Album of the week
Here's the cool Yule music with which your parents—or grandparents—drove their own folks bonkers. Commandeering the Victrola and spinning these platters, the kiddies turned somber holiday parlors into swinging dance parties. Even a cheerfully familiar ditty like "Jingle Bells" sounds subversively modern when Duke Ellington guides the sleigh. And what did the oldsters say in 1936 when they heard Louis Prima bleat "What Will Santa Claus Say When He Finds Everybody Swinging?" Other unearthed gems include ultrahipster Miles Davis's "Blue Xmas (To Whom It May Concern)" and Lambert, Hendricks & Ross's rendition of Walt Kelly's Pogo Christmas theme, "Deck Us All with Boston Charlie." The biggest surprise is Honeymooner Art Carney sounding like Will Smith rapping " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas," back in 1954.
Bottom Line: Deck the halls and have a ball
George Strait (MCA Nashville)
A successful Christmas album's most important quality is a warm, ingratiating performer. Like Bing Crosby, Elvis, Johnny Mathis and Randy Travis before him, Strait generates a cozy, gather-round-the-fire mood. So appealing is Strait, in fact, that he compensates for this album's discomfiting song selection. There are such familiar, reassuring holiday tunes as "Jingle Bell Rock" and "The Christmas Song." But there are also bizarre, way offbeat songs such as the palindromic "Noel Leon." Even the title song has a bittersweet subtext, suggesting someone trying to make the best of a post-breakup holiday. Of course there's no law against new Christmas songs, but these take some getting used to. Fortunately for Strait, he has a reservoir of affection on which to draw.
Bottom Line: Playing it not so Strait
Ringo Starr (Mercury)
In their early years together, the Beatles made it an annual practice to send specially recorded holiday greetings to fan club members, wishing them a happy Christmas "and a very New Year." Ringo carries on the merrymaking with a batch of traditional songs ("Winter Wonderland," "The Little Drummer Boy") and six shuffling rock and country originals he cowrote with producer Mark Hudson. Although the sitar sampled on "Pax Um Biscum (Peace Be with You)" sounds an awful lot like the work of George Harrison, none of the other surviving Beatles appears here. But Ringo does reprise the Fab Four's 1967 ditty "Christmas Time Is Here Again," abetted by bagpipers billed as "Those Darn Scotsmen" and featuring a guitar solo by Aerosmith's Joe Perry. As always, Ringo's drumming is rock steady, and his flat, nasally and earthbound vocals somehow manage to charm.
Bottom Line: Winning, with a little help from his elves
A Holiday Collection
Jewel (Atlantic)
Since her bestselling CDs tend toward the syrupy and overwrought, it's no surprise that Jewel's first foray into holiday music is both sugary and earnestly spiritual. Jewel's strong soprano catches and breaks on such beloved Yuletide faves as "Joy to the World" and "Silent Night" and gives the tracks a New Agey, I-feel-your-pain tone. To her credit, Jewel manages to find some of the ho-ho-ho in the hokum, especially on a playful rendition of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," which she sings with her soul-mate mother, Nedra Carroll. The album is so beautifully arranged and the presentation of songs so tasteful you can almost smell the roasting chestnuts. But you will wish that veteran R&B producer Arif Mardin had provided a little more oomph. Sweet and heartfelt though it is, the collection is also just a tad dull.
Bottom Line: Flawed Jewel
Riders in the Sky (Rounder)
Don't expect grannies stampeded by reindeer or even mommies bussing Santa Claus. For while the usually jokey Riders are Nashville's satirists in residence, this album is mostly straight holiday material, titles like "Sidemeat's Christmas Stew" notwithstanding. "Corn, Water and Wood," for example, is a variation on gold, frankincense and myrrh, with three American Indians in the wise men roles. The funniest track advances the Riders' idea that all holiday songs are based on "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow" by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne. "Let It Snow/The Last Christmas Medley You'll Ever Need to Hear" provides evidence for the premise. The Riders' playful humor never draws blood and consistently entertains.
Bottom Line: Seasonal chuckles from faux cowboy Santas
>MY CHRISTMAS ALBUM Various Artists (MCA) For more funky merrymakers, Mary J. Blige, Gladys Knight, Patti LaBelle, K-Ci & JoJo and others pack soul into Santa's sack.
A VERY SPECIAL CHRISTMAS LIVE! Various Artists (A&M/Interscope) Eric Clapton and Sheryl Crow star in a '98 Special Olympics benefit at the White House.
CHRISTMASTIME IN VIENNA Plácido Domingo, Patricia Kaas, Alejandro Fernández (Sony) You'll wish you were there with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
>Boxed Sets
'Tis the season for another flurry of career retrospectives; PEOPLE'S Steven Cook sifts for the treasures.
The Linda Ronstadt Box Set Linda Ronstadt (Elektra)
The pop chameleon who began her career as a hippie-chick singing in a '60s rock band (the Stone Poneys) has since gone country, sung standards with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, belted out Broadway show tunes and warbled boleros with a marimba band. Through it all her gorgeous voice has run as clear as an icy mountain stream. This four-CD set traces her evolving career from "Different Drum" through her incandescent duets with Aaron Neville, Emmylou Harris and James Taylor.
At the Close of a Century Stevie Wonder (Motown)
When was the last time anyone scored a hit with a harmonica instrumental? Boy genius Steve-land Judkins (a.k.a. Little Stevie Wonder) did it in 1963 at age 13 with "Fingertips (Part 2)." Since then he has proven he can sing some too. These four career-spanning discs demonstrate why he remains, at 49, one of pop's true wonders.
Box of Pearls Janis Joplin (Legacy)
Cheap Thrills indeed. On that 1968 album with Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Texas blues queen turned "Piece of My Heart" and other tunes into shards of pure emotion. All four albums that Joplin made before her 1970 death, plus unheard tunes, make this box burn.
Yes I Can! Sammy Davis Jr. (Rhino)
This four-disc set should finally rescue Davis from Billy Crystal's Mr. Showbiz parodies. Ballads, swing tunes, standards and show numbers, the vaudeville hoofer turned Rat Pack crooner handles them all with polished grace. Pure finger-poppin' magic, baby. Yeah!
Songs of Freedom Bob Marley (Island)
This reissue of a long-unavailable 1992 boxed set chronicles the career of the reggae avatar whose influence is heard today—18 years after his death from cancer—in pop, rock, R&B, funk and hip hop the world over. Four CDs with 78 songs track his evolution from Kingston, Jamaica, soul singer to politically charged Rasta icon. "Get Up Stand Up" and dance.
- Contributors:
- Steve Dougherty,
- Ralph Novak,
- Amy Linden.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
