Holiday Music: Bruce Cockburn

As we emerge from the Thanksginving weekend and enter into the high holiday season, I must admit that I am a total uncrtical fan of holiday music (primarily Christmas tunes given my upbringing). I have a kind of embarassing amount of holiday music and I am really pretty resistant to hearing too much of it during December. Don't ask me to listen to a single track before Thanksgving, but after that, it is my primary set of music.

As a result, it will be unavoidable for me to not write about it since it will represent the majority of what I will listen to for the next month. However, in the interest of hopefully keeping the small random group of TR readers coming back, I have developed a kind of "advent strategy" to posting about holiday music. I am going to limit myself to one disc a week leading up to Christmas. My goal is to give you one pop/rock influenced album, one jazz, one classical, and one "classic" holiday disc--the last category providing me the opportunity to post on anything I want as long as I deem it a classic. See how that works?

Okay, so let's get started. My first offering is Bruce Cockburn's 1993 release simply named Christmas. If you like Cockburn's music and you like holiday tunes, this is a must have. It is all acoustic, just in case you were worried that Bruce might bust into one of his rocking rages where he tears into the commercialism of the holiday--his point is more subtle here. This album is focused on the history of this music and on conveying a real sense of belief in the best of this season.

He travels through music to give us 16th century Spanish music, to "The Huron Carol" from the 1600's in Jesuit influenced Canada, to a host of traditional carols. But this is no world-music disc as the music really feels like a group of musicians sitting around with guitar, fiddle, dulcimer, harp, accordion and more re-telling these stories and celebrating something quite spiritual through their interpretations of these songs.

The arrangements are the key with gospel and blues being the driving genre. Cockburn's folk sound (here with a heavy dose of French-Canadian feel) mixed in with his usual story-telling orientation creates a certain sound that is simple and joyful.

Here are a few samples. The first is "Early on One Christmas Morn" which Cockburn reports first hearing on an anthology of early gospel recordings--this one by The Cottontop Mountain Sanctified Singers (dig that name!). The second is one of my favs "I Saw Three Ships". Lastly, there is "Les Anges Dans Nos Campagnes" which you will quickly recognize as "Angels We Have Heard on High" which is a traditional French carol from the 18th century, but as Bruce notes has a "rhythmic groove . . . written right into it."

I think these will give you a sense of what makes this album so special.

Early on One Christmas Morn Buy Album
I Saw Three Ships
Les Anges Dans Nos Campagnes

Merry Christmas All

Here is this year's pick for classic holiday album of the year. Guaraldi's music on the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas (buy album) has the ability to transport me to my childhood and all the nostalgia of the those holidays like no other album and that is a wonderful thing. And now I get to watch my own children and their excitement and wonderment during this time of year.

May your day be peaceful and warm and full of fond memories and the glee of young children.

Skating
Christmas Is Coming
Christmas Time Is Here
Greensleeves

Three to Consider: Hidden Holiday Treats

I am still happily preoccupied with seasonal activities (and less happily still dealing with work too close to the big day). So here is a lazy offering to fill the time let's take a look at a new category--holiday tunes that appear on regular albums as opposed to included on entire holiday albums. They just sort of pop-up on these albums.

In many cases, I am not a big fan of these as they seem terribly out of place to me. For instance, one of my all time favorite jazz artists is Dexter Gordon and one of my favorite tunes of his is "The Panther" which is on the album with the same title (it is also the reason our big black and white cat's name is Dexter). Anyway, in the midst of this album comes Dex's version of "The Christmas Song." It is a great version and, in fact, leads off a nice jazz holiday compilation album I have . . .  but it is totally out of place there.

Now this is surely part of my over-the-top rules about holiday music which shall never be played before Thanksgiving our after New Year's Day (really, that is enough isn't it?). Of course, as with all hard-and-fast rules, there are exceptions and here are three of mine. The key to all of these very different tunes is that they all work as holiday songs and as songs on the albums they appear on.

First up, we have The Waitresses with "Christmas Wrapping"--and this is a bit of stretch since it was first released as an EP, but I have it where I suspect many do which is on their Best Of album. So we find it mixed in with other holiday favorites such as "I Know What Boys Like" and "They're All Out of Liquor, Let's Find Another Party." And yet, it works--perhaps cuz it is so eighties danceable, who knows.

Next we have an absolutely beautiful retelling of the Christmas story from Bruce Cockburn. No sap here, just a great storyteller putting his spin on a narrative that has been told a million times. I love, in particular, how he characterizes Joseph as the miffed-jealous partner and how Mary sets him straight. "Cry of a Tiny Babe" sits in the midst of a great Cockburn album Nothing But a Burning Light which is held together by a theme of searching for the character of a man's soul (and for Bruce, I do think it is about a man's character), which is perhaps why this fits so well.

And last, we have Chrissie Hynde singing "2000 Miles" from the Pretenders Learning to Crawl album. This tune is really a song of love and longing, but the use of Christmastime as a place-holder for happier times and the snow imagery make it a fine holiday tune, although it also serves as a wonderful closing tune to this album.

Christmas Wrapping
Cry of a Tiny Babe
2000 Miles

Holiday Music: Squirrel Nut Zippers

The first two installments of holiday music have been beautiful acoustic albums, so let's step it up a bit. One might suggest that this week's installment would be better categorized as a jazz album rather than a pop influenced album, but my sense of the Squirrel Nut Zippers is that they were always about making their brand of jazz influenced music popular.

The SNZ have always been true to their wonderful mix of Dixie-influenced jazz that has a certain bluegrass feel to it and always has that great feel of music made in the mountains of Carolina. Their holiday effort is no exception. On top of that, this effort has that feel of musicians who grew up and experienced the holidays through the lens of the 1950's or 60's. The beauty here is that you know this is all history and a passing down of tradition.

So put on SNZ's Christmas Caravan, stir up a batch of egg nog, get out your Lionel train set and imagine yourself in the snow covered southern appalacian mountains and enjoy some holiday fun.

Squirrel Nut Zippers (Buy Album)

Winter Weather
Carolina Christmas
Hot Christmas

Holiday Music: Shawn Colvin

Not that I think anyone is paying that close attention, but I am going to change the holiday music posting approach. I am still going with the advent approach--that is, a post a week for the four weeks leading up to Christmas for all you heathens. However, rather than doing the various genres I suggested last week, I am going to stick with one type of music for this year (pop/rock influence) followed by a final post on a classic album. If we are still around next year we will take up another genre or style--jazz, classical, compilations, etc. All of which is to say, we are sticking with pop/rock influenced holiday album this week (as if you didn't know that from the title).

This week's pick is influenced by the weather (and of course my attachment to the album). Yesterday started cold (about freezing) with blue skies but quickly became a gray day with low December light. Mid-afternoon brought a light snow that continued into the night and left a skiffof snow on the ground this morning with flakes still swirling in the air. We spent the weekend doing holiday errands, putting up a few tasteful outdoor lights (in case anyone is taking video), building fires, making lists, walking in our little snow, and drinking eggnog (and a few other holiday spirits).

Shawn Colvin's Holiday Songs and Lullabies was made for just such weather. Calm and peaceful like a first December snow, Colvin arranges a host of wonderful songs on this 1998 release.  It has the potential to be a sugary holiday overload, but Colvin's sincerity and vocals (that could make the phonebook sound like great lyrics) overcomes any such worries.

Now this album is slow with little attempt to be anything else, so don't try it on unless you aren't ready for some quietude. I surely have a soft spot for it since I have been listening to it for the last eight years which has, for at least six of them, involved rocking small boys to sleep, so it has been the perfect holiday album. But a fire on a cold night and your favorite sippin' and a good book (or blog) is the perfect companion for this holiday album.

The song choice is also key. There are some traditional tunes here (e.g. Silent Night), but a good number of the songs are not ones you will hear on your local holiday radio station, or, frankly, on other holiday albums. So all you peaceful folks or new parents looking for an album to quiet the little one in your home, here are a few samples to put you in that seasonal and contemplative mood (0r you can just Buy the Album).

In the Bleak Mid-Winter
Love Came Down at Christmas
Little Road to Bethlehem

Three to Consider

Recently picked up the July 2008 copy of UNCUT which comes with one of those fun sampler discs and this one was particularly nice--like just arriving in a college town and hearing a good local rock station. Three tunes off of it definitely caught my attention and made me add to my Potential Acquisitions list (okay, they made me start it--down there on the right yo).

First up is Fleet Foxes. The sample is "Mykonos" from the Sun Giant EP, although they have also just released their self-titled debut album which also earns a very positive review in the mag. The minute you hear them, you think CSN&Y. Think acoustic guitars and layered harmony. UNCUT's reviewer talks about the hymnal quality of their music evoking the American wilderness, which if this track is any indication is a very apt description. Sounds like a perfect pick up before we head up into the cool woods of Michigan later this summer.
Update: Review of Fleet Foxes show here in DC.

Second up is the self-titled second album from The Felice Brothers. The tune is "Frankie's Gun" which judging from the YouTube traffic is getting a lot of attention. They also did a set at Bonnaroo this year, so expect to hear more from these three brothers and their friend "Christmas" from the Catskills. Neats' first reaction when she heard it was "Dylan." That is a good call both in terms of the vocals and the basic storytelling, but they are a bit more clanky, carnivalesque (probably the accordion that makes me say that), and seedier sounding to me--more Tom Waits-like in approach.

Third (or saving the best for last) is Bon Iver--otherwise known as Justin Vernon. The song is "Skinny Love" which you can find all over the place out there on the nets. Good review of the album and a download of the tune is over at IndieMuse. Lots of comparisons to Iron and Wine out there, but he also reminds me of late Chris Whitley in his Dirt Floor acoustic mode. What I like is the simplicity and clarity of the recording and the bareness of the guitar and his lyrics--it really does sound like something just laid down in a room in a cabin in the woods.

That is it. They are all new to me so we will see what we think when we get full discs.

Christmas in July

I know a few people who will be excited to get their hands on the trippy holiday DVD from The Flaming Lips.