Some older Christmas recordings that have withstood the test of time

[Bob Womack]

There are some that have staying power and some that don't. I'll offer a few of mine and you join in!



Christmas with the Canadian Brass

Here's 15 tracks of pure class. Entertaining the boss? Put this one on. Of course, it doesn't hurt that it was recorded with the now-defunct Soundstream digital recording system, probably the smoothest-sounding recording system ever. But then it doesn't help that the album was recorded "live" style and you can hear the room after the reverb fades out. But then again, it doesn't hurt that "the room" was St. Patrick's Cathedral. Okay, the pipe organ is a little Baby Huey-esque on "Jingle Bells." But it is a classy CD nonetheless and the high-quality of the recordings doesn't betray the fact that is becoming a bit long in tooth.



A GRP Christmas Collection

Long before there was Steve Vai's Merry Axemas there was Daryl Stuermer wailing away on his guitar on "Little Drummer Boy." Courtesy of David Grusin and Larry Rosin, you are taken on a smooth jazz/rock fore' into the state of the art in digital recording for 1988. You get a nice "White Christmas" from Lee Ritenour as well, and there are a few very nice piano pieces tucked in for good measure. Okay, okay, she's getting a little old these days but it's nice instrumental music that doesn't demand the foreground.




A Christmas Album

Okay, I'm from Tennessee but not living there and "Tennessee Christmas" gets me every time, despite the cheesy early-'80s chorus on the acoustic guitar, so sue me. If you can get over the over-abundance of Prophet 5 synth and Amy's fight to over-come the typical Tennessee flat "i" pronunciation, you'll find a lovely collection of songs performed by a gal still in the optimistic, pre-urban sturm und drang point of her life. By the way, she speaks of that which she knows when she sings, "Well they say there's more snow up in Colorado than my roof will ever see." The cover features her standing in front of one of the lodges at Nederland Colorado's Caribou Ranch recording studio, where the album was recorded. I worked with Amy many, many years later and found her to be a wonderfully gracious person, so my viewpoint on this one is, um, biased on many fronts.



Bing Crosby White Christmas

First-time listeners might cry "oh what pitiful stuff!" and they wouldn't be far off on face value because these are some OLD recordings, many from movie soundtracks and most purolated through a cheese-ball stereo synthesizer for release on CD. Truth be told, I cringe every time this one plays through my expensive speakers. But dig a little deeper with me if you will. Do you like the movie Christmas Story? Every time Ralphie's family is listening to carols on the radio, they are listening to something from this album. That should be enough... But if it isn't, we can point to the fact the Bing Crosby was possibly the single greatest financial and spiritual force behind the rise of high-fidelity recording after WWII when he funded the first American magnetic tape recording machine company, Ampex. From his drive to create better quality recordings rose everything we know now in the recording industry.


Okay, its your turn!

Bob