That’s why I think it would appeal to those who like the TV show. If you don’t know the TV show, this is a quite weird little album. :)
I will say this – after listening today, from a sonic standpoint I did like the track “The New Born King” – it has a nice vocal delivery to it – this one was sung by Pernell Roberts. Here’s a track listing, as I’m not breaking down the tracks individually:
- Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
- Deck the Halls
- The New Born King
- The First Christmas Trees
- Oh Fir Tree Dear
- Christmas Is A-Comin’ (May God Bless You)
- O Come, All Ye Faithful
- Jingle Bells
- Santa got Lost in Texas
- Stuck in he Chimney
- Why We Light Candles on the Christmas Tree
- Merry Christmas Neighbor
- Merry Christmas and Goodnight (Silent Night)
I mean that’s 13 songs for a total of 27 minutes. Some of them are quite short. There’s two under a minute, and the longest one is 3:32, but the bulk are 2 mins or shorter.
When I played this album this morning, my wife texted me from the other side of the house saying “Santa Got Lost in Texas” when that particular song was on, which surprised me as I didn’t think she could hear it. :)
While I admit it’s not one of my favorites (this might be the first time I’ve played it intentionally for myself), it’s important to me because it’s important to my wife. Could make some coin selling this thing given its value in the resale market – especially an original print. But to us it’s priceless – a tie back to my father in law who is no longer with us. It’s for that reason I get a kick out of listening to it. I actually listened to it twice today – which when my wife realized that I was listening twice got her to do this gesture at me.
Love that woman.
