Christmas With The Carpenters (Time-Life)

Catalog number: R105-19

1. O Come, O Come Emmanuel (1992 remix)
2. Overture from CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT (1992 remix)
3. Christmas Waltz (1992 remix)
4. Sleigh Ride (1992 remix)
5. It’s Christmas Time / Sleep Well, Little Children (1992 remix)
6. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (1992 remix)
7. Silent Night, Holy Night (1992 remix)
8. What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?
9. An Old-Fashioned Christmas
10. O Holy Night
11. (There’s No Place Like) Home For The Holidays
12. Medley (Instrumental)
13. The Christmas Song (1992 remix)

Disc Two:
1. The First Snowfall/Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow (1992 remix)
2. He Came Here For Me
3. Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town (1984 remix)
4. I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day
5. Merry Christmas Darling (1992 remix)
6. Little Altar Boy
7. I’ll Be Home For Christmas (1992 remix)
8. Christ Is Born (1990 remix)
9. White Christmas (1992 remix)
10. Ave Maria (1990 remix)

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After the new owner of A&M Records, PolyGram, acquired the label’s catalog, they decided to license out some of their recordings to the likes of outfits like Time-Life and Reader’s Digest. These companies were eager to market big name acts like Carpenters in order to potentially boost sales of their other concerns. This action was not unprecedented; even in the Alpert-Moss era they licensed out recordings all the time to Longines Symphonette, Reader’s Digest, etc.

Time-Life put out this Christmas effort in 1992. While Richard was undertaking his massive remix project, he included the CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT recordings, with some of them appearing for the first time on the FROM THE TOP box set. These are the ones with the “1990 remix” label. Others appeared here for the first time, and get a “1992 remix” label.

Fans were eager to straighten out the CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT anomaly – the fact that that CD had been altered to include selections from the second album. This disc helped, but still didn’t cover all of the recordings on CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT. It DID however include a remix of “Merry Christmas Darling” that’s never appeared anywhere else. It has the typical stereo piano re-record along with heavier reverb on Karen’s vocal.