Carpenters Christmas single help

Bad news, Budaniel. To my understanding, A&M considered the Carpenters a "superstar" (no pun intended) group, and as such, has always refused to allow Carpenters tracks to be licensed for inclusion on V/A comps (note the absence of their songs on T/L's "AM Gold" & "Sounds Of The Seventies" series, as well as Rhino's "Have A Nice Day" series.) This is why. (The T/L "Carpenters Collection" was a negotiated exception, and is obviously not a V/A package.) In much the same way that Capitol refuses to license Beatle tracks, Columbia won't license Bob Dylan tracks, and ABKCO won't license old Stones tracks for V/A comps, A&M does the same for the Carpenters. While there could be a slight chance Christmas tracks might be viewed differently by A&M, their holiday LPs/CDs have always sold well also, so I'd tend to doubt it. I did find the 45v of "Merry Christmas Darling" on their "From The Top" box set. "Santa Claus...." is also included, on this same 4-CD set. If you haven't already listened to/rejected the version that's included on this set, Budaniel, I'd consider it your only real hope for finding the 45v of it on CD.

I thought the 'From The Top' version was the 45 version!

Am I wrong??

Andy

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (A&M 1648- 1974) is now on
the PBS release of the Complete Carpenters Singles..
The set is excellent and available for about $40 at
Treasury Collections and Amazon, if you missed it on PBS.
https://treasurycollection.com/collections/pop/products/the
-carpenters-the-complete-singles-3-cd