
Turned On Christmas
The Royal Philharmonic Orchesta w/The Chicago Synthesizer-Rhythm Ensemble
CBS/Columbia C40441
1985
SIDE ONE
- Joy To The World (02:28)
- The Little Drummer Boy (04:14)
- O Come, O Come Emmanuel* (03:16)
- Angels We Have Heard On High (02:09)
- Carol Of The Birds* (03:26)
- We Three Kings Of Orient Are (02:45)
SIDE TWO
- Silent Night* (03:11)
- Christmas Medley (The First Noel, Deck The Halls, Troika) (03:42)
- Christ Is Born (02:56)
- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (02:42)
- Adeste Fidelis (03:23)
CREDITS
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra: Paul Freeman Conductor
The Chicago Synthesizer-Rhythm Ensemble: John Tatgenhorst, Artistic Director
*VOCALIST: Ann Mortifee
Executive Producer: Paul Freeman
Production Supervisor: Julian Rice
Keyboards & Synthesizer Concepts: Ed Tossing
Electric Bass: Steve Rodby or Bob Lizik
Drums: Tom Tadke
Guitars: Ross Traut and Bill Ruppert
Percussion: Russ Knutson
Rhythm and Electronic Tracks Recorded at Universal Recording, Chicago, Ill.
Recording Engineers: Bob Bennett and Bill Bradley
Mixing Engineer: Bill Bradley
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Recorded at Angel Studios, London, England
Engineers: John Timperley and Gary Thomas
Mastered at CBS Studios, NY by Vlado Meller
Design: Steve Byram
Illustration: Enzo Messi & Urs Schmidt
From The King
I picked this up at a used record store near me, and to be honest I had never seen or heard about it before, which is strange as it’s on a major label. Of all the folks involved, it seems the most noteworthy is the vocalist, Ann Mortifee, who has a sizable discography of work and was married to New Age flutist Paul Horn.
The music has a decidedly 80’s aesthetic to it. For some reason I imagine highly coiffed blonds in spandex leggings doing suitably perky aerobics routines. While that seems derisive, I don’t mean it to be. It just describes a period in time. The playing is decent (the bass stands out especially, but then again I’m a bass player…).
The music is energetic and cinematic in many ways.
Download it and let me know what you think.


Is it me or does the zip include only one song? Would love to hear the rest!
For some reason folks on Macs seem to be having troubles with some of the download files. It might be browser settings. Somebody said they found the zip in their Trash folder and then took it out and unzipped it.
Actually, I think the zip is damaged.
Zip downloaded and opened fine for me this morning on a pc. FYI
I’m with Maezar, coming here on a Mac and I get an error when trying to open the archive.
There seems to be a problem with Safari downloading my zips.
Try this:
Safari > Preferences > General > Open safe files after downloading.
without that checked, zips should just stay zipped…