1942 HITS ARCHIVE: White Christmas - Bing Crosby (1942 version) (a #1 record)

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White Christmas (Berlin) by Bing Crosby, with the Ken Darby Singers, orchestra conducted by John Scott Trotter

The big one! But not, as most articles tend to generalize, the top-selling “record” of all time, as this original hit version had only a short five-year retail shelf life. Issued in 1942 by Decca along with all of the other Irving Berlin “Holiday Inn” tunes, this specific track remained the country’s #1 best-seller from late October into early January, returned strongly for the next four Christmas holiday seasons, but was then pulled from the marketplace and replaced by a slightly different, newly-recorded version (see the 1947 HITS ARCHIVE).

So it was that 1947 Bing remake that piled up the majority of the title’s sales from its subsequent reissue throughout the decades on nearly all 78s, 45s, LPs, cassettes, and CDs. This original 1942 version did not begin to reappear on ‘official’ compilations until late in the 20th century. By the way, recording session notes indicate that John Scott Trotter’s drummer on the ’42 “White Christmas’ was none other than Lindley “Spike” Jones.

THE 1942 HITS ARCHIVE - here in one place, a good-quality library of original-release-version best-sellers and songs that made an impact that were either released or enjoyed a major chunk of their popularity within the calendar year 1942 (some were recorded in 1941). .
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The three* MusicProf channels are home to The HITS ARCHIVES, YouTube’s most comprehensive collection of U.S. ‘popular music’ recordings from 1925 thru 1975. Discover thousands of original hit versions, conveniently arranged in year-by-year playlists and sorted alphabetically in your choice of either song title or artist name. Simply visit this channel’s home page (here: https://www.youtube.com/@the78prof72 ), scroll down the rows of playlist categories, choose a favorite year, click on “view full playlist,” and then pick out the songs that you want to hear. Enjoy the music!

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