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I was rather disappointed with the first Skaggs Family Christmas album because there was way too much “family” and not enough Ricky. It appeared that Ricky was more concerned with providing a platform for his kids rather than pleasing hardcore Ricky Skaggs fans. Appears that may be the situation here once again so I will likely pass on this one.
One of the things I really dislike on holiday albums are newly written instrumentals. What’s the point? Those songs have no definitive connection with Christmas and become nothing more than filler. If an instrumental is to be included it should be a recognizable Christmas/holiday/winter song or don’t waste your time. I’ll only skip over it and I’ll bet most others will too.
Agreed that though Emmylou’s “Light Of The Stable” is a hard version to top I must give credit to the Judds for their excellent rendition. Released on the now out-of-print 1984 RCA various artists compilation album “A Country Christmas Vol. 3” (RCA 5178-2-R) that track was not included on the Judds’ 1987 Christmas album. It’s worth searching for.
Ricky released a recording of “Children Go” (aka “Children Go Where I Send Thee”) as the final track for his 1983 Sugarhill/Epic album “Don’t Cheat In Our Hometown.” Extremely well done. A promotional single of that tune was released to radio stations and garnered substantial holiday airplay in the mid-1980’s when Ricky was burnin’ up the charts.
I have that RCA volume with the Judds track and it is very good. Not quite as good as Emmylou’s but a close second.
I don’t mind that Ricky is sharing the spotlight with the family; it’s clearly labeled as a Skaggs Family project and not a Ricky Skaggs album. As for the new instrumentalists, people complain that Christmas albums all have the same songs on them, so I can’t really object to an attempt to offer something new. 🙂