Man, I hope the Xmas revelers are enjoying really hot cocoa and nothing radioactive above. But it is indeed the season.
Of course, one of the great Christmas musical chestnuts out there is "Winter Wonderland" which was first recorded in 1934 by Felix Bernard and lyricist Richard Bernhard Smith, according to Wikipedia. Since then, the song has been covered by so many artists everywhere, and of course, that includes Bing Crosby. It wouldn't be a KKP Christmas without Der Bingle. And so, he came up with his version in 1962. The snazzy one with the cool video above may be the 1962 version or any subsequent version by him but let's just go with that year, shall we? His baritone will always be welcome in my ears at this time.
I've had this version of "Winter Wonderland" on the backlog for quite a while now, and I figure that it must have come from one of Scott's "Holly Jolly X'masu" episodes, since I could never imagine a ska version of the classic. But here we are.
akiko is a jazz singer who has been on the blog before with her 2003 take on "Good Morning Heartache", originally performed by Billie Holiday. Well, she provides her jaunty collaboration with The Ska Flames in "Winter Wonderland" via her 2007 release "A White Album". The band has been around since 1985 and has released six albums and eight singles up to 2020.
I like Akiko and the Ska Flames’ take on this holiday classic. What a great collaboration! I think I will listen to more of Akiko's works.
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