[78-L] Let's Start the New Year Right

[DAVID BURNHAM]

I have just been listening to one of my favourite Christmas collections - "The Voice of Christmas", ("The Complete Decca Christmas Songbook").  This 2 CD set purports to have every Christmas record by Bing Crosby on Decca, (it doesn't exactly because Decca recorded a world tour Christmas album by Bing which isn't included).  But it does include 4 Silent Nights, 2 Adeste Fidelis and 4 White Christmases.  These records are beautifully remastered - I've never heard a 78 copy of Adeste Fidelis from 1935 which doesn't deteriorate into serious distortion just before the end but this remastering is perfectly clean.

The set ends with "Let's Start the New Year Right" and, for the first time, I noticed that this performance is different from the one issued on 78 on the flip side of "White Christmas".  It's obviously the same arrangement but the phrasing is different - particularly in the vocal line and the major trombone solo in the instrumental interlude.  Does anyone know if there were two versions of this song released?

db