Now, nothing adds more joy to the celebration of Christmas than music. Having music playing in the background heightens the merrymaking, conjures up romance and creates a soundtrack by which the past Christmases will be fondly remembered.
Wasn’t Ang Pasko Ay Sumapit, the first Christmas song you learned, thanks to the children carolers in your neighborhood? Do you recall exciting shopping trips while Michael Jackson sang Give Love On Christmas Day at the mall? What about the Misa de Gallo with the soft, moving Silent Night? We all have so many music memories.
David Foster makes the most amazing Christmas recordings. He has this kind of sound that brings on the smiles. There always seems to be brighter sparkle to the songs and the singers all perform from the heart. This is why nobody who enjoys beautiful music should be without the wonderful Christmas albums of Andrea Boccelli, Celine Dion, Josh Groban, Michael Bublé and Foster’s own The Christmas Album. Those were all produced, mostly arranged and sometimes include songs, like My Grown-up Christmas List, by Foster.
There is a new addition to that list, one that will now be in my Yuletide listening menu every year. Released only a few weeks ago was Merry Christmas Baby, the very first Christmas album by rocker Rod Stewart and it was also produced by Foster.
In a way, I was surprised that Stewart chose Foster since I had never heard of them working together. On the other hand though, it should not really be a surprise because any artist who wants a great Christmas album would want Foster to produce. Stewart did just that and now he has Christmas music that would be treasured for all time.
Stewart has been a huge rock star for nearly 50 years, who has sold over a hundred million records. He first gained fame with bands like The Jeff Back Group and Faces and then later went solo with hits like Reason To Believe, Forever Young, Do Ya Think I’m Sexy, Hot Legs, You’re In My Heart, Sailing and others.
About 10 years ago, he made this big career move when he recorded The Great American Songbook, an album made up of songs from the ’30s and ’40s like Thanks For The Memory, As Time Goes By, The Way You Look Tonight, My One And Only Love and others. It was a surprising change from his usual style but it turned out that Stewart’s raspy voice and saucy delivery is a natural for the standards genre. The CD was a major success and was followed by four more American Songbook albums in the ensuing years.
Now I see Stewart’s Christmas album as the natural offshoot of The Great American Songbook. Standards are basically old songs that have withstood the passage of time. And Christmas carols are just that. They are songs that are old and have definitely withstood the passage of a very long time. So it really only takes a few short steps to go from Fly Me To The Moon to Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas or vice-versa, like what Frank Sinatra did. Stewart took those steps with ease and turned his sexy tones into an instrument of Christmas cheer.
As is usual with Foster’s Christmas productions, several of his favorite artists join Stewart in interesting duets. Bublé is in Winter Wonderland, Mary J. Blige is in We Three Kings Of Orient Are, Cee-Lo Green does Merry Christmas Baby and Dave Koz on sax is featured in Let It Snow. There is also a trio that is one for the books. Thanks to the wonder of modern technology, the legendary Ella Fitzgerald joins trumpet wiz Chris Botti and Stewart in What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve.
I like the old carols best though. Stewart’s rendering of Silent Night and Auld Lang Syne has this old English pub vibe that is sad and sweet at the same time. Also included are Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, White Christmas, Blue Christmas, When You Wish Upon A Star and a new original by Rod and David with Amy Foster, Red Suited Super Man.
To close, here is the last stanza from the Prayer for Christmas Morning by Henry Van Dyke: “May the Christmas morning make us happy to be Thy Children/ and the Christmas evening bring us to our bed/ with grateful thoughts, forgiving and forgiven/ for Jesus’ sake/ Amen.”