What's your favorite Christmas album?
Posted December 19, 2006
The Herald-Leader asked me to come up with a list for the Faith and Values section of my five favorite Christmas CDs for the Faith and Values section. My picks:
Go Tell It On the Mountain, The Blind Boys of Alabama
Handel's Messiah: A Soulful Celebration, Various
Silent Night, Holy Night, Mahalia Jackson
First Christmas, Bebe and Cece Winans
A Timeless Christmas, Israel Houghton & New Breed
A longer list of modern classics would include: December, George Winston; Jazz to the World, Various; Home for Christmas, Amy Grant; One Wish: The Holiday Album, Whitney Houston; and Holly & Ivy, Natalie Cole. Of course nobody will ever top Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Andy Williams and Burl Ives.
What is your all-time favorite holiday CD?
Archived Comments
My eclective faves: "We Three Kings" by the Roches; "The Bells of Dublin" by the Chieftains (especially Jackson Browne's great song "The Rebel Jesus"); "The Gift" by pianist Liz Storey; and the soundtrack from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.
The morman tabernacle boys choir.
I think I have a new one, Over The Rhine "Snow Angels" Released this year, it's amazing.
Christmas Island, by Jimmy Buffett, which has his cover of the old Ernest Tubb song of the same name, and of the Bing Crosby song Mele Kalikimaka.
Or, in a funnier vein, Robert Earl Keen's "Merry Christmas From the Family," which is hilarious, and begins with the lyrics, ""mom got drunk and dad got drunk at our christmas party," and goes downhill from there . . .
Pretty Paper -- Willie Nelson's Holiday LP. Not particularly a Willie fan, but my parents played it incessantly when I was little. It stuck and I almost have to have it at some point Christmas week.
I also love Ronnie Spector's "Rockin' around the Christmas Tree".
Thanks for the reminder to get that CD out!
Back in my day, it was albums ... and my tastes weren't quite so mainstream. So I'd have to rank the Stryper 12" vinyl release of "Reason for the Season" and "Winter Wonderland" as my own favorite.
My fav song is "Mary did you know?".
I also love Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmas Time".
But the best Album has to be Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas, now that is a classis!
Loreena McKennitt's "To Drive the Cold Winter Away." Either that, or her "Parallel Dreams" CD with the "Christmas 1842" track.
I've been listening to a CD by the Mormon Tabernacle choir that contains many of the Christmas classics. It's been so long since I've been in a church with a choir that I've forgotten how moving a strong choir can be. The praise bands just don't cut it.
There's an oldie we love, called Come On, Ring Those Bells, by classic CCM artist, Evie Tornquist-Carlssen. Evie had a sweet, warm soprano voice, and grew up near my hometown, in Elizabeth NJ. She attended an Assembly of God church I used to visit from time to time.
Editor's note: When I was a fourth grader, I owned every Evie album in existence and thought she was the prettiest girl in the world. "Come On, Ring Those Bells" is indeed a classic.
Emmylou Harris' "Light of the Stable"
There are so many, I hardly know where to begin.
- Anything by Mannheim Steamroller.
- Anything by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
- John Denver's Christmas Album.
- countless anthologies.
- Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra's joint effort.
- and on and on and on and...
It's hard to go wrong with a Christmas album.
Okay, Prester John, I'll bite: What's the significance of Christmas in 1842?
(Grins) that's the title of the song; I don't know why she picked that particular name. But the song has a little Irish girl doing a recitation of the Nativity Story between verses of the song--a little girl's take on the Nativity Story, that is--and it is just a very special song to me.
Although quite obscure and (to be perfectly honest) not that good, I have to vote for Kevin Max's "Holy Night." Of DC Talk fame, Max's vocal performance is far from inspiring, and at times is downright bewildering. Nonetheless, if listened to repeatedly, at discreet volumes while fending off the duldrums of the 8-5:30 grind, perfectly tolerable.
Plus, if one subscribes to Napster, the pain is free (okay, $14.95 a month).