Sixty years after its release, the soundtrack recorded by the Vince Guaraldi Trio for the animated Peanuts special has officially made history. The RIAA has certified A Charlie Brown Christmas 6X Platinum, recognizing six million album sales and streaming equivalents in the US, a milestone that makes it the best-selling jazz album of all time.
The certification arrives one year after celebrations marking Peanuts’ 75th anniversary and the album’s 60th anniversary, confirming just how deeply Guaraldi’s music remains woven into American holiday tradition, from originals like “Linus and Lucy” and “Christmas Time Is Here” to sophisticated jazz arrangements of traditional carols such as “O Tannenbaum,” “What Child Is This,” and “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.”
The Origins of a Classic
The album’s story traces back to 1964, when producer Lee Mendelson, working on a TV documentary about Charles M. Schulz and his popular comic strip, brought in Bay Area jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi as composer, fresh off the Grammy winning success of “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” The documentary never aired, but Guaraldi’s score left such an impression on Mendelson that he brought him back a year later for A Charlie Brown Christmas.
With Fred Marshall on bass and Jerry Granelli on drums, the trio gave Peanuts its musical identity: from the instantly recognizable theme “Linus and Lucy” to the wintry “Skating,” the bossa nova tinged “Christmas Is Coming,” and both vocal and instrumental takes on “Christmas Time Is Here,” which quickly became a holiday standard in its own right.
Guaraldi continued scoring Peanuts specials until his passing in 1976. Since then, the album has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry, cementing its place as one of the most enduring holiday albums ever recorded.
New Limited Edition Vinyl Pressings
To celebrate this milestone, Craft Recordings (an active collaborator with Wiki Jazz) will roll out a series of limited edition pressings this fall:
August 28: Silver Emerald pressing, exclusive to Walmart
September 25: Picture disc replicating the original artwork (Barnes & Noble), and an Iridescent Snow colored LP with exclusive poster (Target)
October 2: Sapphire colored pressing, exclusive to Urban Outfitters
October 9: Audiophile Original Jazz Classic reissue, 180 gram vinyl, lacquers cut from the original master tapes (AAA) by Matthew Lutthans, pressed at QRP
November 6: The most limited edition, a liquid filled Snow Globe LP with floating snowflakes, limited to just 300 copies
All editions are available for pre-order at CraftRecordings.com.
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