Xmas Rock 'n Roll With Bear Family Records

Almost every year  Bear Family Records releases fantastic Christmas compilations featuring mostly music from before 1970. For example, take a look here. Their 2025 compilation, 'Santa Is Rockin’ and Rollin’' (CD/LP), is packed with swinging rock ’n’ roll from the period 1955–1966. They put a lot of effort into their track listing; I could hardly find any track on the compilations back in my collection. The same can’t be said for the cover, though. The cover photo used here had already appeared on the compilation 'Rockin’ ’n Rollin’ With Santa Claus', curated in 2011 by BBC-DJ Mark Lamarr. The titles of both albums are also quite similar, but those are the only similarities. Extensive information can be found about every track on the Bear Family compilation. 

For example, we learn that Bobby Picket was obsessed with Boris Karloff in the role of Frankenstein (films from the 1930s). You can hear that influence in his 'Monster’s Holiday' (1962). 

The only French-language track comes from the Candian Marcel Martel: 'Rock ‘n’ Roll Du Père Noël'. He's an old (1925-1999) CAGG favorite and we wrote about him earlier here. He started playing guitar at the age of eleven and recorded this single in 1958.