A Delightful Mix of Christmas Oddities

If Spike Jones and Dr. Demento can make Christmas albums, why not Eddie G.?

That’s what Eddie G. asked himself.

Eddie G. is Eddie Gorodetsky, an Emmy-winning writer who has helped make you laugh with material for the Comedy Channel, the David Letterman show and various Penn & Teller projects.

For almost a decade, Eddie G., whose massive record collection includes approximately 400 Christmas albums and 500 Christmas singles, has made his own Christmas tapes and distributed them to friends and associates.

The estimated 1,500 recipients last year ranged from comedians George Carlin and John Candy to singers Bonnie Raitt and Peter Wolf.

“I’ve always been a record collector and I decided one year that instead of buying Christmas cards for some of my friends who were music fans, I’d make some tapes,” Eddie G. said by phone this week from New York.

“I started out by making tapes for about 10 people, who passed it on to 10 more and so forth. Other people heard about the tapes and asked the following year for me to give them a copy. Instead of just giving them the old one, I made a new one, and I’ve kept doing it every year.”

When some friends suggested he think about releasing an album commercially, music-biz pals put him in contact with Columbia Records and presto: “Christmas Party With Eddie G.”

It’s a delightful package that contains such oddities from Eddie G.’s collection as Louis Prima’s jazzy “What Will Santa Claus Say When He Finds Everybody Swinging,” Byron Lee & the Dragonaires’ reggae instrumental version of “Winter Wonderland” and George Jones and Tammy Wynette’s country-accented “Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus.”

Other highlights include Bobby Lloyd & the Skeletons’ unlikely medley of of “Do You Hear What I Hear” and the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me,” and Debbie Dabney’s “I Want to Spend Christmas with Elvis (Heartbreak Noel).” The latter, released in 1956 by Savoy Records, was co-written by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Bobby Darin.

Other new collections:

* “A Jazzy Wonderland” (Columbia Records)--Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis team up on two of the 14 numbers, “This Christmas” and “Some Children See Him.” Among other contributors to this compilation: Wynton Marsalis, Tony Bennett, Nancy Wilson, Grover Washington Jr. and Richard Tee.

* “Just in Time for Christmas” (I.R.S. Records)--The rock lineup ranges from Squeeze and the dB’s to Dread Zeppelin and Timbuk 3, playing songs as traditional as “Silent Night” and as original and offbeat as Wall of Voodoo’s “Shouldn’t Have Given Him a Gun for Christmas.”