Another sales milestone!

Guaraldi’s soundtrack to 1965’s A Charlie Brown Christmas has just been certified quintuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

 

Back in the day, such a count would have been tabulated by physical album sales: LPs and CDs. The RIAA included streams beginning in February 2016, so this Charlie Brown Christmas milestone is based on more than 4 million copies purchased over various formats, and 1.14 billion streams.

 

(The formula is 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams = 10 track sales = 1 album sale.)

 

As always gets mentioned in the same breath, this makes A Charlie Brown Christmas the second-best-selling jazz album of all time, behind Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, which went quintuple platinum in 2019. And as I always point out — most recently in this post, when A Charlie Brown Christmas went quadruple platinum in December 2016 — these RIAA figures are based mostly on electronically recorded sales made subsequent to 1991, when Neilsen SoundScan began tracking data. Clearly, Guaraldi’s album sold many, many copies during the previous quarter-century … but because Fantasy’s record-keeping was so sloppy during those earlier years, a precise figure has been impossible to determine.

 

It’s therefore entirely possible that Guaraldi’s album has surpassed Kind of Blue … but we can only speculate. (In fairness, Davis’ album also sold plenty of copies prior to 1991.)

 

Meanwhile, this is merely the latest in a long line of accolades showered upon Guaraldi’s score. The album first was certified platinum in 1996; was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2007; and was added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2012. Just last December, as detailed in this post, the album reached its highest-ever Billboard chart position, 56 years after its original release. Nor can we overlook Billboard citing A Charlie Brown Christmas at the top of its 50-position Greatest of All Time Holiday Albums List (followed, for those who are curious, by Michael Bublé’s Christmas, Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas, and Mannheim Steamroller’s A Fresh Aire Christmas and Christmas).

Good ol’ Charlie Brown may not have shone during baseball and football place-kicking, but he’s certainly no slouch when it comes to album sales! 

Jerry Granelli, drumming legend

Jerry Granelli, Fred Marshall and Vince Guaraldi caught on camera, for Ralph Gleason's
film Anatomy of a Hit, during their lengthy run at The Trident, in the summer of 1963.

“I wanted to be a gunslinger, when I was a kid,” Jerry Granelli admitted, during one of the long chats we shared 13 years ago. “The closest I could come was being a jazz musician. The [stand-up] comics and the jazz musicians hung out together. The jazz musicians loved the comics, and vice versa. We were outlaws; we lived in an underworld, at night.”

Jerry Granelli, the feisty hard-charging drummer who — with bassist Fred Marshall — formed Vince Guaraldi’s third “classic” trio, died Tuesday morning in his Halifax home.

 

As readers of this blog know, he’d been ill for months; indeed, he came very close to dying this past December, just before his 80th birthday. Recovery was slow, but that’s the frustrating part; he seemed to be beating it, and regaining his strength.

 

And then, suddenly, he left us yesterday morning.

 

There’s no shortage of laudatory coverage, and I won’t attempt to duplicate that ground here. The CBC has an excellent piece, as does JAZZ.FM91. Others are easy to find.

 

As I’ve said many times, during the past decade and change, nobody tells better stories than jazz musicians. (Nobody tells dirtier stories, either, but very few of those made it into my Guaraldi biography.) One of the most eye-opening came from Jerry, recalling an incident that took place in Southern California in early April 1963. The Guaraldi Trio was booked for a week at Los Angeles’ It Club; Miles Davis was headlining simultaneously nearby, at Shelly’s Manne Hole.

 

“Most people don’t know this,” Jerry told me, “but Miles Davis loved Vince; he even wanted Vince to come work with him. But Vince refused, saying, ‘Naaah … I already got a band, man.’

 

“Typical Vince. He had no fear of anyone, at that point.

 

“Anyway, Miles would come in every night, after his gig, and just sit there. He loved Vince’s tune, ‘Star Song.’ So Miles would have a drink and say, ‘Play that song, man.’ Every night! And it freaked me out, because it was Miles, man!”

 

All these years later, I still vividly remember the enthusiasm and awe in Jerry’s voice, as he concluded that anecdote.

 

Life changed for Guaraldi after A Charlie Brown Christmas, and — to this day — some snobbish critics continue to diminish Dr. Funk’s place in the jazz pantheon, as a result of that commercial success. I brought this up during a chat with Jerry this past March — our last, as it turned out — and his irritation was evident.

 

“The ‘jazz police’ thought that this happening to Vince — the success of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and the TV specials that followed — was some sort of sell-out. Yet when I’m standing around with some famous jazz musician, many of them, they say, ‘Man, I love that stuff; that made me want to play jazz.’ ”

 

Beginning in December 2013, and continuing each subsequent holiday season, Jerry and his trio toured Canada with annual presentations of his Tales of A Charlie Brown Christmas. The concerts blended the iconic music with his memories of working with Guaraldi, along with brief background on how that first TV special came to be. (He never brought his show to the States, more’s the pity.)

 

“A thousand people show up every night, at a different city in Canada,” Jerry told me. “We were playing somewhere, and after the show, this guy came up — obviously a biker, all decked out in leather — and he said, ‘Aw, that was great, man; that was fuckin’ great. I gotta go home and get my dad, because he fuckin’ loves this.’ And then, right after him, up comes a little kid from out west, who still writes to me.”

I mentioned that, in my own experience, I’ve encountered many, many people who remember where they were, how old they were, who they were with, when they saw A Charlie Brown Christmas the first time.

 

“Oh, I know they do,” Jerry agreed, “because they tell me about it.

 

“It’s like that show — that music — is alive; it changed a lot of things for a lot of people.”

 

And you changed a lot of things for a lot of us, Jerry.

The drum section in Heaven’s really big jazz band just got a lot stronger. 

Quadruple platinum!

Big news today, folks.

The milestone cited here actually has been public since August, but Concord/Fantasy waited for the official ceremony on Friday, December 9, before issuing the following press release:

*********

From left, Jeannie Schulz, David and Dia Guaraldi, and Lee Mendelson

LOS ANGELES, CA -- Concord Bicycle Music and Fantasy Records announced the Quadruple Platinum certification of A Charlie Brown Christmas at a presentation today, with Vince Guaraldi's children David and Dia, Peanuts creator Charles Schulz's widow Jeannie Schulz, and the animated television special's producer, Lee Mendelson. The certification, awarded by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), marks four million units in album sales of the 1965 soundtrack by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. That makes it the second-highest certification of a jazz album, behind only Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.

Guaraldi's engaging score to the synonymous holiday television special --̶ which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year -- has introduced generations of children to the joys of jazz, with tracks such as the instantly recognizable "Linus and Lucy," and the yuletide favorite, "Christmas Time is Here." The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2007, and the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry five years later, and it continues to be a perennial favorite, thanks in part to annual airings of the Christmas special. 

Guaraldi, a native of San Francisco, became one of America's best-selling jazz artists during the course of his life. Though his legacy is most famously tied to his association with Peanuts, he already was an established, Grammy Award-winning artist by the time that producer Lee Mendelson tapped him to score the first of many animated specials based on the Charles Schulz-penned newspaper strip. In a 2003 interview, excerpted from Vince Guaraldi At The Piano (Derrick Bang; McFarland Books), Mendelson declared, "There was no doubt in my mind that if we hadn't had that Guaraldi score, we wouldn't have had the franchise we later enjoyed."

Jeannie Schulz was equally taken with the musician. "Vince Guaraldi was already a legend when I first met him in the mid-'70s," she said. "What amazed me, and touched me, was his humility about his celebrity, and his complete joy in playing the piano for a group at a gathering. Music was like breathing to Vince."

"The combination of Vince Guaraldi's music and Peanuts continues to prove a magical marriage, which has helped push this iconic recording to being one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time," remarked Concord Bicycle Music's Chief Catalog Officer, Sig Sigwort.

"Celebrating this wonderful achievement with the families and principles involved is a great honor."

*********

In point of fact, this sales figure is low, being based mostly on electronically recorded sales made subsequent to 1991, when Neilsen SoundScan began tracking data. Clearly, Guaraldi's album sold many, many copies during the previous quarter-century ... but because Fantasy's record-keeping was so sloppy during the early years, a precise figure has been impossible to determine.

Meaning, it's entirely possible that Guaraldi's score album already has surpassed Kind of Blue ... but we can only speculate. Meanwhile, the RIAA certification is indisputable.

(And yes: It was a nice surprise to see that the official press release cited a Mendelson quote from my Guaraldi biography.)

Congrats all around ... and onward to quintuple platinum!

*********

In a droll bit of related news...

Back on November 21, USA Today interviewed Billy Bob Thornton prior to the release of his newest film, Bad Santa 2. When asked when folks should start celebrating the Christmas season, Thornton responded with the following:

"My 12-year-old daughter Bella is vehemently opposed to starting the holidays too soon, and I support that. She thinks it's unfair to whichever holiday comes before. She can't stand it when people put Christmas decorations on our street before Thanksgiving. It's, like, give Thanksgiving its due. If you want to start the day after, I'm cool with it.

"But I listen to Christmas music all year round. I always have a CD in a little boom box in my trailer on every movie. All I listen to is A Charlie Brown Christmas, by Vince Guaraldi. Doesn't matter what season. Every waking moment, I have that record on. It's my obsessive/compulsive nature."

I appreciate the sentiment, Billy Bob. It's nice to know I'm not the only one!

"Star Song" — A melody tender

I've long fancied myself a thorough, creative and persistent (stubborn?) researcher, and I became even better during the three years spent "in the tank" while accumulating information for my book, before I wrote a single word. Later, once the actual writing began, I'd often get distracted by a desire to chase down stray bits of data. Many were found; many others were not. Quite a few anecdotes and possible details had to be removed from the first draft, when absolute verification couldn't be obtained. But the pursuit continues, and I'm confident that some of those stories will — one day — wind up here, in a blog entry.

One of my more vexing chases concerned Guaraldi's original composition, "Star Song," which he debuted on the album Vince Guaraldi, Bola Sete and Friends. In my book, as the tune is discussed, I call it "...a charming little ballad with an intriguing backstory: The pianist composed the melody to the words of a poem that was sent to him by William Siden, a Pacific Gas & Electric employee."

You probably know where this is going.

I moved Heaven and Earth to find that poem, with absolutely no luck. I did track down a few other poems by Siden, which had been published in the late 1950s in various women's magazines — McCall's and the like — but no trace of anything called "Star Song." I finally had to concede defeat, with considerable reluctance.

Like I said, I'm a savvy researcher ... but I cheerfully tip my hat to others who are just as good, if not better. Indeed, I'm deeply grateful to them.

One such fellow is Doug Anderson, whom I have yet to meet in person, but who has become a treasured correspondent, valued contributor and — without question — good friend. He first got in touch via e-mail, like numerous other Guaraldi fans with whom I have exchanged notes over the years. Unlike most such folks, though, this bond deepened quickly; Doug's interest clearly wasn't casual. Once he found out that I was working on a book, he immediately offered to help in any way possible. His research skills proved beneficial on many occasions, to say the least; he helped locate numerous things that had eluded me, and he well deserves the acknowledgment he received in the book.

Like me, as well, he recognizes that some searches never end ... until they're successful.

I'll turn the rest of this post over to Doug:

************

With a lilting melody that lingers in the memory, "Star Song" is one of Vince Guaraldi's most charming compositions. Although it didn't see action as a commercial hit, the song was a signature Guaraldi tune in the early 1960s, and a favorite of no less than jazz great Miles Davis.  (See page 118 of Vince Guaraldi at the Piano for drummer Jerry Granelli’s recollections about the Prince of Darkness being a fan.)

The song, which made its first commercial appearance on the 1964 LP Vince Guaraldi/Bola Sete and Friends, was credited to "Guaraldi-Siden," the only such entry in the Guaraldi corpus.

The Siden of that pairing was William "Bill" Siden, who described himself as "a public relations man for Pacific Gas & Electric."  In addition to his PG&E gig, he was active in the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and a founding member of the Steering Committee for San Francisco Beautification. Siden was a committed participant in the greening of San Francisco, and he promoted tree-planting in developing areas throughout California, as a community development consultant. He also was described in the early '60s as a "Bay Area writer with a growing national reputation," and he co-authored a book on the art of writing business letters.

He was, as well, a poet.  And it was in that role that Bill Siden sent Vince Guaraldi the verse that inspired “Star Song.”

In the liner notes to Vince Guaraldi/Bola Sete and Friends, Guaraldi explained: "I got the melody from the lyrics.... I didn't change anything. I wrote music right to what he had there in the poem, and it fit all the way down."  San Francisco Chronicle jazz columnist Ralph Gleason also emphasized the lyric-driven composition in his liner notes for the song's second appearance, on The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi, describing it as "another Vince original, a hauntingly beautiful melody which he wrote to fit the words!"

But, while Guaraldi and Gleason both credit the words with catalyzing the song, the words themselves were nowhere to be found: They didn't appear in any liner notes, and a vocal version of the song never was recorded.  As recently as early 2012, Guaraldi biographer (and blog host) Derrick Bang lamented that "Siden's poem, alas, has been lost in the mists of time."

But what was lost has been found.

After persistent archival digging and a number of dead-ends, I finally located Siden's original poem in a 1963 manuscript.  And so, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present William Siden's lyrics for Vince Guaraldi's "Star Song" (punctuated as in the original):

STAR-SONG

Oh, sing me the star-song,

The wonderful star-song

The stars sang the moment we met.

We knew that 'twas for us

The stars sang in chorus

A song we would never forget--

A melody tender,

And filled with such splendor

That time has not faded the glow:

The stars still burn brightly

And sing for us nightly

The star-song they sang long ago.

While shorter and perhaps more generic than I had expected, the poem is a very cool find.  The lyrics do indeed fall easily into place over Vince's lovely melody line, and they constitute the equivalent of a single verse that is repeated at the beginning and end of the song, bookending a delightful stretch of improvisation.

Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete perform "Star Song" while featured on
an episode of Ralph Gleason's Jazz Casual series, made for
KQED-TV Channel 9 in San Francisco.

To date, four different Guaraldi recordings of "Star Song" have seen commercial release:

·         The August 1963 studio recording with Bola Sete, contained on the Vince Guaraldi/Bola Sete and Friends LP (later re-released on the Vince & Bola CD);

·         The version recorded with Bola Sete in the KQED-TV studio in the summer of 1963, and released in 2001 on the (sadly out-of-print) Jazz Casual: Paul Winter/Bola Sete and Vince Guaraldi CD;

·         The 1963 studio version recorded without Bola, but with an interesting-but-dated string arrangement, and released on The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi; and

·         A mid-‘60s version recorded with Bola Sete for The Navy Swings recruitment program, released on CD by Vince’s son David (and available at http://www.vinceguaraldi.com).

All four versions are worth tracking down for their variant performances. Give any of them a listen and you, too, will find the stars still burning brightly, still singing nightly the same star-song that they sang long ago.

(Or, in the words of Miles Davis, “Play that song, man!”)