If there are only two or three of them in your collection, hurry up to catch up - there are very few days left until the end of 2020.
Christmas, free from ad slogans and giveaways, lives on in music.
I'm not talking about white pop noise, I'm talking about eternal - jazz, blues, rock and roll, country.
Two dozen worthy albums will decorate your life the best way possible, and do you know why?
Only those of us who truly feel and love the New Year and Christmas commotion of joy and happiness can talk about it and sing about it in such a way that we want to crawl both tears in our eyes and under the Christmas tree for a gift - just like in childhood.
Just like in childhood.
Remember?
The ate of that time were so huge that we could fit under them without difficulty and while lying on the floor inhaled the smells of pine needles and sweets, looked at the shining barrels of Christmas tree decorations, lights of garlands, dissolved in the world of magic, reliability and peace.
So what's in that bag?
What gifts has the Snowy Grandfather prepared for us, who does not know sorrow and sorrow?
12 albums - of those that I listen to every year myself.
12 vinyls (and this is certainly the best option) - and don't think it's a lot.
Elvis Sings the Wonderful World of Christmas.
1971st.
Elvis, in a sense, became Santa himself over the years.
The appearance of the King is the best fit to ride across the sky in a reindeer sleigh, showering the world and all of us with wonderful gifts.
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Love for Christmas, some completely childish sincerity in preparations for the holiday accompanied Elvis all his life.
As well as church hymns sung with the heart.
On the frosty, dark days of December listen to this disc.
Listen to O Come, All Ye Faithful and The First Noel - you will discover the spirit of the upcoming celebration.
Your best bet is to track down and buy a Follow That Dream Records doppelganger - a 34-track doppelganger, including both the original album and alternative tracks with rehearsal episodes.
Long and magical immersion in the recording process.
And the absolutely fantastic It Won't Seem Like Christmas (Without You) and Merry Christmas Baby (and in a version of almost nine-minute jam).
What's In That Bag?
1998th
.
Solo Christmas by Chuck Leavell, keyboardist and de facto music director of the Rolling Stones (since 1982).
It is noteworthy that this is Leavell's second solo album, and the first one was also dedicated to Christmas.
What else can you say?
Leavell is a very remarkable personality, he played with Harrison, Clapton, Gilmore, but even this is not the main thing - he is an absolutely outstanding farmer, one of the best in Georgia, an honorary guardian of the forest (there is also such a position in the States), the author of children's and adult books on ecology and forestry.
And of course he grows holiday trees.
On the album What's In That Bag?
- just like in a sack of Santa / Frost - everything is in abundance.
Boogie (what piano solos!), Blues, Christmas carol-themed improvisations, and the utterly incredible Please Come Home For Christmas.
Christmas in the Heart.
2009th
.
Bob Dylan's solo Christmas that needs no introduction is a poet and rock minstrel, but not without its own peculiarities.
Elvis perfectly said about him: "The Lord endowed Bob with the gift of speech, the gift of playing, but to sing in a voice like sandpaper ..."
This festive message is written in such a sweet and tearing voice like a glass of whiskey with frost.
The arrangements are beyond praise, you can't immediately understand - either the circus has arrived, or the children's matinee is going on.
To be honest, cool and fun, and at times very solemn, for example - Do You Hear What I Hear?
And Dylan's variations on I'll Be Home For Christmas are the best way to sing along, even if there is no voice at all.
A Christmas Celebration of Hope.
2001-th
.
Solo Christmas of Mr. B.B. King.
The king of the blues presents an album that is soft and smooth in its late style.
Light, sometimes piercing - Blue Decorations, Christmas Love.
Instrumental Auld Lang Syne, for which King received a Grammy.
This album is both daytime and evening.
And background, and for listening in absolute peace and quiet.
Guitar solos, almost indistinguishable from the music of the spheres, are the trump card, the striking force of old King, who once began as a cotton picker in the fertile South ...
Grief and trials are transformed over the years into strength and light.
If only the one who took them upon himself was not embittered, hardened in soul.
BB King has consistently, for three decades in a row, helped me to keep the inner light in the most difficult moments of my life, let alone the time of the holidays - about New Year and Christmas.
The Classic Christmas Album.
2012th
.
A solo Christmas by Willie Nelson, the most country singer of all country singers.
You can sing his songs while washing in the shower (although it is customary to talk about Bing Crosby's hits), at a gas station, in the forest (with deer and other fabulous animals of the North), or you can just listen, realizing the incredible depth and inexplicable beauty of music , played with three fingers, as if between the others.
In the year the album was released, Nelson was 79. Now - 87. Thank God, he is alive and continues to delight us.
I love listening to this disc late in the evening, almost at night, when the preparations for the New Year are almost over, the tree is shimmering with all the lights, there is tea (yes), sweets (bears and squirrels) on the table, and peace is in my soul.
And appeasement.
Just like the wonderful, sad and transparent Pretty Paper or the instrumental Christmas Blues.
Merry Christmas.
Ho!
Ho!
Ho!
1967th
.
Solo Christmas celestial artist Lou Rawls, the magical baritone of the century, winner of three Grammy awards for Best Male Vocal in R&B.
Funky and soul CD.
I love it.
The album seems to be uneven, torn in places - from side to side, without banks and horizon lines, and that is why it is absolutely magical.
Lou is beyond the standards.
Always.
And now, and while he was alive.
He served for three years in the airborne assault, returned to the 58th sergeant and had a terrible accident that same year - five days in a coma, memory loss for many months.
And then a brilliant career.
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Suffering and loss paves the way for many of us both the path to happiness and the path to ourselves ...
When I listen to Christmas Is and Merry Christmas, Baby from this album, when the mocking Ho!
Ho!
Ho!
Rawls, I understand: the holiday is not only in jewelry and tinsel, it is also in being able to laugh and laugh in the most difficult moments of life.
A Very She & Him Christmas.
2011th.
Christmas album by American duo Zooey Deschanel and Matthew Ward.
The very case when two people, equally in love with music, found each other themselves and began to record, perform and slowly, to the best of their strength and efforts, please all of us.
Very solid Christmas.
Sung carefully, thoughtfully, at times snowy, at times sleepy and cloying, "at home."
Handsomely...
Such a sweet, delicate trinket.
Champagne.
Candles.
Sandwiches with all sorts of things.
Friendly conversation.
Days of peace and desperately happy idleness.
Among the pleasant finds of the disc are Christmas Wish and Little Saint Nick.
And, of course, The Christmas Waltz.
A Nancy Wilson Christmas.
2001-th
.
Solo Christmas of the unsurpassed Nancy Wilson, whose career is 50 years on stage, jazz, blues, rhythm and blues and soul.
"A girl with a voice sweeter than honey" - that's how they called her ...
This album, 13 songs, half of which are hymns, is a distant hello from a time that cannot be returned.
She seems to be talking to herself, the one who sang some of them in 63.
Stylish, restrained.
Not a single extra note.
Echoes of the time of Ella Fitzgerald and Benny Goodman.
A radio receiver on the old wave, which miraculously reached us in December 2020.
White Christmas and Carol of the Bells - an impeccable reading, jazz improvisations shading the classics of the Holiday.
Christmas Cocktails, Part One (Hi-Fi Holiday Cheer from Santa's Pad).
1996-th \
Christmas Cocktails, Part Two (Another Round of Cool Holiday Spirits).
1997th.
Funny, explosive, heartfelt and touching compilations of Christmas music released by Capitol Records.
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There you will find not only reindeer and Santa listening to music in the record player with stereo disc mode, but also recipes for remarkably healthy New Year's cocktails and even recommendations for their correct serving.
I assure you will not come off.
There are days (at least in my house) when we run each of the discs twice a day.
December.
What else to listen to in anticipation of the holidays?
The Alligator Records Christmas Collection.
1992th.
Divine Christmas compilation from Chicago-based independent blues label founded by Bruce Iglauer in 1971.
After almost 20 years, the album does not lose its relevance, however, like blues, boogie or country.
You'll find 14 pieces from a wide variety of artists here - Coco Taylor (America's Queen of the Blues), Kenny Neal (keeping the powerful bluesy sound of Louisiana), Keti Webster (the boogie-woogie piano icon) and many, many more.
Sleep will not work.
Sobering up.
Brings to life.
Restarts the engine for all days of celebrations and festivities.
Jazz and Blues Christmas.
2008th
.
A devastating Christmas compilation from Putumayo World Music, a New Orleans-based record label specializing in smashing compilations of world music in ethno, jazz and blues.
This is where you will find a four-minute version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer from maestro Ray Charles.
And about the rest - I will not say!
December!
Time for unpredictable actions, miracles and great accomplishments!
Seek, find, own - the world of music is at your feet.
As well as the abyss of forever young vinyl.
Holiday greetings!
Be happy!
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.