Joy to the World!
Sep 17th, 2007 by Announce
“American Christmas Classics” (Sony) includes:
• 3 CDs featuring 47 tracks
• Accompanying color booklet on the history of each carol and song
• Coffee-table book of nostalgic Christmas art and illustrations from the 1940′2 and 1950’s.
This package comes quite close to being the ne-plus-ultra of Christmas song collections, if for no other reason than it contains the holiday standard by which all others should be judged: Goulet’s cocktail-smooth “A Christmas Waltz” (notably missing duet vocals with ex-wife Carol Lawrence, which may upset purists; on the other hand, this version ends with Goulet fairly nuzzling the microphone with a murmured “Merry Christmas!,” enabling you to serve it with biscuits and fruit after coffee, as pure cheese).
This number all but ends the entire 47-song package, and by then, you’re in a place of emotional wipeout, having heard almost every song you could possibly want, and probably a few you didn’t - but those are blessedly few.
CD No. 1 begins gorgeously with the lilting “Shepherd’s Carol” by the Cathedral Choir of St. John the Divine - a fitting beginning for a CD that is mostly traditional, religious fare, done with spare reverence by well-known choirs and vocalists. “Mary had a Baby” by the Riverside Choir, “We Three Kings” by Robert Shaw and “Go Tell it on the Mountain” by the Westminster Choir all ring out crisply, the basses smooth and the sopranos clear and thrilling. The final two numbers, “The Shepherd’s Story,” majestically performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and “Caroling, Caroling/Carol, Brothers, Carol,” by the indomitable Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians, are enough to make you too weak with emotion to even address a Christmas card.