Part Three of our "Sounds of the Season" music recommendations comes from Mark Hudson, Adult Services Librarian and today's guest poster:
I usually wait until December to start listening to holiday music, and the music I like tends to be fairly traditional -- old hymns and spirituals, jazz and rhythm and blues from the 1950s and 1960s. Even the newer music I listen to is strongly roots-based, as you can see from my list of favorites:
-- Oy Chanukah! (Klezmer Conservatory Band)
I'll start with Hanukkah, because it always comes before Christmas. Oy Chanukah! includes lively klezmer versions of traditional Hanukkah songs, interspersed with reminiscences and explanations of Hanukkah traditions from immigrant elders and other sources. If you're looking for just one CD to celebrate Hanukkah, this is probably the one.
Request Oy Chanukah! from the Catalog
-- Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah (Klezmatics)
In 1942, the renowned singer-songwriter and folk musician Woody Guthrie moved to Brooklyn. Through his mother-in-law, the influential Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt, he became involved with the Jewish community, and wrote songs about Hanukkah and other aspects of Jewish history and spiritual life. Woody's Hanukkah lyrics sat forgotten in archives for decades until they were rediscovered in 1998 by his daughter, Nora Guthrie, who asked the Klezmatics to write new music for them. Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah deftly mixes klezmer with country, bluegrass, funk and jazz in a collection of songs that's almost certainly destined to become a perennial holiday classic.
Request Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah from the Catalog
-- A Christmas Celtic Sojourn (Various Artists)
This album and its sequel, Comfort and Joy, have become two of my favorite Christmas music compilations. Musicians from all parts of the Celtic world perform an idiosyncratic mix of ancient and modern songs on traditional and modern instruments. Some of these songs are ethereal and contemplative, some are more raucous, but they're all beautiful and quite unusual -- definitely "off the beaten path," musically speaking. Even the few better-known melodies in the collection (e.g., "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear") are given unique interpretations and sound nothing like the more commonly-heard versions.
Request A Christmas Celtic Sojourn from the Catalog
-- Christmas in Bethlehem (Bach Choir of Bethlehem)
The Bach Choir of Bethlehem, PA was organized in 1898 and is the oldest Bach choir in the United States. This collection includes some well-known Christmas hymns, along with many others you may have not heard before!
Request Christmas in Bethlehem from the Catalog
-- Soul Christmas (Various Artists)
This absolutely must-have collection is a 1991 reissue, which includes eight of the eleven tracks on the original 1968 release, plus eleven newer songs from the vaults of Atlantic Records. The artist list comprises some of the most illustrious names in soul/R&B history: Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters, Carla Thomas, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, The Impressions, Otis Redding, Joe Tex, Solomon Burke, King Curtis and more.
Request Soul Christmas from the Catalog
-- Christmas Spirituals and Beautiful Star (Odetta)
Odetta, who Martin Luther King, Jr. once called "the queen of American folk music," recorded Christmas Spirituals at Carnegie Hall in 1960. In 1987, she re-recorded the same set of thirteen traditional and original spirituals in Burlington, Vermont, and the resulting CD was issued under the title Beautiful Star. The earlier recording is rougher, the later one more heavily produced. Both are magnificent.
Request Christmas Spirituals from the Catalog
Request Beautiful Star from the Catalog
-- Verve Presents: The Very Best of Christmas Jazz (Various Artists)
This is a collection of classic Christmas songs from the catalog of Verve Records. If you love jazz, this is the Christmas record for you! Artists presented include Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Eckstine, John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Dinah Washington and Oscar Peterson. Fitzgerald's version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" leads off the CD and is, without a doubt, my favorite version of that song ever recorded. Coltrane's version of "Greensleeves" is likewise not to be missed.
Request Verve Presents: The Very Best of Christmas Jazz from the Catalog
