Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas Read Online Free Page B

You for Sentimental Reasons.” A long list of well-loved songs including “Mona Lisa,” “Nature Boy,” and “Too Young” followed. During an era when America was almost totally segregated, Cole’s music erased the racial barriers, at least in music.
    From the moment Torme stopped in at Cole’s Los Angeles home and played “The Christmas Song” on his piano, Nat loved it. Sensing the song was a classic, he wanted to record it before Torme could offer it to anyone else. Within days, Cole had rearranged the song to suit his voice and pacing, and cut it for Capitol Records. His instincts about the song’s potential were right. Released in October of 1946, the song stayed in the Top Ten for almost two months. Nat’s hit charted againin 1947, 1949, 1950, and 1954. Though “The Christmas Song” would ultimately be recorded by more than a hundred other artists—including Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, and even Mel Torme himself—none could ever break Cole’s “ownership rights.” The song was instantly and forevermore a Nat King Cole classic.
    No one thought about it at the time, but Cole’s cut of Torme’s song became the first American Christmas standard introduced by an African American. The success of that cut helped open the door for Lou Rawls, Ray Charles, and Ethel Waters to put their own spins on holiday classics. It gave black audiences a chance to hear their favorite stars sing the carols that they loved as deeply as all other Christians. Thanks to “The Christmas Song,” for the first time in the commercial marketplace, Christmas was not reserved for “whites only.”
    Cole died in his forties of cancer, while Torme lived into his seventies. Both men’s careers hit incredible high notes, and their list of honors and accomplishments set them apart from most of their peers. But no moment for either was as memorable as when they were brought together by words that were meant to simply cool off a body on a hot day.
    If there is such a thing as inspired magic, it can be found in this song. When people around the world hear Nat King Cole’s rich baritone singing about cold noses and the wonderful carols that warm hearts at Christmas, they are blessed. The world has lost both Nat King Cole and Mel Torme, but their genius lives on in a song that continues to give millions the special spirit of the season—and the memory of a cool winter’s eve—each and every year.

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D O Y OU H EAR W HAT I H EAR ?
    T he odds of Gloria Shayne and Noel Regney coming together were long at best. Yet somehow, although born worlds apart, a Frenchman and an American found each other in the middle of the world’s busiest city and eventually teamed up to create a Christmas song that was truly inspired.
    Noel Regney grew up in Europe with a deep love of music. As a young man, his effort to create new classical compositions was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. Forced into the Nazi army, Regney soon escaped to his native France and joined a group of resistance fighters. Instead of writing peaceful music, he spent the rest of the war fighting to bring peace back to France.
    After the war, it was music that brought Noel to the United States, and in the late 1950s he wandered into New York’s Beverly Hotel. There, in the luxurious dining room, he saw a beautiful woman playing popular music on the piano. Though he spoke very little English, Noel was so enthralledthat he boldly introduced himself to Gloria Shayne. Within a month, the man who spoke rudimentary English and the woman who didn’t understand French, married.
    On the surface, Noel and Gloria’s union was very unique. What could an American woman, determined to write rock and roll, and a Frenchman, in the States to record classical music, have in common? Yet it would take the marriage of both their skill and insight, as well as their cultures and experience, to create a song that would cause millions around the world to stop, look, and listen.
    By 1962, Noel had