Songs for the Christmas Season 15

Some soulful tunes for this blog post. First up is my favorite version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by Ray Charles. There is just no funkier version of this song that I know of!






And next is Ella Fitzgerald with "Good Morning Blues" from her 1960 Christmas album.

Songs for the Christmas Season 1

I'm a huge fan of Christmas music. It is a dying art, though. Nowadays many pop artists put out Christmas albums, but the music feels more like someone going through the motions. Fulfilling recording contract obligations. Doing the same old tired songs. Sounding very uninspired. Rare is the new track which captures the essence and feel of Christmas Magic. I'm sure most Christmas music aficionados would agree the we are not currently living during the apex of recorded holiday music. That was years ago. Certainly there have been great new songs recorded in the last few decades and perhaps even great new versions of standard Christmas tunes. And there are some great, harder-to-find new albums that don't fit the 'pop' moniker, thus reducing their visibility and marketability. But I think we would agree the pinnacle of recorded holiday music is from the 1940s to the 1980's. Before the 1940's there was much recorded Christmas music to be found, but its sonic quality can make it very difficult to listen to. After the 1980's, well, recording technology became exceptional but musical inspiration for this genre was way past its peak.

The good news is that those five decades left us an amazing collection of Christmas jewels in so many genres of music. And today I will start sharing some of the ones I really like. For my first post I will have two country-pop songs which kind of remind me of each other.

First up is Tanya Tucker doing "Christmas to Christmas"





And next is Vince Vance & the Valiants with "All I Want for Christmas is You"





Don't you think these two songs should always be played back-to-back?