Download   This is the “Ronettes” version of this Christmas tune.  Who are The Ronettes, you might ask.  Well, that’s them up there in the picture.  Personally, I would have named them “The Beehives”.  How do women do that to their hair.  Amazing.  Better question is, why do they do that.  Oh, well… it was the sixties, after all.

I didn’t care for their music, even though they had big hits with songs like “Be My Baby” and “Walking in the Rain”.  The music completely overwhelmed the singers with WAY too much instrumentation.  Then I found out what the problem was…. their producer was Phil Spector – a true idiot when it came to music production.  He invented what he called the “Wall of Sound”, which only means load up the music with as many instruments as possible and throw in the vocals as an afterthought  – I called it the “Wall of Noise”.  The guy is now doing time for second degree murder and won’t be eligible for parole until he’s 88.  “Wall of Sound” indeed.

The Ronettes did a nice job on “Sleigh Ride” – in spite of Spector.  This arrangement is ideally suited for an opening number in your Christmas set.  There’s plenty of room between verses to introduce yourself to the crowd and include a bit of clever banter.  It sets your audience up for the holiday music to come.  The backup vocals were especially fun to recreate on track one – “ring-a-ling-a-ling-a-ding-dong-ding”.  I always thought that bit of nonsense behind the lead singer made the song.  Bet that wasn’t Spector’s idea…

If you listen closely at the beginning, you can hear horses galloping in the background.  The original version had a horse’s neigh, but I didn’t have that on the Yamaha.  Hence, the galloping.  I know… really stupid.

[Christmas List]