RnB was at its best during the Motown era (as you may remember, it ranked in at number one on my list of the 25 Greatest Eras in Rock and Roll History). And of course whenever you are at the height of your game, you are going to release a Christmas song or two and Motown artists released their fair share in the late sixties and early seventies. By 1973, there were plenty of Christmas songs to fill an album (a second volume was released in 2001) with A Motown Christmas, this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.
Of course both compilations was filled with festive songs from the labels biggest acts like The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Jackson 5, and Marvin Gaye. Most of the Christmas standards are represented like Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman, and traditional carols like Joy to the World and Deck the Halls.
There were a couple of songs popularized by the Motown artists that would go on to be standards like the Stevie Wonder sung What Christmas Means to Me. But the best songs on the albums were those provided by The Jackson 5 as the young group captured the wonders of Christmas on song like Santa Claus Is Coming to Town and I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus. If you have yet to amassed a Christmas musical library to rival my nearly seven hundred tunes, A Motown Christmas may be the best place to start.
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