Ladies' Christmas

At Friday, I visited one of my two favorite Amsterdam record stores, Distortion Records, always totally packed with records and (empty and full) boxes, so packed that you barely can find a way through it, and there I picked up three Christmas singles by three ladies. Three ladies who not only released a Christmas single, but also a Christmas album. One released her Christmas album last year, the other two this year.

Mindi Abair & The Boneshakers: All I Got For Christmas Is The Blues
(Pretty Good For A Girl Records, PG45-03, USA, 33 rpm, big hole, translucent red vinyl)

Sax player and singer Mindi Abair teams up with her Boneshakers on her Christmas album ’All I Got For Christmas Is The Blues’. And Santa gave her a lot of blues, in fact, an album full. The title track of the album was also released as a 7”, with another track of the album, ‘The Best Part Of Christmas’, on the B-side. Florida born Abair built a name for herself as a smooth jazz artist, releasing a Christmas song in 2004, ‘I Can’t Wait For Christmas’, and teamed up with Peter White and Rick Braun’ on the 2007 ‘Peter White Christmas’ album – that featured an earlier version of ‘The Best Part Of Christmas’. Abair's career took a complete new turn when she became the resident sax player on American Idol and when she returned with a new group, The Boneshakers, and a new sound. Abair had not only found the blues, but had also found rock. And that can be heard, especially on ‘All I Got For Christmas Is The Blues’: the blues not only is clearly present in the music (with some dirty sounding guitars and organ), but also in the vocal delivery of Abair, that sounds heartfelt and raw. If you are waiting for some saxophone playing, you have to wait a little longer, because ‘All I Got For Christmas Is The Blues’ doesn’t have nor need it. It is good as it is.

Buy the single here
Watch the video on Youtube


Ingrid Michaelson: Songs For The Season B-Sides
(Cabin 24 Recods, CB24302, USA, 45 rpm, small hole, picture disc)

Also Ingrid Michaelson is not new to holiday music. Michaelson was born in New York City in an artistic family, and her father, Carl Michaelson, was a manager at a music publisher and on the side, also a composer - one of his compositions was 'The Praise Of Christmas'. Michaelson came to the attention of the mainstream public when her songs started to be used in Grey's Anatomy and for an Old Navy commercial. Another big success for Michaelson was 'Winter Song', a song she co-wrote with her friend Sara Bareilles. Not only was the song featured on 'The Hotel Café Presents Winter Songs' album and reached the song number 2 in the Irish Singles Charts in 2011, she and Bareilles also performed the song for President Obama and his family at the National Christmas Tree Lightning in December 2010. So it seemed only a matter of time that Michaelson would record a Christmas album. Which was what she did this year. 'Ingrid Michaelson's Songs For The Season' consists of (mostly) cover versions, usual suspects (yes, the song everybody seems to record this year, 'Christmas Time Is Here', is present), but also some less often recorded Christmas classics like 'Looks Like A Cold, Cold Winter' (a duet with Christina Perri) and 'Mele Kalikimaka' (featuring Allie Mos and Bess Rogers). 'Songs For The Season' is a classic Christmas album in every sense, not only in the choice of songs, but also in the execution, that breathes the classic orchestral sound of the 1950s. But don't expect this sound on Michaelson's single, an 'exclusive limited edition picture disc', titled 'Songs For The Season B-Sides'. The single has demo versions, on the B-side of one of the songs of the album, 'Happy, Happy Christmas', and on the A-side a song not on the album, 'December'. Both songs are basically ballads sung by Michaelson accompanied by a piano. Especially on 'December' you doen't miss the orchestration and the top notch production - voice and piano are enough. Michaelson is pictured in wintery wardrobe on the picture disc. Nice to play and nice to look at.
Unfortunately, both songs can’t be found at the internet (yet).


Lindsey Stirling: 7” Holiday Picture Disc
(Concord Records, CRE00824, USA, 45 rpm, small hole, picture disc)

Nice to play and nice to look at, that also goes for Lindsey Stirling’s Christmas single, another picture disc, and just as that of Michaelson, released as part of Record Store Day’s Black Friday Celebration. Stirling released her Christmas album, ‘Warmer In The Winter’, last year, and now the first two songs of the album are featured on the single, instrumental album-opener ‘Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy’ and the B-side and second song, ‘You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch’, featuring vocals by Sabrina Carpenter. The video of the song premiered on November 18, and has now already reached more than 3 million views. Which says something about Stirling’s popularity. Stirling is probably best known as the dancing violinist. She loves playing violin, she loves dancing, and although the combination of playing violin and dancing at the same time seems almost impossible, it is exactly what Stirling has mastered – which can be witnessed in the video. And on the many other videos Stirling has put on her Youtube video channel, which really helped her star to rise, after she first came to the national eye as a quarter finalist in America’s Got Talent. Stirling is not afraid to take her violin through all kind of different styles of music. Her version of ‘You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch’, only the third time the song was featured on a 7” (the first being a 1995 release of Thurl Ravenscroft 1967 original and the second the 2013 cover of gothic punk veterans The Misfits), is a very poppy effort, upbeat, with a lot of brass, seductive sounding vocals by Carpenter and of course, Stirling’s energetic violin playing. This song could definitely become a genuine Christmas hit, it’s catchy enough and Stirling and Carpenter have enough fans to make it happen. B-side ‘Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy’ sounds like the soundtrack of a fairytale, which is no surprise, as in fact, that is what Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker actually was. The video, that already premiered last year, is very fitting, and Stirling really looks like a princess.

Watch ‘You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch’ here:
And ‘Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy’ here: