Left Coast Cowboys

No one has yet mounted a credible challenge to my assertion that I have the world’s largest, most eclectic and eccentric Christmas music collection. So I still hold the crown, and I’m uniquely qualified to steer you away from the tried and true, the boring and overplayed to the fresh, the different and the undiscovered in holiday music. So far I brought you a cross-genre selection of undiscovered gems, a full shaker’s worth of songs for Christmas cocktails and Christmas: The Dance Edition. Today is a complete change of pace, bringing you full circle and back to the beginning. Yes, it’s religious and spiritual Christmas songs. Even if you are a professed agnostic, you can’t deny the power of the story. And c’mon, you know you get all choked up in The Charlie Brown Christmas Special when Linus recites the Bible passage about Jesus’s birth to tell Charlie Brown the meaning of Christmas. So park your skepticism. These picks aren’t your standard boring hymns. These artists sing out loud and proud and sincerely enough to get even as famous an atheist as Bill Maher testifying.

As an added bonus, each of these songs comes from an album of gems just as magnificent. Don’t stop at ten song recommendations, buy all ten CDs.

So open your mind and heart and get reacquainted with the spiritual Christmas classics — but performed better, more uniquely and in a more heart-felt manner than you’ve probably ever heard them done before:

1. Walkin’ To Jerusalem by Mahalia Jackson from Christmas with Mahalia Jackson

Not ready to come to Jesus? Mahalia will get you there. Even Jewish and atheist friends have said her voice is powerful enough to convert. This song was also a surprise addition to my Dance Party Edition, because no one can get you moving like Mahalia Jackson, arguably the greatest Gospel Singer EVER. Oh, she’ll get you moving all right. Maybe swinging your hands over your head Southern Baptist style and movin’ down to the creek for a good ol’ Baptising.  Yes, she’s that powerful.

2. Shout for Joy by Odetta from Christmas Spirituals

Just an aside here, if I ever joined a church fulltime it would have to be an African American church. Hands down, they have the best music. If you don’t know the great Odetta, voice of The Civil Rights Movement and the folk singer who influenced Dylan, Baez, Carly Simon and so many others, read this and believe. Here, Odetta gives a Gospel classic a Jazzy/Bluesy turn, helped by her Bass player Bill Lee (Spike’s dad).

3. Beautiful Star of Bethlehem by Emmylou Harris from Light of the Stable

This lovely Appalachian folk carol is given a soaring treatment by Emmylou’s crystalline soprano. Pals Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton often show up uncredited on Emmylou’s albums and I suspect theirs are the backing and counterpoint vocals here. The fiddle, dulcimer and guitars add the perfect touch of homespun authenticity.

4. Who Kept the Sheep by Johnny Cash from The Christmas Spirit

There are only a handful of singers I can name with as authentic an American voice as Johnny Cash (and most of them appear on this list). This gentle song uses almost the tone of a children’s song to point out one of the smaller miracles of the Christmas story. Johnny softens his rough-hewn voice to ask the listener, who kept the sheep from harm when the shepherds left to witness the birth of Christ. A beautiful parable in song sung by a man with the voice of an Old Testament prophet…by way of Arkansas.

5. Hark the Herald Angels Sing by Kathleen Battle from Kathleen Battle: A Christmas Celebration

I know you’ve heard this song a million times, but you’ve NEVER heard it like this. Great coloratura soprano Kathleen Battle sings out with a full chorus and orchestra including horns that you’ll swear are being blown by those Herald Angels.  In fact, I highly recommend the album this came from as a source for many wonderful Christmas songs, some are spirituals, some are well-known carols, many are from other countries. All are wonderful.

6. Gaudete by the King’s Singers from King’s Singers: A Little Christmas Music

As long as we’re getting back to fundamentals, how about a ringing carol in Latin? You won’t think it’s a dead language when you hear this great group from Cambridge England belt out this Medieval crowd pleaser, complete with the ringing trumpets of the London Sinfonia Brass Quintet. They sure knew how to get people on their feet in Merrie Olde England back in the day!

7. Hosanna in Excelsis by Placido Domingo from The Greatest Christmas Show On Earth

I probably shouldn’t even tell you that this ringing Latin number is from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem. Yes, that Andrew Lloyd Webber and, yes, I find him insufferable, too. But when I first heard this, I thought it was an undiscovered Medieval masterpiece. Maybe it’s Placido Domingo who puts it across. I can’t vouch for the rest of the Requiem. I got this off a compilation album.

8. A Star in the East by Harry Belafonte from To Wish You a Merry Christmas

I featured another song from this album, Mary’s Boy Child, on my Undiscovered Gems list. I wish I could include every song because this album is that good. Only once in a while does an artist produce a Christmas album that isn’t just a retread of a bunch of holiday numbers, but really redefines Christmas songs through their own particular musical lens. Harry Belafonte does that. Many of the songs are spirituals done with his particular Bahamian lilt. But even European standards such as Silent Night or old English carols such as “Christmas is Coming” are given such a personal stamp that, after hearing them, you’ll never think they’re done quite right when done by other artists. The song I’ve chosen here is a traditional spiritual given a bluesy, Caribbean Belafonte spin.

9. Es Hat Sich Heut Eroffnet by The Trapp Family Singers from The Sound of Christmas

Yes, that Trapp Family. They didn’t have Julie Andrews, but they did have a lovely traditional choral sound. And the Germans really gave us what we think of as Christmas when German Prince Albert brought all his traditions such as trees and Santa with him to his marriage to Queen Victoria. So the Trapps are Austrian. Close enough. It’s not really a traditional Christmas without some Germanic singing. Make those singers a famous ski lodge owning singing family and all the better. All the songs on the CD are traditional; not all of them are German. In fact, they do a beautiful version of the Spanish carol A La Nanita. After years of searching, I finally discovered this in a bargain CD bin. So good luck finding it.

Here are the Von Trapps singing a German folk song, not a carol, but Trapp family videos are thin on the ground, so this may have to do.

10. Angels We Have Heard on High by The Brian Setzer Orchestra from Christmas Rocks!

Just because a song is about Jesus, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to rock out to it. Here Brian infuses a classic with that Big Band Sound, ringing Christmas bells, plus a generous dollop of Rockabilly and a full chorus. The results are magical. You’ll never want to hear this song played any other way.

Merry Christmas, keep the faith and buy these CDs!

Titian’s Holy Family with Shepherd from the website of the National Gallery London.

If I were an old Yiddish man from Brooklyn, I’d be saying, “Oy, I know from Christmas songs.” (Or, then again, maybe I wouldn’t.) But in any case, I do know my Christmas songs. I have amassed what I believe to be one of the world’s greatest Christmas song collections. I’m calling my collection great not only in its size, but in its diversity. My point is, I’m qualified to make this list: The Greatest Christmas Songs You May Never Have Heard. In fact, I could make several lists and sublists just of Christmas songs, but this list focusses specifically on undiscovered gems. No tired retreads of “Frosty the Snowman” or that most obnoxious tune of all “Winter Wonderland”. With a few rare exceptions, these ten songs are Christmas songs you may never have heard. Or you’ve never heard them quite this way. But they’re songs you must get in your holiday collection if you are going to counteract yet another screeching Celine Dion rendition of “Oh, Holy Night.”<

Note these undiscovered and underplayed gems are listed in no particular order:

1. “Silver Bells”, Elvis Presley

I know I promised no retreads, but this song is more than just a cover of a fairly familiar holiday song. With appologies to Johnny Mathis, who made it a hit, I think Elvis has the definitive version. If you listen to the lyrics, this song always sounds as if it’s sung from the point of view of a wide-eyed rube. An unsophisticated country boy who is experiencing a city Christmas for the first time. Well, no one is more the epitome of the white trash country boy making the big time than Elvis. I imagine him singing this on his first day up from Tupelo. He sees the bright lights of Memphis. And the rest is history.

2. “What Will Santa Claus Say (When He Finds Everybody Swingin’)”, Louis Prima

Staying in the South, how about a great swingin’ holiday song from that New Orleans bandmaster Louis Prima? Can’t have enough of Louis Prima and the background chorus of Sam Butera and the Witnesses adds that extra dash of peppermint.

3. “Christmas Time in Harlem”, Louis Armstrong

Everything you would expect from a Louis Armstrong song including great lines like, “Cats are sleepin’ warm as toast” and “We’ll be all lit up like a Christmas tree” and “Hydee, Hydee, Hydee Ho. It’s Christmas time in Harlem.” Plus some great Satchmo trumpet solos.

4. “We Are the Shepherds”, Johnny Cash

Here’s a real change of pace and not an upbeat one. Because, well. . .it’s Johnny Cash, so you’re just relieved that no one’s shooting anyone in Reno. Actually this is noteworthy because Johnny pens a Christmas carol to the old cowboy tune, “The Streets of Laredo”, that gentle ditty about a cowboy lying in the streets ’cause “he’s shot in the breast and [he's] dyin’ today.” Only Johnny could see the Christmas spirit in that.

5. “Welcome Christmas”, The Whos

Yes, those Whos. The ones whose Christmas the Grinch couldn’t steal. If you are like me and get choked up annually when the Grinch’s heart grows three sizes in one day you’ll love a song that includes lyrics like “Fa-whoo For-ay, Da-whoo Dor-ay. Welcome Christmas, bring your cheer. Welcome Whos from far and near.” Even though the cartoon airs every year, this song never gets enough airplay.

6. “A Party for Santa Claus”, Lord Nelson

As long as we’re trying to bring things upbeat, I love this Carribean novelty song that calls for us to turn the tables and buy Santa Claus presents. Things like a “big car with a chauffeur”, “a new continental suit” and even “take him out to a night club with some fine chicks.”

7. “Mary’s Boy Child”, Harry Belafonte

This song is about the closest thing on this list to a real Christmas carol. But who can resist Harry Belafonte, especially singing in a gentle Island patois with lines such as “They find no place to born she child” and “Them see a bright new shining star.” Enough to make you reimagine the Nativity Scene on a Bahamian beach.

8. “The Christmas Blues”, Dean Martin

Call me a heretic, but, out of the Rat Pack, I’ve always preferred Dean to Frank. Here he does Frank’s schtick one better — I’m talking the sad guy at the end of the bar at 2AM closing with nowhere to go. This is definitely a Christmas song to sing after not getting the presents you wanted and a few too many lonely Martinis.

9. “Mele Kalikimaka”, Bette Midler

Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters did an insufferable version of this that is played to death. Check out Bette’s hipper version complete with slack key guitar. Bette really did grow up in Hawaii. And what could be more fun to contemplate than Christmas on Oahu with the Divine Miss M?

10. “Christmas Time’s a-Comin’” Emmylou Harris

With very few exceptions, country artists put out the absolute worst Christmas recordings — and I’m someone who likes country music. But this upbeat number with dulcimer, guitar, banjo and Emmylou’s beautiful soprano is a wonderful exception.

There you have it. A list guaranteed to put you in the mood — or counteract the 500th version of “Frosty the Snowman” you just heard at the mall.

Merry Christmas and remember, Christmas music doesn’t have to be something you bear with gritted teeth. Just ask me for a playlist. I can put together anything: European Christmas, Punk Christmas, Country Christmas, Novelty Christmas, Spiritual Christmas, Jazz Christmas. . .

Now you have no excuse to be Grinch-like.

P.S. Did I miss any undiscovered gems? Let me know.