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It’s a good album but I wish there wasn’t so much overlap with her other Christmas album, as far as the song selection.
Always nice to hear Loretta in good voice and being true to her core sound. I do wish that she would not have remade any of the songs from her 1966 Christmas album and searched out different material. We’ve already heard her do those songs so why not plow some new ground? There are certainly hundreds of other holiday songs to choose from so why devote 50% of a brand new album to songs she previously recorded?
Just an observation – the fact that you can say “I usually find fiddle and steel out of place on a Christmas album, but White Christmas Blue is changing that perception for me” is just another indication of how far country music has gone off of the rails. Used to be that whenever country stars recorded holiday songs they would perform them in their own distinctive style usually backed by their own band. Just because it was a Christmas song they would not switch to Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole musical arrangements. An Ernest Tubb or Buck Owens or Loretta Lynn Christmas song mirrored the style of their other recordings from that period. Granted some country acts such as Eddy Arnold or Ray Price regularly used orchestral arrangements but they did not do so just because they felt it was a requirement for a Christmas recording. Merle Haggard struck a nice balance for his 1973 Christmas album with one side of that LP featuring new original Christmas songs backed by his Strangers band and the other side spotlighted mainstream holiday standards with then-current “Nashville Sound” orchestrated arrangements by the Bill Walker orchestra. One of the most disappointing holiday albums from more recent times was by Lee Ann Womack. Her voice would have been perfect for a traditional country styled Christmas collection but instead she morphed into a jazz/big band singer. It was well done musically but an opportunity missed in my book. Compare that to Patty Loveless who struck the perfect sound for her holiday offering with a solid country/bluegrass collection. If I was a country performer looking to please my fans I would do a Christmas album that mirrors the style of music that I regularly perform. Why try to sound like someone that you are not?
I quite agree, although I really loved Lorrie Morgan’s Christmas album from some years back
Tennessee Ernie Ford’s gospel recordings did not sound much like “Hicktown” or “Shotgun Boogie.”
Yes, but Ford had already abandoned the boogies by the time “16 Tons” hit in 1956. While he didn’t entirely abandon secular music, his secular music had already made a turn toward pop by the time he recorded his albums of hymns. From 1953 forward, much of his secular music featured the orchestra of Jack Fascinato.
I wouldn’t put the heavily orchestrated “Hicktown” in the same category as “Shotgun Boogie”
Besides, hymn do not lend themselves to fiddle & steel guitar. Even in very rural churches they are played on piano or organ
I’ve never considered Tennessee Ernie to be a purely “country act” rather an artist that used country music as a springboard. Though he began his career as a country singer in the late 1940’s by the mid-1950’s he had morphed into a mainstream act. He used his “Ol’ Pea Pickin’ Ern ” country persona as a gimmick similar to what Jimmy Dean did a decade later. Ford’s NBC-TV show generally showed very little true country music influence and most of his recordings from that period eventually did likewise. Unlike Eddy Arnold who was able to straddle the gap between pop and country music to great success Tennessee Ernie became lost in a musical no-man’s land where only his gospel recordings saw any significant success mostly due to performances of them on his TV show. However his earliest Christmas recordings were done during his “country” period and they are quite different from his later fully orchestrated albums. Here’s both sides of a 1951 Capitol Christmas single that are truly country and are quite good.
Nice audio posts
Ford did a really fine job with his hymns. I had a room mate in college who was an atheist but he had two of Ford’s religious albums because he liked Ford’s performances of them. They were exquisite
I like Ford’s earlier country boogie and folk material–which I got on his “Capitol Collectors’ Series” CD compilation–when CD’s were pretty new. I’m not a fan of his hymns, but I never really delved into that. As a non-believer, the country artist who blew me away with his hymns–at least a couple that I came across on youtube–is Jimmy Fortune. (I wasn’t even familiar with his name, but he’s the guy who–unexpectedly–revived the Statler Brothers in the 1980s.)