sounds of Christmas

Christmas Music is very important to me partly because I'm a Christian, partly because I'm a musician but mostly because music has always been an important part of my Christmas celebration. The following are some of my favoirte Christmas songs most with a suggested performer who seemed to perfectly capture the mood, theme, or messaage of a song.

* O Holy Night, performed on the December 4th, 2006 episode of Studio 60 on Sunset Strip by a group of New Orleans musicians. The trumpet is played by Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews. It is a perfect performance of a perfect song. You can see the performance on YouTube or as a free download, tromboneshorty.com or on a Christmas CD sold by Barnes & Noble titled Sunday Music 5: Holiday. The Studio 60 web site used to have a video of the pure performance without the additional scenes from the episode.

* Please Come Home for Christmas The Eagles. When the Eagles released this single, not too many rock bands had Christmas singles. They offer a great performance of a great Christmas love song. For me, their performance edges out the Charles Brown original, but just barely.

* Santa Claus is Coming to Town Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. Pure fun. Great live performance.

* Happy Xmas John & Yoko and the Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir. But really, this is John's song, everyone else is window dressing. Lyrically and musically it's not the most interesting song he ever wrote, but it fits with the season.

* The Christmas Song Nat King Cole. Of course there needed to be some traditional Christmas music on this list. This is the performance of a master. All other performances of this song are a tribute to the master.

* White Christmas Bing Crosby but I really prefer the performance in the movie, too bad the sound track is different.

* Blue Christmas Elvis Presley. Have to include the King. I love to get crowds to sing this as an "elvis-a-long" with people trying to imitate Elvis.

* Linus & Lucy Vince Guaraldi Trio. Of course the entire soundtrack is great but this is really the main theme.

* Do They Know it's Christmas? Band Aid. Above average performances of an average song but it serves the purpose.

* Christmas Time is Here Again The Beatles. They were talented musicians who could be very serious about music and worked hard in the studio but could still have fun.

* In the Bleak Mid-Winter No particular artist. This is one of my favorite Christmas hymns.

I could keep going, but every entry needs to stop somewhere...
Happy Christmas