Song of the Day 12/19: Debbie and the Darnels, “Santa, Teach Me to Dance”
Every year musical artists record new Christmas songs to release into the world, hoping they’ve found the next chestnut that will make them as famous as Mariah Carey. It almost never happens, but people keep trying, because if “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” can become a holiday staple, anything is worth a shot.
In the early 1960s, sisters Dorothy and Joan Yutenkas and their friend Maria Brancati, all high school students in New Haven, Conn., were performing the kind of girl group doo-wop that Phil Spector made famous (that’s “Debbie,” actually Dorothy, in the center). They even cut a few records and had a regional Top 40 hit with “Mr. Johnny Jones” before they recorded this little ditty, which draws on the innumerable dance crazes of the times for its theme. It didn’t make any noise at the time, but the tune has made a number of appearances on compilation albums in recent years. If the image of Santa teaching teen-aged girls the Hully Gully doesn’t bring you some Christmas cheer, you’re beyond my help.
What’s a Darnel?
Darneled if I know. Debbie, er, Dorothy says she thought it up because they were the Teen Dreams, but when Joan turned 19 Dorothy realized that name wasn’t going to last. She came up with Debbie, she said, because she thought Dorothy was too old-fashioned, but apparently nobody ever asked her what a Darnel was.