Charlie Brown's Holiday Hits is a compilation album by jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi (credited to the Vince Guaraldi Trio) released by Fantasy Records in 1998. The album was the first of several posthumous releases containing a mix of previously released material in addition to nine previously unavailable songs featured in prime-timeanimatedtelevision specials based on the Peanutscomic strip by Charles M. Schulz.[4]
Charlie Brown's Holiday Hits contains a mix of previously released material featured on the Fantasy releases Jazz Impressions of A Boy Named Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Christmas plus unreleased music cues from the latter as well as It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966), A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973) and Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown (1975). Several music cues were sourced directly from the television audio tracks and were licensed for inclusion from Lee Mendelson Film Productions.[3]
Fantasy also inadvertently included one non-Guaraldi track ("Joe Cool"), a composite of two music cues composed by Ed Bogas and Desirée Goyette for The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show (CBS, 1983-85).[3][1] The title bears no relation to the multiple renditions of "Joe Cool" composed by Guaraldi during his lifetime.[3]
Critical reception
Guaraldi historian Derrick Bang commented that the newly released material "is a joy, although some of these cuts are a bit 'muddy', and they lack the polish and studio perfection of Fantasy's earlier releases; they have an unsweetened quality, and display the uneven volume, jump starts and slow fades that betray their probable origins from television audio tracks."[3]AllMusic critic Cub Koda said the wealth of unreleased material was a "true goldmine" for fans.[1]
Track listing
All songs written by Vince Guaraldi except where noted. Proper titles appear with mistitled tracks in parentheses.[1][3]