The Living Guitars and The Living Strings

Joe has contributed the liner notes to a twofer featuring vintage Christmas music from The Living Guitars and The Living Strings.  Last year, Real Gone released a compilation featuring two holiday albums by The Living Voices and the label continues this year with this CD including The Living Guitars' The Joy of Christmas from 1969 and The Living Strings' The Sound of Christmas from 1970.  The "Living" series of albums, the brainchild of RCA Camden producer Ethel Gabriel, consisted of budget-minded albums from a variety of groups (who never had a consistent line-up) who would record in mix of genres to highlight RCA's "Living Stereo" format.  The series lasted from the very late 1950s all the way until the early 1980s.