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While music fans sometimes look to the
usual glut of new holiday albums with something approaching trepidation,
in understandable fear of being inundated with garbage, surely
this album will be met with anxious joy - just like those presents
on Christmas morning.
Holiday music is a paradoxical sure thing
and caustic trap in the music business. Sure thing in that the
material is never going to be taken as esoterically inaccessible,
trap for the fact if you are a pretty face with sorry vocal chords
who has hidden behind billion dollar production values in your
last 10 hits it's sure as hell gonna show when you try to belt
out the chromatics in the beginning of "Away In A Manger,"
or hit the stratospheric heights of "O Holy Night."
But we fans of Martina knew she didn't
have anything to worry about. Her voice is a treasured rarity.
Its supple, huge, wide-ranging and powerful enough to be operatic,
but its got enough grit, soul and dirt from her home state of
Kansas to always be country. This album is a joy, despite it
being nothing but standards. Her "Have Yourself A Merry
Little Christmas" is a charming reading that recalls fellow
country Chanteuse Crystal Gayle's standard country cover of the
song. Her "Let it Snow" is as bright and peppy as a
candy cane, and her take on "The Christmas Song" is
a special treat for this reviewer, because everyone has one -
their choice of the Christmas song that they HATE. The only song
that sends more Yuletide nails down a blackboard for me than
this Andy Williams Classic is my own family's incessant billion
fold repetitions of "Up On The House Top" to every
single one of my 8 trillion little cousins as they have their
first toddler Christmases. But Martina's take on "The Christmas
Song" gives it an almost sexy patina that makes me ALMOST
love this song. (ALMOST, don't push your luck Martina and make
me worship you less by singing "Up On The House Top"
on any holiday TV Specials this year.)
The rest of the tracks are jewels. Her
"O Holy Night" (Everyone has one of these too, their
FAVORITE Christmas song, and this operatic thrill takes the cake
for me.) is the most stirring rendition I have ever heard since
John Barry's spine-chilling version on his recent Christmas Album
that even titles itself after this classic. Hearing them both
sing it must be what Angels want for Christmas. "Silver
Bells" and "White Christmas" are lovely takes
on these warhorses by this overwhelmingly talented and beautiful
lady. "Silent Night" is also a hushed beautiful treat
that ALMOST makes me forget my all- time favorite, absolutely
bone-chilling version of this song done by Stevie Nicks on one
of the "A VERY SPECIAL Christmas" albums.
However, being an orchestral musician myself,
I must give my biggest kudos to "Away In A Manger"
and "What Child Is This." Wizard-like arranger and
producer Dennis Burnside has given "Away . . ." an
almost heartbreakingly beautiful and lush string intro, and added
haunting woodwinds to the venerable version of the "Greensleeves"
tune. Not only has he created lovely, lovely music, he almost
achieved the impossible - producing arrangements of these songs
so beautiful they almost distract from the miraculous instrument
in lovely Martina's throat. But again, only ALMOST.
The only thing that is a slight disappointment,
and keeps this album from being a complete bullseye, is that
Martina is SUCH an incredible artist, and despite the fact the
lady has a RIGHT to make albums of only standards if she dang
well wants to, I selfishly wish she would have found one NEW
holiday gem that would rock country radio's world and become
a classic in its own right. Recent examples of what I am talking
about include the wonderful "There's A New Kid in Town,"
done in great versions by both Kathy Mattea and George Strait,
"Merry Christmas, Mary" by Skip Ewing, and perhaps
most stunningly of all, the two years ago smash of Colin Raye's
"What if Jesus Comes Back Like That?" If you, as the
country Christmas fan, do not know any of these tracks, run right
out and find them this season - and while you're at it, grab
this disc. Martina might not make these classics NEW again or
anything, but her stunning takes on these favorites certainly
make you see why they ARE Classics. (Even "The Christmas
Song")
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