The best part of the holiday season is the music. The songs are familiar, but because I only listen to them for about a month a year (despite corporate radio’s best efforts to stretch Christmas into October), they don’t get old. My first favorite Christmas album was A Frank Sinatra Christmas. Frank’s brash, jazzy takes on the holiday standards, like the opening track “Jingle Bells,” really set the mood for the season.
Frank Sinatra – Jingle Bells (YSI) (filesavr)
So many artists have done the Christmas thing, to varying degrees of success. This year, it’s Bob Dylan and Sting. A year or two ago it was James Taylor. Most of these albums are inconsistent at best, but, over the past several decades, some recordings have really shone. One is the Phil Spector album about which Zack wrote yesterday. And then, also from the 60s are two tracks from Otis Redding, “Merry Christmas Baby” and “White Christmas,” As Otis can do no wrong, it’s no surprise that they’re terrific. If only Sam Cooke had taken a swing at some holiday standards…
Otis Redding – Merry Christmas Baby (YSI) (filesavr)
Otis Redding – White Christmas (YSI) (filesavr)
There's so much good Christmas music out there, from Sinatra to Sufjan, and I hope you enjoy whichever songs are your favorites this holiday season.
2 comments:
It almost happened. Sam had bounced the idea of a Christmas album off of his family members when he visited Chicago in the summer of 1964, but it never came to fruition before he passed that December.
Erik Greene
Author, "Our Uncle Sam: The Sam Cooke Story From His Family's Perspective"
www.OurUncleSam.com
Wow, what an album that would have been. And to know that Sam was thinking about it... wow.
Thanks for the info Erik, and thanks for reading.
Ben
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