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The Edie Adams Christmas Album
By bohus
Longtime readers will know that I'm a huge fan of Ernie Kovacs, TV genius & pioneer. Everyone pretty much agrees on how amazing Ernie was, but what a lot of people don't realize is just how amazing his wife Edie Adams was too. She's that gorgeous lady at the Hungarian's elbow (usually singing) in much of his television output. The lady who was equally at home as an opera singing grand dame, as she was a dame getting hit in the face with a pie. The amazing lady who had the foresight to save all of those classic TV shows when their destiny was the dumpster.
It might have been easy for someone else to get lost in the shadow of Ernie personality and legend, but multi-talented Edie had a significant career of her own; Broadway, movies, TV, and of course her long stint as the Muriel "why-don’t-ya-pick-one-up-and-smoke-it-sometime?" cigar girl.
She pressed a few albums in her time, but never released a Christmas album until now. This new CD is a collection of Christmas music from Kovacs' live morning TV show in the 50s - "Kovacs Unlimited". These are simple & unadorned arrangements of Christmas classics (along with some less shopworn tunes) as she performed them on live TV. These recordings come from acetate records of these live performances, so by all accounts it's a miracle that we can hear these songs today.
For audio purists out there, yes... you will hear some surface noise from these 60 year old acetates, but the restoration of Edie's voice is tremendous. Any extraneous noise doesn't matter to me in the least. The performances have that vitality that only live TV can create (you can even hear Ernie and crew chatter in the background on a couple cuts).
I thoroughly enjoyed this CD, one of the rare times my love of old TV can share space in my heart with love for these old classics. If you can't find the Edie Adams Christmas Album at your local record store (the CD's liner notes are worth getting the physical disc), you can download selected tracks or the whole album right away from Amazon.
Thanks, Edie.
