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2007
Gift Guide
Recordings
Holiday
ear candy for a variety of tastes
Box
Sets
 Nothing
says “Merry Christmas; I spent a buttload on you” like a big
fancy CD box set. And nothing says “exhaustive” like a 10-CD
David Bowie box that begins its coverage in 1995. The
David Bowie Box Set (ISO/Columbia) really has no right
to adopt such a matter-of-fact moniker, considering its start
point is three decades into the guy’s career, but count your
blessings—it could have started at Tin Machine. This
exhaustive buttload repackages the hall-of-famer’s last five
studio albums—Outside, Earthling, Heathen,
‘hours...’ and Reality—in neat- looking vinyl-replica
digipak cases, each with an extra CD of remixes, cover tunes,
and alternate takes. While some of the music herein is afflicted
by flavor-of-the-month production values (only someone who’s
been in a coma for a decade and a half would recognize 1995’s
Lost in Space Mix of “Hallo Spaceboy” as anything other than
bad house music, and the phrase “Moby Mix” pops up all too
often), on the whole this set is a fine examination of Bowie’s
continued evolution late in his career.
Future hall-of-famers Radiohead (Do I sound like I’m joking?
Check back around 2018) famously self-issued their latest
album, In Rainbows, in October in a pay-what-you-will
digital format. For those who coughed up the 40-odd British
pounds, the discbox version of this excellent album, featuring
all sorts of artwork, a vinyl pressing of the album and an
extra CD of new music, should be arriving right about . .
. now. (You can still order the behemoth at inrain bows.com,
by the way.) Meantime, in a clear attempt to cash in on confused
surfers, EMI/Parlophone, with whom the band’s contract recently
lapsed, is pushing the new Radiohead Box Set.
The seven-disc box includes each of the band’s previous six
studio albums, as well as their so-so live release I Might
Be Wrong. The entire catalog is also available as a 4GB
USB stick in the shape of that freaky cartoon bear that adorned
all of the band’s marketing in the early ’00s. What’s missing
here? A collection of the band’s excellent B-sides, which
are worthy of their own box set.
 I
Wanna Go Backwards (Yep Roc) is a fine look at the
initial post-Soft Boys work of Robyn Hitchcock. Three of his
solo records—Black Snake Diamond Role, I Often Dream
of Trains and Eye—are revisited here, with some
remastering to accommodate the records’ varying sound quality;
two discs of rarities are added to up the ante. For listeners
of psychedelic-tinged folk, Backwards is a picture
window to the mind of an artist that The New Yorker
calls “an important link in a chain that connects acid casualties
like Syd Barrett to modern troubadours like Devendra Banhart.”
Bonus: Yep Roc has also issued an eight-disc vinyl
version of the set.
This should appeal to about, oh, 200 people: The Fall
Box Set 1976-2007 (Castle) is the first retrospective
of its kind for the venerable British punk (for lack of a
better term) group. Although the set has been tagged as spotty,
much like the band’s very career, this five-disc compilation
includes an impressive array of singles, unreleased material
and album tracks, with the fifth disc chronologically reviewing
the group’s live work (including a cover of the New York Dolls’
classic “Jet Boy”). The handsome brick-orange packaging is
intended as a companion piece to the 2005 set The Complete
Peel Sessions 1978-2004.
Among the various-artists sets hitting the shelves this season:
Vee-Jay: The Definitive Collection (Shout! Factory)
traces the steps of the pre-Motown soul-R&B label responsible
for “Duke of Earl” (Gene Chandler) and the first U.S. Beatles
singles (which are, unsurprisingly, not included here). The
Brit Box: UK Indie, Shoegaze, and Brit-Pop Gems of the Last
Millennium (Rhino) reviews the 120 Minutes
era from across the pond, with tracks from a number of definitive
British acts (the Smiths, Blur, the Jesus and Mary Chain)
and some that will make your musical memory do a full-on spit-take
(the Family Cat! Gene! Moose!). And The Heavy Metal
Box (Rhino) is a big ol’ horned-hand salute to the
origins and genesis of that which we call rawk, from
“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” to Sepultura’s “Dead Embryonic Cells.”
(The set ends in 1991, because that’s when metal stopped being
any good.) The packaging is fashioned after a Marshall amp
head, with a turnable volume knob that, you guessed it, goes
to 11.
—John
Brodeur
 Classical
By
far the most significant release of the past year was Glenn
Gould: The Original Jacket Collection (Sony Classical),
a bargain-priced 80-CD set that collects all of the pianist’s
Columbia releases in paper sleeves that reproduce the original
LP cover art. The accompanying 250-page booklet is crap, with
more (and often embarrassing) cover art in place of liner
notes and discographical cross- referencing, but to have so
much of Gould’s absolutely unique work in one place (including
some fascinating audio interviews) is a treasure. And you
can add to it a six-CD set, Glenn Gould: The Young Maverick
(CBC), which offers airchecks from 1952-55, none of it in
great fidelity, but including incredible live performances
of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations and Berg’s Sonata. And for
a sense of Gould the (incredibly strange) man, try Glenn
Gould Trilogy: A Life (Sony Classical), a four-hour
radio play by Michael Stegemann with many musical illustrations
that pays homage to Gould’s own skilled work in radio.
Also in the completist realm is the 17-disc box Jacqueline
Du Pré: The Complete EMI Recordings (EMI), featuring
all of the cellist’s works for that label. She puts her amazing
sound to work on the big concertos—Dvorák, Elgar, Schumann
and others—with conductors like Barbirolli, Boult, and, of
course, husband Daniel Barenboim, who is also her piano partner
in sonatas by Brahms and Beethoven as well as trios (with
Pinchas Zukerman) by Beethoven and Ravel.
Checking in, as I like to do each year, with the Mahler
department, there’s a big-sounding, rousing, sensitive
Mahler: Symphony No. 3 (CSO Resound) with Bernard
Haitink conducting the Chicago Symphony (love that brass!).
Das Lied von der Erde gets two very different-sounding
performances, first on a SACD-enhanced reissue with Fritz
Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony in a recording that
debuted with phase-shift errors, errors discovered (and painstakingly
corrected) on this release, Mahler: Das Lied
von der Erde (RCA Living Stereo). Great work by contralto
Maureen Forrester. The revival of the Dorian Recordings label,
now based in Virginia, gives us Mahler/Schoenberg:
Das Lied von der Erde the Schoenberg chamber orchestra
arrangement, with Kenneth Slowik conducting the Smithsonian
Chamber Players.
Chamber music highlights include the return of an old master
and the charge of some young turks. Leon Fleischer
joined with the Emerson Quartet—all familiar to local Union
College Concert Series audiences—in a recording of Brahms’
Piano Quintet in F Minor coupled with his three
string quartets on Brahms: Quartets (DG). It’s
gorgeous, honey-rich playing. Violinist Renaud Capuçon and
cellist Gautier Capuçon join pianist Frank Braley for Schubert:
Piano Trios 1 & 2 (Virgin Classics), works that
demand the closeness of ensemble this threesome delivers.
Dmitri Kabalevsky’s music can grow tiresomely predictable,
but his Preludes, Op. 38 and Preludes, Op. 5, remain
quirky and worth rehearing, as the Pavane label recording
Kabalevsky: Preludes by pianist Christoph Deluze
makes clear. Pianist Fred Hersch is known for his work
playing and writing jazz, but an album of some more formal
pieces—Concert Music 2001-2006 (Naxos)—is
a beautiful mix of solo piano and piano trio, with a cello-and-piano
version of his best-known work, “Tango Bittersweet.” This
is an excellent portrait of talented voice.
In the vocal world, British soprano Kate Royal burst
onto the scene at Glyndebourne as a last-minute Magic Flute
cover; she’s also on albums by Ian Bostridge and Paul McCartney.
Her album of songs by Debussy, Canteloube, Strauss, Stravinsky,
Ravel and others, Kate Royal (EMI), brings a
freshness to the well-chosen program, with accompaniment by
the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.
Conductor René Jacobs has been mining the Mozart operas during
the past few years, and now presents his most staggering achievement
yet: a Don Giovanni (Harmonia Mundi) that’s
up there with the best of them, a from-the-ground-up rethinking
of the piece that gives us sensible tempos and a keen sense
of drama, helped along by singers Johannes Weisser, Lorenzo
Regazzo, Alexandrina Pendatchanska, Olga Pasichnyk and others.
A 2006 Glimmerglass Opera success was recorded and, earlier
this year, issued: Stephen Hartke’s The Greater Good
(Naxos), with Caroline Worra heading a terrific cast in this
tuneful but troubling piece, nicely played by the house orchestra
under Stewart Robertson’s direction.
We had a local tie-in with Joan Tower’s Made in America
(Naxos), an orchestral work that debuted in Glens Falls
and was then performed around the country. It spins a fascinating
texture out of “America the Beautiful” without slipping into
the mawkishness of the original. The accompanying works, “Tambour”
and Concerto for Orchestra, complete a fine recording
by the Nashville Symphony under Leonard Slatkin.
In other orchestral recordings, pianist Martha Argerich
turns in a sprightly reading of Shostakovich/Piano
Concerto No. 1 (EMI) on a disc fleshed out with an
equally dynamic version of that composer’s Piano Quintet
in G Minor, and, as a bonus, the less-often-heard Concertino
for Two Pianos. Violinist Nigel Kennedy goes to
a way-less-often-heard place with Polish Spirit
(EMI), featuring late-romantic concertos by Emil Mlynarski
and Mieczyslaw Karlowicz, along with a couple of Chopin nocturnes,
accompanied by the Polish Chamber Orchestra.
Is there a more familiar piano concerto than Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in Blue? Jon Nakamatsu turns in
a stunning performance that makes you forget the familiarity,
on a Harmonia Mundi CD with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra
letting us know they’re a top-flight band. Gershwin’s Concerto
in F and Cuban Overture complete the disc.
—B.A.
Nilsson
Alternative/
Indie
Let’s
get this out of the way: Bruce Springsteen’s Magic
(Columbia) is, for reals, a very very good album, and your
best bet for a catch-all stocking stuffer. No, it’s not “alternative”
or “indie,” but it’s the one late-2007 release that I could
honestly recommend to everybody. Metroland’s Erik Hage
put it nicely in his October column: “Thematically and musically
[Magic] yields so much that even the greatest Springsteen
detractors or nonlisteners could use this as a starting
point.”
And maybe the Boss is more alternative than you think. For
starters, he shares the cover of this month’s Spin
with Win Butler, front-giant of Canada’s Arcade Fire. And
that band’s Neon Bible (Merge) is one of several
indie releases this year to owe a clear debt to Springsteen—although
it’s probably the only to reference both Springsteen and Joy
Division. Yes, I know, you already stole it off OiNK, but
if you’re feeling a touch of holiday guilt and looking for
redemption, pick up the deluxe-CD or double-LP package.
Having showed us his inner Dylan time and time again, Conor
Oberst revealed his inner Bruce on this year’s Bright Eyes
release, Cassadaga (Saddle Creek). While certainly
too long—the 13 tracks clock in at over an hour—it’s the most
consistent Bright Eyes record yet, with Oberst’s elliptical
turns of phrase rarely getting the best of him. His development
as both a writer and singer has really been something to behold
over the years, and this is the first time when the heaps
of critical praise he’s amassed seem fully justified. And
don’t worry, longtime fans: He still plays the Dylan card
here, especially on album highlight “When the Brakeman Turns
My Way.”
The biggest little indie film of the year hits DVD shelves
this month; naturally it spawned a fine, fine soundtrack.
I’ll stand by my assertion that Once (Columbia)
is one of the best music films ever made, thanks in no small
part to the fine songs and singing of Glen Hansard and Markéta
Irglová. Fans of the film and its stars will without a doubt
want more, so when you’re gift-wrapping up that DVD or soundtrack
CD for your intended recipient, consider including a copy
of The Swell Season (Overcoat), the Hansard-Iglová
album from which a number of the film’s songs were drawn,
or The Cost (Anti), last year’s release from
Hansard’s band of 17 years, the Frames.
Speaking of discovery, the soundtrack from the Steve Carell
vehicle Dan In Real Life (Virgin/EMI) provided
many viewers’ first interaction with genre-hopping Norwegian
musician Sondre Lerche, who performs 15 of the soundtrack’s
16 songs. Lerche, only 25, already has four great albums under
his belt, including this year’s feral power-pop announcement
Phantom Punch (Astralwerks); recorded with his
backing band, the Faces Down, Punch is a world apart
from its predecessor, 2006’s jazz-pop excursion Duper
Sessions (Astralwerks). Lerche’s music is categorized
as “pop/indie/jazz” on his MySpace page; he might be the one
artist besides Elvis Costello who self-identifies as such
without screaming “I sound like Sting!” (Because he doesn’t.
Just to be clear.)
Finally, lest this seem like a boys’ club, I give you former
Delgados member Emma Pollock and her excellent Watch
the Fireworks (4AD). There’s a little something for
everyone here: “Acid Test” is fiery, guitar-driven indie-rock;
“Paper and Glue” is a bit of jangle-pop that calls to mind
the Pernice Brothers; “Limbs” is a delicate acoustic ballad;
“Adrenaline” transfers part of the “Limbs” progression to
piano for a Coldplay-in-a-good-way rocker. All of it is bound
by Pollock’s sweet, airy voice, not to mention some superb
songwriting—her melodies develop like origami, folding in
new directions to create new musical shapes before turning
into something entirely different than expected. Fireworks
is simply a wonderful album.
—John
Brodeur
 Beyond
Genre
The
holiday season brings a respite from our village’s lone ice-cream
truck and its incessant loop of irritating faux-good-cheer
melody that’s too thin to really even be called a song. Happily,
I’m not alone in my frustration. While he won’t be stealing
into Greenwich to slash the tires of the offending vehicle,
Michael Hearst has done something much more magnanimous: He’s
created a CD titled Songs for Ice Cream Trucks
(Urban Geek). Opening with a piano figure that calls to mind
Sly and the Family Stone’s “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” he
utilizes glockenspiel, melodica, electronic chord organ, theremin,
Casiotone, guitars, bass, drums and judiciously deployed chorus
vocals. The 13 tracks clock in at just over a half-hour, and
one needn’t be either an ice-cream truck driver or even an
ice-cream enthusiast to be lulled into contentment on a par
with lying on a hammock on a summer day.
Who
Knew Charlie Shoe? (Cuneiform) by Richard Leo Johnson
and Gregg Bendian offers a diverse set of pleasures. Johnson
is an imaginative acoustic guitarist who delights in applying
his inclinations to more than the just the music. Teamed up
with percussionist Bendian (who used everything from sheet
metal scraps to pans of water), Johnson has created a backstory
for Charlie Shoe, whom he even credits as the guitarist on
this instrumental set (percussion is credited to one “Junk
Fish”). This is not Johnson’s first fictitious alter-ego;
his previous album was last year’s The Legend of Vernon
McAlister. McAlister’s name had been scratched into
the side of the 75-year old steel guitar that Johnson had
acquired, prompting him to create a sketchy biography and,
most importantly, a set of historically mysterious and timelessly
beautiful music. With his latest character as a springboard,
Johnson has done so again.
Safe
Inside the Day (Drag City) is the third album by Baby
Dee, but the first that I’ve encountered. The piano-based
songs are idiosyncratic in both construction and execution,
but utterly friendly. Though not always sounding so, Baby
Dee is a woman. Her register and phrasing obscure gender,
though this doesn’t seem to be any sort of purposeful obfuscation,
just her artistic inclination. There’s a theatrical quality
to her singing, with a basis in character giving heft to the
peculiarly alluring lyrics. Like songs from some lost musical,
there’s a purposefulness to the entire presentation that bespeaks
of a bigger picture than what can be surmised form the duration
of one song. Now in her 50s, Baby Dee was born in Cleveland
and is a classically trained harpist, and though that instrument
is not in evidence here, the complexities of classical construction
inform the instrumental underpinnings, allowing her voice
to dart about with passionate abandon. Among contemporary
acts, this album brings to mind Danny Cohen, though with much
deeper resonance, as well as Johnny Dowd, though without his
rural scratchiness. Among previous pop-world rule-breakers,
there are shades of Tiny Tim, minus his nostalgic repertoire.
Black
Mirror: Reflections in Global Musics (1918-1955)
(Dust-to-Digital) offers two dozen recordings from the first
half of the 20th century. All were transferred from rare 78s,
most never having appeared on CD before. The varied music
reflects the ongoing search by compiler Ian Nagoski (who owns
a record store in Baltimore) to be moved by recorded performances
from around the globe. Eschewing geographic organization,
he makes musical connections unique to the particulars of
his collection. Consequently, a Buddhist prayer sung unaccompanied
by a Laotian man is followed by a 10-year-old Swedish boy
playing the zither and singing a song composed by a socialist
poet from Finland. These juxtapositions are testament to the
thoughtfulness and keen ears of Nagoski.
Britain’s Sonic Arts Network (www.sonicartsnetwork.org) has
released its latest installment of book and CD. This 10th
volume, titled Periférico: Sounds From Beyond the Bubble,
again uses a guest curator, this time the Angolan composer
Victor Gama. The 15 tracks were created by artists from Lebanon,
Iran, Colombia, Egypt, Palestine, Angola, Brazil, Cuba, Peru
and Ukraine. Far from being a compilation of so-called “world
music,” these pieces tend to explore the sonic traditions
and contemporary possibilities found in their cultures. The
accompanying booklet further examines the themes in the audio
tracks, as well as presenting visual works by Lebanese artist
and musician Mazen Kerbaj. This ongoing series, while requiring
listeners to bring something of their own intellect to the
table, invites and rewards at every turn.
—David
Greenberger
 Folk,
Blues, Bluegrass, and Celtic Music
You’re
tired of scouring the malls and surfing the Web looking for
gift ideas for a folk, blues, bluegrass, or Celtic-music fan,
aren’t you? Somehow I just knew, so let me ease your holiday
quest with some CD suggestions for these genres.
One of this year’s more unlikely folk collaborations is the
new release from Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant and 20-time
Grammy winning bluegrass fiddler and singer Alison Krauss,
Raising Sand (Rounder). Both artists had to
stretch their skills to pull off this project—Plant had never
sung harmony and had to soften up his vocals considerably,
while Krauss was new to blues singing. The result—13 tracks
of country, folk, blues, gospel, and R&B material by Tom
Waits, Townes Van Zandt, the Everly Brothers, Sam Phillips,
and Mel Tillis—made critics’ 2007 hot lists. Among the contributing
artists on this T-Bone Burnett produced gem are guitarists
Marc Ribot and Norman Blake, and multi-instrumentalist Mike
Seeger, among others.
Back in the early 1920s, the first blues records featured
female singers accompanied by Dixieland bands. Veteran folkie
Maria Muldaur, who got started singing in Greenwich Village
folk coffeehouses in the early 1960s and went on to record
with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, has completed a trio of tribute
albums to blues singers from the 1920s through 1940s with
Naughty, Bawdy, and Blues (Stoney Plain). Backed
by James Dapogny’s Chicago Jazz Band, an authentic New Orleans-sounding
outfit, this latest disc focuses on 1920s singers. Muldaur
delivers luscious renditions of songs from Bessie Smith, Ma
Rainey, Alberta Hunter, Sippy Wallace, Ethel Waters and Victoria
Spivey. Bonnie Raitt guests on one track also.
By the 1950s, the newly electrified blues had taken up residence
in Chicago. For fans of South Side-style blues, there is a
new Muddy Waters CD, Breakin’ It Up, Breakin’ It Down
(Legacy). This was compiled from a series of late-1970s
live shows with James Cotton and Johnny Winter, who produced
a series of albums for Muddy shortly after Waters left Chess,
his longtime label, in 1976. Also playing on these 11 blues
standards are pianist Pinetop Perkins, drummer Willie “Big
Eyes” Smith, guitarist Bob Margolin, and bassist Charles Calmese.
Winter is in exceptionally good form here, so his fans, as
well as Muddy’s, will want this one.
For aficionados of bluegrass and old-time string-band music,
the all-female quartet Uncle Earl have a release that will
fill a holiday stocking nicely. Waterloo, Tennessee
(Rounder) was chosen for the title of this 16-track offering
after one of the band members thought she saw a roadside sign
for the town while they were traveling through the Volunteer
State. The place was probably Waterloo Falls, but no matter—what
they got right is the plain singing and fancy picking and
that have won them national acclaim. For this record, banjoist
Abigail Washburn, mandolinist-bassist-guitarist KC Groves,
fiddler Ranya Gellert, and guitarist-fiddler Kristen Andreassen
went to British producer John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame,
a move that paid off with a 4 1/2-star Amazon.com customer
rating. Waterloo encompasses fiddle tunes, songs ranging
from the slow and mournful to the fast and lighthearted, and
even a shape-note hymn that evokes early American church music.
Along with fellow Californian Buck Owens, country icon Merle
Haggard forged the Bakersfield sound, a return to the pedal
steel and fiddle-led instrumentation that dominated country
music in the late 1940s and early 1950s, augmented by the
Fender Telecaster. This year, though, Hag decided to do his
first-ever bluegrass album, The Bluegrass Sessions
(McCoury). With a crack band led by mandolinist-guitarist
Marty Stuart sitting in a circle with Merle, the group recorded
a 12-cut live CD that features tunes by Jimmy Rogers and the
Delmore Brothers, as well as some remakes of Hag’s hits, and
four new originals. Even though the album lacks some of the
flashy picking you’d expect in a bluegrass disc, Haggard’s
insightful songwriting (only Hank Williams Sr. is ranked above
him as a lyricist here) is why this one is worth it.
Kevin Burke is a master of the Sligo style of Irish fiddling,
and has played with the Celtic supergroups the Bothy Band
and Patrick Street. His new effort, Across the Black
River (Loftus) is an exuberant outing with guitarist-composer
Cal Scott, containing 10 tracks of pure fiddling bliss. Burke
and Scott serve up a well-chosen and-arranged batch of both
traditional and freshly minted reels and jigs, as well as
a Bill Monroe tune and a lament by Scottish accordionist Phil
Cunningham for his late brother, fiddler Johnny Cunningham.
Burke and Scott have an obviously swell time playing together,
which adds immensely to the record’s appeal. Sidemen include
accordionist Johnny B. Connolly, Michael McGoldrick on flute,
and bassist Phil Baker.
—Glenn
Weiser
Christmas
Music
If
you only buy one holiday CD this year, think about buying
Flame’s Holiday Classics (Whitelake Music
& Post). The 11-piece band have built a following because
(1) they’re inspirational (the members have varying developmental
disabilities) and (2) they can play. Lead singer Michelle
King is better than 99 percent of the lead singers in 99 percent
of local bands 100 percent of the time. And the album has
all the songs you know and love. For info, visit flametheband.com.
Scottish lass KT Tunstall has slipped Have Yourself
a Very KT Christmas (EMI/NBC), a six-song EP, into
stores in time for stocking stuffin’. The song selection is
unimpeachable. Best are the plaintive rocking of “Christmas
(Baby Please Come Home)” and the English music-hall take on
Bing Crosby’s Hawaiian Christmas ditty, “Mele Kalikimaka.”
If the arrangements of the Pretenders’ “2000 Miles” and the
Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” hew too closely to the originals,
Tunstall’s rough-hewn crooning does not disappoint—though
when Ed Harcourt, her duet partner on “Fairytale,” sings about
“the rare old mountain dew,” he seems to be longing for that
last can of soda in the fridge.
At the top of this season’s reissue list is Christmas
Wish: Deluxe Edition (Clang!) by NRBQ.
The original Rounder EP has been augmented with assorted live
tracks and such, resulting in something seriously goofy—as
you would expect. The tracks were recorded over a 30-year
period, but the mood and sound coheres because, well, NRBQ
are all about timelessness.
If you saw the Vince Vaughn vehicle Fred Claus—which,
judging by the box office numbers, few of y’all did—then you
might have noticed, in between yuks, that the seasonal music
was pretty good. Which means that Fred Claus: Music
From the Motion Picture Soundtrack (Warner Bros.)
is excellent. Eight decades of holiday cheer are liberated
from the vaults, allowing one to enjoy the varied likes of
Doris Day, the Jackson 5, Russ Morgan, the Ronettes, Elvis
Presley and the Waitresses. And, surprisingly, by the time
Sinead O’Connor’s lovely but doleful take on “Silent Night”
is over, one is delighted to hear Guy Lombardo and His Royal
Canadians.
Ohio-based Christian rockers Relient K have delivered
a thoroughly pleasant power-pop album of standards; if they
play more of the religious-themed faves than usual on Let
It Snow Baby . . . Let It Reindeer (Capitol), it’s
not just to be expected, it’s a relief. I like “Angels We
Have Heard on High.”
If none of these tickle your fancy, Bing Crosby’s White
Christmas (formerly Merry Christmas) has been
continuously in print since the late 1940s.
—Shawn
Stone
sstone@metroland.net
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