Nicky’s Favourite Christmas Albums
As a committed, liberal, and radical Christian, I’m fond of and celebrate Christmas as the commemoration of the birth of Jesus and as a reminder of our hope for the future. Although my father wouldn’t let my mother go to church until I was fifteen and I was raised non-religious, Dad did allow Mom to have a manger scene and tell the Christmas story on Dec 24 every year. Otherwise, we mainly did secular Christmas, and I loved it as a child. Part of the Christmas season was its music. We had a few record albums, though not many, and the radio was on a lot. Listening to our old Firestone albums as an adult, I find I no longer have strong feelings about them, but Joan Baez’s Noël is still a favourite.
I have a collection of more than fifty Christmas CDs I’m fond of, mainly Early Music, folk, classical, and jazz. One of the first CDs I purchased at the end of the eighties when I got a job and could afford a CD player was the Taverner Consort’s Carol Album. No country and western—normally I’m a big Bruce Cockburn fan, but his Christmas album is too country for me—no pop stars, and no Bing Crosby. I like his voice, but not his Christmas repertoire other than “White Christmas.” Below is my list of favourites. Lots of them are Dorian Recordings and many are from the 1990s and early 2000s. Nowadays not everyone produces CDs and somehow my later acquisitions didn’t make this list…too much trouble to go through the mp3 folders, perhaps. There is a fair amount of Canadian content. I’ve listed them in order of original release, whether that was on LP or CD (in one case, I’ve only got a cassette version and I list that).
So, if you’re looking for something a little different from “Frosty the Snowman” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” see if a title here appeals to you enough to check out on iTunes or YouTube!
Nat King Cole, The Christmas Song (1963)
I have a 1986 CD rerelease of the 1963 re-do of the 1960 LP. The album goes beyond the popular “Christmas Song” (“Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”) and is mostly traditional European carols. Cole should not have tried to sing “O Tannenbaum” in German, but his wonderful warm voice is perfectly suited to the material here.
Joan Baez, Noël (1966)
Baez’s quirky voice over gorgeous arrangements by Peter Schickele (yes, aka PDQ Bach!). Lots of haunting minor keys and a mix of standard carols with lesser-known early ones such as “I Wonder as I Wander.”
Boston Camerata, Medieval Christmas (1975, rereleased on CD)
What I love about this one is the mix of carols with readings in Middle English. It’s an Early Music classic.
Loreena McKennitt, To Drive the Cold Winter Away (1987)
While it sounds like just about every other Loreena McKennitt album, it’s nice to have those dreamy harp sounds for winter and Christmas music.
Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band, A Tapestry of Carols (1987)
I only have this one on cassette, from the days before I could afford a CD player, but you can get it now on YouTube. Like other albums by Prior et al., strong vocals, replica medieval instruments, and dancing rhythms. Not all the carols are medieval! They do a nice job of setting “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” for example.
Sneak’s Noyse & The City Waites, Christmas Now is Drawing Near (1988)
There are only seven tracks on this album, but they’re all five- to ten-minute sets (recorded in the same studio as Tapestry of Carols). This is lively old British folk music played exuberantly and dancingly. Lots of insistent drone sounds in the arrangements.
The Taverner Consort, The Carol Album: Seven Centuries of Christmas Music (1989)
While there’s a serious flaw in the recording in that the first track is at a much lower volume than the rest, this is a very strong collection and so well performed! They make a point of using pronunciations appropriate to the era and source culture. My favourites are “Glory to God on High,” from an 1805 New England publication, and “Stille Nacht” (“Silent Night”) performed with the original tune—it wasn’t meant to go up that high at the end!
The Toronto Consort, Nowell Sing We: A Treasury of Renaissance Christmas Carols (1991 expanded rerelease)
Early carols from five different European traditions, plus “The Huron Carol/Iesous Ahatonnia” in the original Huron (not the awful English version stuffed full of native stereotypes). I like all the tracks on this one!
The Chieftains, The Bells of Dublin (1991)
One of the Chieftains’ collections with various guest performers: in this case, I give special shoutouts to Jackson Browne (for “The Rebel Jesus”), Elvis Costello (for “The St. Stephen’s Day Murders”), and the McGarrigle sisters (for a set of French carols). Varied and lots of fun.
Ottmar Liebert, Poets and Angels (1991)
Spanish guitar, sometimes with a Moorish feel to the arrangements. It works together as a nice whole, and I forgive his inclusion of “Jingle Bells.”
Anonymous 4, On Yoolis Night: Medieval Carols and Motets (1993)
I love anything Anonymous 4 does! They’re an a cappella group that does both early music and Americana.
The Baltimore Consort, Bright Day Star: Music for the Yuletide Season (1994)
I think I own every album the Baltimore Consort ever made, and this is one of my favourites. Custer LaRue is outstanding on vocals, and I especially like “The Cherry Tree Carol” (the only Christmas song to suggest that Mary had pregnancy cravings?) and “Hey for Christmas!” (a broadside ballad from the seventeenth century in which a party gets wilder and wilder).
Ensemble Corund, Navidad Ibérica: Spanish Christmas Music and Villancicos from the Renaissance (1997)
This album includes not only the obligatory “Riu, riu chiu,” but also quite a lot of Tomas Luis de Victoria, rich and uplifting.
Simon Shaheen, Tarun Bhattachanya, et al., Nomad Christmas (1997)
Lively blend of lots of Middle Eastern and South Asian sounds with a wide range of Christmas songs from different traditions.
The Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Christmas Attic (1998)
From their series of rocked-out narrativized collections, this one is my favourite. It’s mostly original compositions, but also includes strong rock versions of some traditional carols, including “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” and “Angels We have Heard on High.”
The Barra MacNeils, The Christmas Album (1999)
Comforting Canadian folk album. I’ll highlight “Christmas in Killarney” and their renditions of “Carol of the Bells” and “Old Lang Syne.”
Robin Bullock, Al Petteway, and Amy White, A Midnight Clear: A Celtic Christmas (2002)
A lovely collection that’s now hard to come by, mostly strings (guitar, mandolin, harp), gentle and charming.
Metropolitan United Church, Gaudete! (2002)
The second album by all the choirs and bell groups of this large Canadian church, and it’s my favourite largely because of the inclusion of a wonderful Early American setting of “Sons of the Morning.”
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If you got down to the end of the list, here are a couple of bonus singles, especially for people who feel blue at Christmas: Greg Lake, “I Believe in Father Christmas” (1975); Stan Rogers, “First Christmas (Away from Home)” (1979)