A spooky Christmas song...

Lois Lynn: Every Christmas We Know / Lullaby, My Heart
(Concept Records, 45-896, USA, 1956, 45 rpm, big hole)

In 1956, Concept Records, a small label from Elizabeth Town, Kentucky, released the debut 7” of singer Lois Lynn. It featured two songs, both written by Beth M. Walker and Agnes K. Quinlan, a female songwriting duo: the Christmas song 'Every Christmas We Know' on the A-side, and 'Lullaby, My Heart' on the B-side. Although this was her debut single, Lynn was not a newcomer to the music business. She was born in 1931 as Lois Catherine Barcroft, the youngest daughter to the five piece family of Paul William and Laura Marie Barcroft, who lived in Coshocton, Ohio. Already at a young age, Lynn started participating in talent contests, under her stage name Lois Lynn. Early on, critics were not that much impressed, 'Brunet Loïs Lynn sings musical comedy in a soprano of uneven quality. Her delivery is lively, but just doesn't occupy attention' was a reaction on a perfomance she did in January 1942. In the 1940s, while she was still a teenager, she performed with the Carmen Cavallaro and Art Mooney orchestras and with Joe Basile's band. In 1948 Lynn joined the just founded WAF (Women in the Air Force). The WAF appreciated her talent, and she contributed to several air force base shows while stationed in San Antonio, TX and Chicopee, MA. In San Antonio, she sang with Charlie Malone's air force band and while in Chicopee, she appeared in Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour television in New York and was invited to perform on Mack's ABC radio program, where she performed with Charlie Barnet's band. Lynn, nicknamed Torchy after her singing style, also played piano (both boogie classics and her own compositions). When she was transferred to Newfoundland, Lynn was assigned to the Armed Forces radio station in Stephensville, Newfoundland, where she wrote, produced and performed in an one-hour late night show called 'Dream Hour'. In 1952, Lynn joined the 596th Air Force band as vocalist and in April 1953, Lynn maried staff sgt. M. Bruce Rebalsky. With him she got a daughter.

When Lynn recorded her debut single in 1956, she was living in Louisville, KY and was a disc jockey, commercial writer and producer for radio station WSCA in Ft. Know, KY. Although Lynn was not living in Coshocton anymore when she recorded her single, it was very much a product of Coshocton, as one of the songwriters, Agnes Quinlan, was also from Coshocton. In real life, Quinlan was a welfare worker and had met Beth Walker, a New York editor, through a classified ad that encouraged those with song writing abilities to submit their work. Quinlan, who, as a local newspaper claimed in 1952, 'didn't know one musical note from another' and Walker formed a songwriting team, with Quinlan composing the music and Walker writing the lyrics. 'Every Christmas We Know' was already registered for copyright in June 1951 by the two. The next few years, the duo wrote more songs, like the 'The Whop' (1952), Truely Dear' (1952), 'Cold Water Flat' (1952) and 'I'm Going Home' (1956), but the duo never made it big as songwriters. Still, 'Every Christmas We Know' as recorded by Lynn, was something special. The performance of Lynn does her nickname Torchy justice, as she turns the song into a true torch song. The musical accompaniment is very minimal, just a soft sounding xylophone, with gives the song a really spooky atmosphere, even further reinforced by Lynn's 'who-hu-hu-ing', that serves as the refrain. The lyrics paint a portrait of 'every Christmas we know' when 'Candles and stars are a-glow' and 'all through the night there is a spirit alive' (talking about spooky!), and 'there's joy and there's peace in the heart of us' as 'Christmas was made just for love'. The single did not bring Lynn her much deserved breakthrough and her solo career ended just after one single. In 1964 Lynn returned to the spotlight, for one short moment. Now known as Loís Hill, because of her marriage to Milwaukee's radio station newsman Bill Hill, she became one of the first female newscasters.

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