Classic Albums: The Elvis Christmas Album & Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift for You
Sat 14 Dec 2024, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Join us for the next in our series of talks about the most influential LPs in music history. In a seasonal special, Stephen Barnard and Christopher Budd reveal the stories behind two of the most familiar and top selling Christmas records ever made – Elvis Presley’s Christmas Album (1957) and Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift for You (1963). How did Elvis and the legendary Spector ‘wall of sound’ become part of the Yuletide soundtrack, their tracks still played on every radio station and in every shopping mall as soon as the build-up to Christmas starts? Did Irving Berlin really try to ban Elvis’s version of White Christmas? Why did A Christmas Gift for You remain unheard and unavailable for ten years? And just what role did these albums play in the careers of the King of Rock’n’roll and the most infamous of record producers? Discover the answers in a session full of fun, facts and music.
Event Information
Price: £22
Course Weeks: 1
Room: Brunt Room
Campaign: Autumn Term 2024
Customer Information: Please bring a notepad and pen.
Your Tutor
Name: Christopher Budd & Stephen Barnard
Bio: Christopher Budd is a writer, teacher, and musician, with a focus on music for film. His interests range from silent cinema to electronic music via Hollywood from the studio system to the experimental ’70s, and British and European film and music of the 1960s and 70s. He studied film music at university (‘Music Composition for Film and Broadcast Media’), followed by a PGCE in Post-Compulsory Education. He then worked at the Bishopsgate Institute in London managing the courses for the adult programme. Since 2012 he has been working freelance; he has written for several music magazines including Music Teacher (and contributes regularly to Shindig!). Christopher works as a moderator and assessor for an international awarding body specialising in vocational music examinations, and in a freelance capacity for Cambridge International Examinations. He also teaches private instrumental lessons and records as a session musician.
Stephen Barnard spent 21 years as a specialist writer with Reader’s Digest before going freelance in 1999. He has been writing and lecturing on broadcasting, film, and popular music on a part-time basis for over 30 years. He has run courses for the WEA, De Montfort University, the City University, and a number of Hertfordshire arts groups, His five published books include ‘Studying Radio’, the standard academic textbook on the subject.
Department: Humanities
