Continuing with our twelve days of Christmas theme, today’s classic Christmas song of the day is “Must Be Santa,” as performed by Mitch Miller and his gang. You’ll know this one if you’re of a certain age—and if your parents used to watch Mitch Miller on the living room television set.
Mitch Miller (no relation) was the host of a television program in the early 1960s called Sing Along with Mitch. In this musical variety hour, the aforementioned Mr. Miller (not me, him) would stand in front of his large all-male choir and wave his hands back and forth while they sang mostly unison versions of innocuous tunes, with the words shown onscreen so everyone at home could “sing along with Mitch.” Mitch was a staple in my extremely white bread household and his Christmas album a family favorite.
The song “Must Be Santa” was written by Hal Moore and Bill Fredericks specifically for Mitch and his gang. It was released as a single in November of 1960. It’s based on a German drinking song, called the “Schnitzelbang” song, that features a call-and-response structure. So some of the gang says “Who has a beard that’s long and white?” and the rest of the gang responds with “Santa has a beard that’s long and white.” You get it.
Mitch Miller (still no relation to me) had a long and storied career well before he became a prime time choir director. As head of A&R at Columbia Records during the 1950s, he was responsible for a bushel full of pop hits by Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra, Johnnie Ray, Percy Faith, Ray Conniff, Jimmy Boyd, Guy Mitchell, Patti Page, Frankie Laine, Doris Day, Dinah Shore, Jo Stafford, and other artists. He tended towards inoffensive pablum and novelty tunes, such as “Come On-a My House” for Rosemary Clooney and “A White Sport Coat (and a Pink Carnation)” for Marty Robbins. Believe it or not, Miller was also the guy who discovered Aretha Franklin and signed her to her first major recording contract.
The records Mitch Miller produced may have been big hits but they weren’t necessarily well respected. Here’s that music historian Will Friedwald wrote about Mr. Miller’s efforts as a producer:
“Miller exemplified the worst in American pop. He first aroused the ire of intelligent listeners by trying to turn — and darn near succeeding in turning — great artists like Sinatra, Clooney, and Tony Bennett into hacks. Miller chose the worst songs and put together the worst backings imaginable — not with the hit-or-miss attitude that bad musicians traditionally used, but with insight, forethought, careful planning, and perverted brilliance.”
Mitch succeeded with this dreck because he took a very proactive role as producer, something not seen before in the industry. He essentially defined the role of the producer that carries on to this day, and was a huge influence on later producers. He also had his fingers in all aspects of the industry, including as a recording artist himself.
To that last point, in 1958 Mitch put together a large (20+ voice) all-male choir and, under the moniker Mitch Miller and the Gang, recorded a series of hit choral albums and singles, including “This Old Man,” “Yellow Rose of Texas,” and “March from the River Kwai.” Incredibly, Mitch and the boys charted twenty Top 40 hits and sold more than 17 million albums. He recorded the choir with a heavy dose of reverb for an unmistakable sound that anyone of a certain age at that certain time would easily recognize. His records even led to the hit TV show, Sing Along with Mitch, which ran weekly on the NBC television network from 1961 to 1964.
Anyways, in 1961 Mitch and his gang recorded their own Christmas album, Holiday Sing Along with Mitch, which my parents owned and played the life out of. It’s the typical Sing Along with Mitch formula, with the big heavily reverbed male choir singing holiday chestnuts such as “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,” “Sleigh Ride,” and the rest of the usual suspects—including today’s classic Christmas song of the day, “Must Be Santa.”
I’m featuring “Must Be Santa” and Holiday Sing Along with Mitch not because it’s a great album (because it’s not), but because of its sentimental value in the Miller household. (That’s my Miller household, not Mitch’s.) I suspect the album was equally popular in millions of other white middle class households back in the day. It’s not a sound you hear much today, and that’s probably a good thing, but it pretty much defined Christmas to a younger me.
So here’s your daily bonus video of the day, the complete Sing Along with Mitch program that aired on NBC TV on December 21, 1961. It was the holiday episode for Mitch and the Gang and features guest stars Leslie Uggams and Diana Trask. Yeah, we all used to sing along with Mitch back then.
