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Various Artists

Home for Christmas

Voices from the Heartland

(Rounder Records; US: 16 Oct 2007; UK: 22 Oct 2007)

There’s too much Christmas music. Period. Although no kid can ever get too many Christmas presents, it doesn’t take long for most adults to overdose on holiday sounds. That’s because so much of it is assembly line, prepackaged junk. In stark contrast, the natural sounding Home for Christmas: Voices from the Heartland is such a welcome addition to the seasonal music section of your CD rack. These are blues, country, and folk songs that come from the heart instead of the pocketbook. You just gotta love hearing Sam More, one of the original soul men, welcoming St. Nick with “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”, and Deana Carter giving us a new version of “The Christmas Song”. Granted, Leon Redbone sounds weird as always, even with “Blue Christmas”, but he’s also fun in small doses.  Furthermore, there’s the classic Charles Brown take on “Please Come Home for Christmas”, and a horn-drenched “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” from Roomful of Blues. And best of all, it all feels like home.

Rating:

Dan MacIntosh is a freelance writer from Bellflower, California, “The friendly city”. He’s married with two children, two cats, one dog, one bunny, and one bird. He earned his B.A. degree in Communications (emphasis Public Relations) from California State University, Fullerton in 1986. By day, he works for a software company (Ah, but doesn’t everybody these days?), and in the evenings he works at Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts where he is hardly recognizable in a suit and tie. He also dearly loves his church, Calvary Baptist Church, Bellflower, where he is a deacon, a praise choir member, and a small group leader. He also plays guitar, but mainly in the privacy of his home.


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