5 comments about Christmas with Chanticleer - An Orchestra of Voices.

1. Beware... This is a very talented group that only a small minority of people will ever appreciate. Their artistic take on Christmas is cold. There was little to enjoy visually on the DVD. I did not like the song selection or poetic license taken. This is a group of tenorists that are more interested in precision than passion. I had to laugh.



2. A DVD from a live performance, you'll be amazed at the outstanding performance from this group, and charmed at the simple Christmas quality it delivers. (None of the overblown, sequin-filled extravaganzas that bury you in forced Christmas cheer.)
   It you enjoy the reflective warm feeling of Christmas, this is the DVD for you. You won't hear musical performances better than this.



3. Christmas with Chanticleer was originally a Christmas gift from my son and became a gift for several friends who had a love of music as we do. I first listened/watched this DVD as we were together Christmas morning and had to completely stop the festivities to focus completely on the music and the movement on the DVD. Chanticleer's style is pure and transporting. The venue - the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC - was the perfect venue for resonance and mystery. The music was haunting and lovely. A favorite.



4. This was Chanticleer prior to the departure of most of its members, and their sense of ensemble, nuance and dynamic shading are a wonder. A group can only achieve that kind of precision and sensitivity by singing together for months and years. They have so refined the art of listening to one another that they phrase and breathe almost as one organism rather than 12 separate singers. Some of my favorite selections are Rosas Das Rosas, Village Wedding, Christmastime Is Here, and the spirituals medley of Joseph Jennings at the end is both exhilarating and inspiring. My only minor disappointment was that one solo and refrain of Biebl's Ave Maria were ommitted in the editing .. perhaps they had an off night in this performance of it. I heard them perform it live in their first Carmel Mission performance and it was stunning.



5. I happened upon this performance on PBS several years ago and was mesmerized. The music itself is gorgeous, but listening to it while viewing the Medieval and Renaissance art is exquisite.
   
   This is a must-have in my Christmas collection, and I have bought it for several friends as well!

3 comments about Ki Ho'alu Christmas: Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar.

1. This is a beautiful collection of holiday music artfully performed and creatively arranged. I find myself playing it throughout the year! You won't be disappointed, in fact, you'll love it.



2. I have this and the 2000 Hawaiian Slack Key Christmas cut. Both are fabulous but if you had to choose one, I'd favor the 1996 cut for the sweet, mellow sound... the old style.



3. I love slack key and the condition of this CD is awesome. The timely manner in which I was notified of its pending delivery and the delivery itself was very satisfactory. Thank you Amazon and all those who are a part of this family!
   
   Mahalo,
   
   Jeanne

No comments about Christmas Dinner.

5 comments about Christmas at the Biltmore Estate.

1. This video was absolutely marvelous. Eveyone should not only enjoy Judy Collins beautiful voice, but the beautiful Christmas songs she chose to share with everyone. The great pictures of the Biltmore Estate were breathtaking and a place that I plan to visit at some time. It it my hope that there will be a multitude of people who purchase this DVD, and take the time to just sit back,relax, and enjoy the beautiful music and Ms. Collins back up orchestra which was excellent. I am so happy that I purchased Christmas at the Biltmore Estate.
   Barb Hall, San Angelo, Texas



2. I had purchased the video and the CD previously. I found both of those outstanding so decided to purchase a number of the DVD's as Christmas gifts this year. Judy Collins is one of a kind and the Biltmore House is one of a kind. They are both first class and leave a lasting memory. Thank You for having them available. Maureen Johnson



3. I have really enjoyed the DVD and CD of Judy Collins---Christmas at the Biltmore Estate. I first saw it on PBS a number of years ago and have wanted it since. Very satisfied with this product.



4. Biltmore is a classically beautiful setting for a classic Judy Collins performance. The Charlotte Children's choir is a perfect accompaniment and the audience participation is delightful. Collins is in great voice and the dvd is extremely well done with selections that are not included in the cd version of the same concert.



5. WOW.....What a voice. What a story teller. What a choice of songs. This is the ultimate Christmas Music DVD. Judy Collins is a class act. This is absolutely beautiful. I highly recommend it.

No comments about Vaughan Williams: Folksong Arrangements.

1 comments about Christmas Rappin.

1. 1. Jingle Bells - MC Globe
   2. Deck the Halls - Afrika Bambaataa
   3. O Come All Ye Faithful - Rondu
   4. Twas the Night Before Christmas - MC Globe
   5. We Wish You a Merry Christmas - Pow Wow, John Henderson
   6. Twelve Days of Christmas - Pow Wow, Knakisha Wilson
   7. Silent Night - Lasheyta Dominique Thomas
   8. The First Noel - Jermaine Thomas
   9. Hark the Herald Angels Sing - Pow Wow
   10. Christmas to a Go-Go - Pow Wow

5 comments about Billboard Rock N Roll Christmas.

1. A couple harder to find classic rockers"Queen","Foghat",and "Canned Heat" make it a good pick.Packaged with many very good standards by which all rock n' roll yule tuneage should be judged is party delight.Besides the finale takes you back to a time when you cared less and a smile came easy.



2. There is much to commend "Billboard Rock N Roll Christmas," starting with the opening track of Queen's "Thank God It's Christmas." Billy Squier's "Christmas is the Time to Say 'I Love You'" and George Thorogood & the Destroyer's "Rock and Roll Christmas" certainly get the place hopping. But then we have Weird Al Yankovic's "Christmas at Ground Zero." Now, I love Weird Al and I know all the words to this song, but it is just out of place in this collection (and I have expressed similar concerns on other Christmas collections when a novelty song is thrown into the mix). Then we are back on track with Foghart and some old chestnuts that have been roasting on the fire for a long time with offerings from the Kinks, the Beach Boys, and Canned Heat. Then we have Cheech & Chong's "Santa Claus and His Old Lady" routine. At least coming at the end of the album it is not as much of a distraction, but I find it impossible to believe Billboard could not have come up with a couple of other choice rock 'n' roll Christmas songs without the comedy. Those caveats aside, this is a solid little Christmas rock collection that should easily add five songs worth having to your music library, not to mention a classic Cheech & Chong routine.



3. I'm not sure how these particular songs came to be chosen for this CD. The Billboard CD series supposedly features the highest charting songs, based on the Billboard music charts. Well, most of the songs on this particular CD didn't make the Billboard charts at all! Only the Billy Squire, Beach Boys, Canned Heat and Cheech & Chong tracks actually charted. They really should have included Bruce Springsteen's "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" and John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War is Over)", but they probably were unable to license those particular songs. But to be fair, Billboard didn't have Christmas charts every year, so many of the songs here probably would have charted if Billboard published Christmas charts during the years the songs came out. Regardless of all that, this is a good collection of rock and roll Christmas songs. Not perfect, by any means, but still a solid collection.



4. This is one a series of "budget" releases covering various aspects of Christmas to be released over the years by Rhino/Wea in conjunction with Billboard, all with 10-tracks each and liner notes in the form of track-by-track comments. Sound quality is generally good to excellent. All have "Billboard" as part of the title.
   
   Some others are: Family Christmas Classics; Top Christmas Hymns; R&B Christmas Hits; Greatest Country Christmas Hits; and Greatest Christmas Hits (1955-Present), and Christmas Hits (1935-1954). Some of the foregoing are also offered in 4-pack and 5-pack editions. In essence, some of these are the one you have to have if you want to recapture the delightful seasonal sounds of your childhood (assuming you're old enough to recall the periods covered).
   
   This one, however, seems to have been thrown together under the theme "R&R Christmas" without a lot of thought given to the 10 tracks in that regard. For starters, I certainly don't think that either Weird Al Yankovic's Christmas At Ground Zero or Cheech & Chong's Santa Claus And His Old Lady can be construed as R&R. They are both funny, and the last one even charted over four different seasons (1971 to 1973 and 1998), but it seems they would have been better placed in a volume dealing with Novelty cuts. There are certainly enough like that to fill out a 10-track release.
   
   Among the rest, the ones most are likely to recall are Christmas Is The Time To Say "I Love You" by Billy Squier, which reached # 9 on the Billboard Christmas Charts in 1984, Little Saint Nick by The Beach Boys, a # 3 in 1963 and # 6 in 1964, and Canned Heat's Christmas Blues, a # 18 in 1968. None of the others will likely trigger any memories, especially the obscure version of All I Want For Christmas Is You by Foghat, although I must say it's hard to believe that Rock And Roll Christmas by George Thorogood & The Destroyers did not make any charts when it first came out!
   
   Hard to figure why they didn't fill out the album with true R&R Christmas tunes like Bryan Adams' Christmas Time (# 4 in 1985), Jingle Bells by Booker T. & The MG's (# 20 in 1966), Please Come Home For Christmas by The Eagles (# 18 in 1978), and The Man With All The Toys by The Beach Boys (# 3 in 1964). Now THAT would have made this a 5-star entry.



5. I shouldn't have bought this because I dont' even listen to it anymore. I bought it cuz Queen was on it and other good songs but that was it. Most of the songs weren't really great.

5 comments about The Christmas Spirit.

1. My brother bought this in vinyl the Christmas of 1964. I was only 10, but the words of "The Ballad of the Harp Weaver" and "Christmas as I Knew It" became indellibly etched in my mind. I had completely forgotten the album until Johnny Cash passed into glory and I started remembering our old albums. The old Sun recordings were some of his best early work. I don't think any other artist has had a greater effect on the American Music Scene.



2. My parents gave this album to me along with Jim Reeves Christmas album in the early 60's and they both remain standards in my home. I wore them out on vinyl...and then on cassette. At a time when artists performed the standard holiday classics the Man In Black stepped outside the norm and put down some of the most beautiful and moving holiday music not equalled in my opinion. "I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day" stuck in my mind and gave me the courage to stand on that schoolhouse stage and sing it solo when i was afraid to even speak in front of class. "Ballad Of The Harp Weaver" continues to be a source of hope and consolation more so now that when i first heard those haunting words many years ago. Johnny Cash had the ability to put you there by singing from the heart and personal experience. If traditional holiday music is what you want you can't get any better than this.



3. one of the songs has the line "Sorry I'm Crying/My brother Jim's dying/Ring a bell for Jim." Hey, but it's Cash-- what do you expect? Very slow, but some of the songs are good. I'm happy



4. Since this is the second Johnny Cash Christmas CD I own, I can compare this one, THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT, to his COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CD from 1991. This one is better, in my opinion, but since they are both priced so low, you can buy both on amazon.com for the price of a normal CD, so you might as well do that!
   
   This CD, THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT, has 1996 in the fine print of the CD cover, but other amazon.com reviewers are saying it is from the 1960s, which does agree with the younger Johnny Cash photo on the cover. The CD booklet is just a one-sided insert, and there are no details beyond the names of the song composers.
   
   There are 12 songs for 38 minutes of music on this CD, THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT.
   
   If this CD is from the 1960s, then they did a pretty good job of remastering it for a CD. This is issued by Sony Music, so I think it sounds a little better than the COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CD which is issued by the off-brand LaserLight label.
   
   None of the performances are the same, so you can buy both CDs without duplicating any performance, but Johnny and friends did repeat 3 songs on COUNTRY CHRISTMAS with new performances captured. "Blue Christmas" and "Silent Night" are better on COUNTRY CHRISTMAS, but "Here Was A Man" is better on this CD, CHRISTMAS SPIRIT.
   
   This CD has 3 songs composed solely by Johnny, another traditional one arranged by Johnny, and even one co-written by Johnny and his father-in-law, Ezra "Eck" Carter! June Carter also co-wrote two songs.
   
   "Christmas as I Knew It" is an interesting biographical song about Johnny's Christmas as a kid in Dyess, Arkansas, co-written by June!
   
   "Little Drummer Boy" has a novel focus on the drumming, though it is sparse and a bit strange upon the first listen.
   
   At first I kind of was distracted by the 1950's barber shop quartet styled backing vocals, but then I kicked myself when I realized that has to be the Carter Family ladies for the female vocals! So those oldie styled backing vocals are much more appreciated, but they are still oldies-styled.
   
   Johnny sings lead vocals on all the songs, and the overall feel of the album is calm, with mostly strong, heartfelt lyrics. This is better than the 1991 COUNTRY CHRISTMAS which suffers from being too uneven in quality and tone, with some songs seeming to have little to NONE of Johnny's lead vocals.



5. I bought it on vinyl back in 1964 when I was 14. Played the heck out of it until it was virtually unplayable. Glad that I finally found it on cd, but I wish Sony would have taken some time to remaster/remix for optimum sound quality. It also would have been nice if they would have used the original artwork/graphics. But, I guess for the price you can't have everything. Hopefully, they will re-release this album one day on the Legacy label with deluxe packaging.

5 comments about Peter Pan (2005 Studio Cast) - Leonard Bernstein.

1. This recording is a valuable addition to the music of Leonard Bernstein, but rather an embarassment in the scholarship of assembling a lost show. On the plus side, the music is enchanting, Linda Eder truly stunning in a mix of musical innocence and sophistication, and it is conducted and played quite well. On the negative side, Daniel Narducci's soft baritone has neither enough menace or comedy.
   
   As to reconstructing a lost score, the scholarship is not so hot: what actually existed from the original show and orchestrations? Who orchestrated what among the new pieces? As far as that goes, what of Trude Rittmann and Hershy Kay: who orchestrated what in the original? How does the size of the orchestra on the recording compare to the original production orchestration?
   
   On the music not used in the original, what pieces exist in full and what choices were made in completing others? The recording's notes are woefully inept.
   
   Why use the lovely, but over-inflated, arrangement of "Dream With Me" from the 1977 BY BERNSTEIN revue at the Chelsea Theatre instead of newly orchestrating the extant song sheet? The song, written for ON THE TOWN, needs to fit the song style of PETER PAN's incidental music and not turn into a concert number. In the original production, there were only two Mermaids singing "Neverland." Why a women's chorus with a bad top soprano?
   
   I've always felt the Bernstein score should be available for productions of the play, but this "edition" needs some thought before it's published or made available for performance.



2. For those familiar with the earlier recording of Bernstein's Peter Pan (Arthur/Karloff), the release of an expanded recording of this neglected Bernstein work is a real excitement. The tracks include an indepth study by Frey of the music score, in its wholistic beauty, including even small segments of under a minute. Other works are resurrected, originally cut from the final score; why they would cut "Dream of Me" is beyond me.
   
   However, Eder cast as Wendy does not sit well. Timid, motherly Wendy is not synonymous with big, broadway star. What should be simple songs, as they are written as well as should be sung, are instead aggrandized broadway hits. Yes, Eder has a gorgeous voice, but here a bit misplaced. I much prefer the casting of Wendy in the original recording. However, in favor of Eder, the CD is not replicating the narrative and non-music portions as did the original CD, so the work may as well be a set of disjointed pieces, not a flowing piece of arias and spoken scenes. Therefore, her portrayal of Wendy as a whole is not as crucial had there been a script to read.
   
   The "bonus track" reinstalled an appreciation for the thematic material of the second Chichester pslam. I'm left wondering if there are other restorations to be made from the abandonded "Skin of Our Teeth" project. Here, I have no qualms with Eder's interpretation; soft, delicate, flowing.
   
   This is certainly a hallmark in Bernstein recordings. A must for any Bernstein fan.



3. A fabulous recording-beautifully sung, beautifully conducted
   This world premiere recording of Leonard Bernstein's Peter Pan should win a Grammy. With a steller cast led by Broadway superstars Linda Eder and Daniel Narducci, and fabulously conducted by Alexander Frey (who restored and brought this lost masterpiece to life), this great music sings and dances for the first time. I'm absolutely enchanted and you will be as well.



4. Please allow me to add a few comments about this recording for which Kevin Killian, Michael G. Brennan, Larry Moore and others have already written excellent reviews. I am in total agreement with most of their observations, and a say a hearty "Amen" to Mr. Moore's input regarding the lack of information in the liner notes.
   
   This is not your ordinary PETER PAN, which you will see upon removing the disc from the case. You are now staring into the gaping jaws of a crocodile. Not nearly as popular as the Jule Styne/Betty Comden/Adolph Green version, and far darker, it's easy to understand why Bernstein's version is rarely staged. In fact, it's not really a musical, but rather a play with songs and incidental music. The handful of songs are all performed by Wendy, Captain Hook, and the pirates -- "none for Peter, none for Nana, none for John and Michael." Furthermore, two of the songs included on this recording ("Captain Hook's Soliloquy" and "Dream with Me") were dropped from the original production because they were too difficult for the stars. I guess Boris Karloff just didn't have the chops to sing Hook's "aria."
   
   Bernstein's incidental music also never made it to Broadway, perhaps because of its complexity and challenge to the average Broadway pit orchestra. Instead, Alec Wilder wrote new incidental music for the play.
   
   Alexander Frey conducts what is called the Amber Orchestra, which I assume is the orchestra of the Karlin Theater in Prague, Czechoslovakia, the ensemble he conducts as his "day job." Orchestra and conductor do great honor to the original orchestrations by Trude Rittman & Hershy Kay and also to the additional orchestrations of conductor Frey and others. But, like Larry Moore, I wish the liner notes would have told us who orchestrated what. (You can find all that information on archivmusic.com.) The voices were recorded in New York and later mixed with the orchestra. Broadway goes Eastern European! Similarly, not one, but two Eastern European orchestras ar heard on the recording of SHERRY: the Czech Philharmonic Chamber & the Bratislava Radio Symphony. Pity it's too costly to record orchestras in America.
   
   When it comes to writing music for the theater, no one comes close to Leonard Bernstein. There are multiple recordings of ON THE TOWN, WONDERFUL TOWN, WEST SIDE STORY, & CANDIDE and now we have Alexander Frey and the folks at KOCH Classics to thank for resurrecting and preserving this little known Bernstein score. In addition to Bernstein's Broadway scores, I enthusiastically recommend "The White House Cantata" (assembled from the score of 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE), "The Chichester Psalms," the chamber opera "Trouble in Tahiti," and any of the fine recording of his songs.
   
   I doubt if we'll ever see another composer who will write so beautifully for the American theatre.



5. There is much to recommend about this recording of Leonard Bernstein's incidental and vocal music written for the 1950 Broadway production of "Peter Pan," which starred Jean Arthur and Boris Karloff. Most (though not all) of the vocal music has been commercially recorded before, but the incidental music hasn't been, with one partial exception: track 20 -- "Tinkerbell Sick! Tinkerbell Lives!" -- contains a bit of ballet music from "On the Town."
   
   As is often the case with incidental music for plays, many of the numbers are quite short. Some of the music is nothing special and can't be said to represent Bernstein at anything like his best, but some is quite lovely.
   
   The orchestral performance here is generally very clean and the playing is nicely expressive. Conductor Alexander Frey deserves credit for that, as well for being the person who got this music back out there.
   
   Linda Eder sings Wendy's songs. (Peter doesn't sing at all in this version, which isn't really a full musical.) She understandably eschews her usual style to try to sound like an adolescent girl, singing mostly in head voice and with little vibrato. Because of this, I find her sound rather piercing and somewhat unpleasant at times. While she's putting forth a good effort that I have to admire, I do wish that she had managed to sound less piercing. It's not as if all adolescent girls sound that way when they sing.
   
   I also wish she had managed to convey a bit more specificity in her phrasing of the lyrics. When I listen to Marcia Henderson on the recording of the 1950 production, I hear someone who wasn't much of a singer but who knew how to convey lyrics.
   
   The other major soloist, Daniel Narducci, playing Captain Hook, sings quite well, but he isn't ideal casting. Boris Karloff on the 1950 recording makes much more of the words in the music that he sings (which doesn't include "Captain Hook's Soliloquy," heard on this recording but which was not in the 1950 Broadway production). And Karloff is funny. For one thing, he doesn't have a very pleasant voice so when he sings "Eat blood! Drink blood! Think blood! Dream blood!" to Bernstein's mellifluous melody and tries to sound beautiful, it's funny because he can't manage it. When Daniel Narducci sings it, he does sound beautiful, which is pleasant but less interesting. Narducci sings very nicely and he has the right general idea most of the time, but (as with Eder) his phrasing lacks specificity and he also lacks the sense of ridiculous seriousness that would make him funny.
   
   The male chorus of pirates performs well, but the rougher chorus in the 1950 recording is funnier and more characterful.
   
   "Neverland," a lovely choral number for women, sounds very pretty, but it might sound better still with a smaller chorus that conveyed the words more clearly.
   
   I don't want to be too negative about this recording, which I'm very glad to have. It's an important document, and everyone involved is talented and accomplished and puts forth a good effort. I'm just not sure that all of them were the best choices. Still, there's some very good music here, some of which hasn't been recorded before, so if you're a Bernstein fan, you're going to want this.
   
   Now I'll explain the "don't trust everything you read" statement above: In the booklet for this recording, Alexander Frey writes that "in the original 1950 production, most of the music was actually instrumental underscoring ... that had been composed by Alec Wilder." This is not correct. No music by Alec Wilder was heard in the 1950 Broadway production.
   
   Some time after this recording was issued, Garth Edwin Sunderland (one of the orchestrators credited on this recording) did correct this misinformation in an article that appeared in the Bernstein Society's publication, "prelude, fugue and riffs." Sunderland wrote:
   
   "For the original cast recording, Bernstein's instrumental numbers, for reasons unknown, were replaced with new cues by Alec Wilder (which has led to the misconception that Bernstein's incidental music was not used in the Broadway production)."
   
   A number of people knew all along that only Bernstein's music was heard in the production, among them the writer on Broadway musicals Ken Mandelbaum, who mentioned it in his online review of the recording. It's odd that both Frey, who was said to have done years of research to restore the score, and the people in charge of the Bernstein estate didn't know such basic information. If such a basic part of the research wasn't done, it's a little hard to trust that the rest of the work was done correctly.
   
   Making it odder is that elsewhere in the booklet, notes by Daniel Felsenfeld quote from opening night reviews that praised Bernstein for his (as one of the critics put it) "excellent musical accompaniment for the action." Surely if Wilder had written the incidental music, the critics would have mentioned Wilder (who was hardly unknown in 1950) as well as Bernstein. So it really is a bit of a mystery why Frey and the Bernstein people didn't realize that Wilder's music wasn't heard in the production.
   
   There's also an incorrect statement in Felsenfeld's notes. He writes that "Captain Hook's Soliloquy" was one of two vocal numbers not in the Broadway production "mostly due to lack of vocal ability on the part of the actors," but the aria wasn't even written till later, specifically for Lawrence Tibbett, who played Hook in a post-Broadway tour.
   
   And it would have been nice if the history of "Dream With Me" had been addressed. As Larry Moore mentions in his Amazon customer's review of this recording, there's reason to believe that it was written for "On the Town," although it was not used in that show. Bernstein wanted to include it in "Peter Pan," but it went unused there as well. When asked about the song many years later, Adolph Green, who wrote the lyrics for "On the Town" with Betty Comden, said that he and Comden wrote the lyric, except perhaps for a few lines that Bernstein may have contributed. Yet Comden and Green receive no credit in the booklet here.
   
   Also, Trude Rittman made important contributions to the score, but they are not mentioned in the notes, though at least she gets credit as one of the original orchestrators.

5 comments about A Joyful Noise.

1. Jo Dee built her success on predominately up-tempo songs recorded in a contemporary country style. I therefore expected that any Christmas album would reflect that, but I realized from other reviews that this album is not like that at all. In fact, this is a generally mellow album, with an orchestral backing used sparingly but effectively. The result is an album that bears no relation to the contemporary country scene, but is nevertheless a very enjoyable listening experience - at least to me, though some country fans will inevitably be alienated. While this is different from Jo Dee's other work, it is an easy-listening musical style that I appreciate in a different way.

   Jo Dee demonstrates that she can sing with restraint as she works her way through a succession of classic Christmas songs. Only towards the end of the set does she loosen up, but even then she does not use the full power of her voice, which is on her other albums. After all the classics, the album ends with two excellent original songs.

   Jo Dee's die-hard fans will accept this change of style as a contrast to her other albums, as will those (like me) with eclectic tastes. If you are looking for a contemporary country Christmas album, this is not it. Likewise, Jo Dee's less committed fans may hesitate. If in doubt, you might be wise to listen to some of it before buying. I thought long and hard before buying this but I'm very glad I did.




2. This CD is really nice at Christmas time. The songs give you a nice feeling since they are new and fresh but grounded in a traditional style. Jo Dee's voice is beautiful and strong - truly a joyful noise.



3. I love Jo Dee Messina but this was not my faviorte Christmas CD. How many artists can possibly do a Christmas album? They all seem to have the same songs on them. I have Leann Rimes Christmas CD and love it because there are more orignal works on it than other CD's. But still this is a great CD for the Christmas season.



4. I like Jo Dee, but I don't think she has the right voice for these songs. Martina McBride's Christmas album, White Christmas, has almost all of the same songs as this one. If you're contemplating buying this album, I would check out Martina's. She did a beautiful job with all of the traditional christmas songs.



5. What a diva. Does it make a difference how many albums she makes if she can't even invite her own mother-in-law to her wedding?