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Have An Oddly Jolly Christmas: A Quirky Holiday Playlist

Crate-digger and director Mitchell Kezin shows off one of his Christmas finds in a still from his documentary, <em>Jingle Bell Rocks!</em>
Elaine Littman
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Courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories
Crate-digger and director Mitchell Kezin shows off one of his Christmas finds in a still from his documentary, Jingle Bell Rocks!

Searching for Christmas music you've never heard before? Well, Mitchell Kezin is a collector of what he calls "Christmas orphans," those Christmas songs hardly played and mostly unknown. After being a closet collector of Christmas music for years, now he's directed a documentary about obsessive crate-diggers who specialize in rare Christmas music.

You can hear Kezin talk about his film, Jingle Bell Rocks!, with Morning Edition's David Greene by clicking the audio link above. And below, you can listen to a fun mix by Bill Adler, one of the collectors featured in the movie. It includes tunes by folks you may know, like Ray Charles and Betty Carter singing "Baby It's Cold Outside," as well as delightful unknown gems like "I Want You for Christmas" by Mae Questel, in which the singer (and vocal artist for cartoons like Betty Boop and Olive Oyl) asks Santa to bring her man home for the holidays — hoping that, "By jiminy, he'll come down the chimney with a bag full of you!"

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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In 1988, a determined Bob Boilen started showing up on NPR's doorstep every day, looking for a way to contribute his skills in music and broadcasting to the network. His persistence paid off, and within a few weeks he was hired, on a temporary basis, to work for All Things Considered. Less than a year later, Boilen was directing the show and continued to do so for the next 18 years.