Judging by the typical holiday playlist, an alien might reasonably conclude that humans stopped trying to record great Christmas music roughly fifty years ago. As nice and nostalgic as it is to listen to the same old recordings year after year, it’s also nice—on the rare occasion that something measures up to the likes of Bing Crosby, Elvis, and Vince Guaraldi—to expand one’s holiday soundtrack palette. Toward that end, I’d like to throw out two suggestions, one old and underappreciated, one contemporary but not exactly mainstream, both of which were rereleased in new editions this year. . . .
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Endnotes
1. Tyler Golsen “How Chet Atkins Influenced George Harrison,” Far Out, June 20, 2022, https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/how-chet-atkins-influenced-geroge-harrison/; Tom Redmond, “An Interview with Mark Knopfler,” MisterGuitar.com, https://misterguitar.us/news/mark5a.html (accessed December 16, 2023).
2. For an amusing take on these 1983 recordings, plus more history on the tracks collected on this album, see “Chet Atkins, Country,” Hip Christmas, https://www.hipchristmas.com/artists/a/atkins.php (accessed December 16, 2023).