40 great overlooked pop holiday albums

Rogelio Martínez’s legendary swinging Afro-Cuban jazz orchestra released this tropical Christmas album at the peak of its powers: in 1958. It’s a half-hour holiday dance party — even “Jingle Bells,” with blaring horns, a percussive Caribbean arrangement, and vocals by Celia Cruz, will get your hips shaking.

The Temptations’ first Christmas collection came at the tail end of a string of groundbreaking albums ("Cloud Nine," "Puzzle People," "Psychedelic Shack") that saw the vocal quintet break free of the Motown formula. "Christmas Card" isn’t as radical as those records, but it’s more than just a standard holiday cash-in – rollicking Motown soul-funk, elaborate vocal rearrangements of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and “Let It Snow,” and perhaps the most adventurous interpretation of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” you’ll ever hear. It's a trailblazing masterpiece.

Buck Owens was on a hot streak in 1965, the year he released his first Christmas album — he’d issued four straight No. 1 country albums, eight straight No. 1 country singles, and the Beatles had just introduced “Act Naturally” to the pop charts. "Christmas With Buck Owens and His Buckaroos" is the work of a band in a tight, tight groove, putting the Bakersfield touch on “Jingle Bells” and adding “Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy” and “All I Want for Christmas, Dear, Is You” to the country Christmas canon. 

The 21st century crate-digging label Dust-to-Digital delivered this masterful compilation in 2004. It’s a loosely themed anthology of jazz, gospel, blues and country music recorded between 1917 and 1959 from legends like Vera Hall, Lead Belly and others. Much of it is raucous and raw (the Cotton Top Mountain Sanctified Singers’ “Christ Was Born on Christmas Morn,” Lord Beginner’s “Christmas Morning the Rum Had Me Yawning”), some of it weird and haunting (Buell Kazee’s “Lady Gay”) and all of it stirring.

Shirley Collins was the reigning queen of England’s folk revival in 1969, when she and her sister Dolly recorded this collection of traditional carols with a cappella trio the Young Tradition. But the album wasn’t released until 1995 in the midst of Collins’ long hiatus from music. At the time it was a treasured new release from a disappeared talent; now that the 82-year-old Collins has returned to music, it’s still a mesmerizing, transportive album.

Sharp sun-bleached versions of Christmas favorites fill up most of this 1964 classic, but there are also first-rate originals (the Kinks-like “The Man With All the Toys”) and a preview of Brian Wilson’s orchestral pop genius on large-scale arrangements of “We Three Kings of Orient Are,” “White Christmas" and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

Nat King Cole's 1961 recording of “The Christmas Song” is one of the milestones of 20th century pop and the gold standard of American vocal Christmas music. It was Cole’s fourth recording of the song, following two versions from 1946 and a third in 1953. “The Christmas Song” was such an immediate hit that it was added to a retitled reissue of Cole’s 1960 holiday album, "The Magic of Christmas," which ended up as the best-selling Christmas album of the ’60s and remains an essential part of any holiday music collection.

Nearly 40 years later, this compilation still sounds daring and even dangerous. Released by the experimental rock/New Wave label ZE Records in 1981, "A Christmas Record" features some of the unlikeliest acts to ever appear on a Christmas anthology: Alan Vega, Material, Was (Not Was) and James Chance. Even more unlikely is the fact that a song from the album has now become a kind of alternative holiday standard: the Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping.”

Jean Ritchie was a champion of Appalachian folk music long before the folk revival of the 1950s and ’60s. This 1959 album collects American backwoods versions of traditional carols and hymns as well as obscure mountain music for the holidays. Ritchie’s high, lonesome soprano is accompanied by dulcimer, recorder and harpsichord, lending an ancient sound to the proceedings.

The secret to the success of the Muppets franchise isn’t that the songs and stories succeed despite being sung and acted by funny animal puppets — they succeed because they’re sung and acted by funny animal puppets. Miles Goodman’s score and Paul Williams’ songs match the cozy Victorian holiday spirit of the Muppets’ 1992 adaptation of "A Christmas Carol," with excellent performances by Kermit, Sam Eagle and Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.

Not an official album, exactly, John Prine’s wry 1994 Christmas anthology collects album tracks (“Everything Is Cool”), live songs (“All the Best”) and new recordings of a handful of holiday standards (“Silver Bells,” “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”). Highlights include the new song “Silent Night All Day Long” and live versions of Prine’s stone classic “Christmas in Prison” and “If You Were the Woman and I Was the Man,” with Margo Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies.

The classic surf rockers applied their fuzzed-out instrumental chops to midcentury holiday standards like “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” and “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” on this fun little firecracker from 1965.

The Queen of Gospel released this powerful collection in 1962, at the height of the Civil Rights movement. Familiar tunes, mostly accompanied by piano, organ and choir, take on the tone of a sermon. From admonition to uplift, each song is a reminder of deliverance and a rebuke to oppression and despair.

The first of Mathis’ many holiday records, from 1958, is still the best, offering refined, smooth, upbeat interpretations of carols and Christmas standards like ”Sleigh Bells” and “Blue Christmas.” It’s albums like this one, in fact, that made those songs standards.

The First Family of Gospel, best known for civil rights anthems like “I’ll Take You There” and “Respect Yourself,” released its only Christmas album in 1962, at the very start of a decades-long career. "The 25th Day of December" is a stark, moody way to mark the season — Pops Staples' reverbed guitar is the main accompaniment, augmented here and there by deep organ chords and drums. But mostly it’s Cleotha, Mavis and Pervis belting out measured and melancholy takes on “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” “Joy to the World” and “The Savior Is Born.”

Lady Ella Fitzgerald was in classic form for this extraordinarily entertaining 1960 holiday album. "Swinging Christmas" is state-of-the-art popular jazz — a midcentury milestone of swinging orchestral arrangements and vocal mastery, especially on romantic chestnuts like “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” and “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” It’s the Cadillac of Christmas albums; a luxury car among mid-price sedans.

This was a prototypical Motown Christmas album, at least until the "Jackson 5 Christmas Album" was released five years later, and a worthy girl-group rival to the Phil Spector-produced "A Christmas Gift for You." Diana Ross and Co., abetted by the Funk Brothers, nail the label’s smooth, cosmopolitan soul sound on a bevy of holiday classics including: “The Little Drummer Boy,” “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” and “Joy to the World.”

The final album from the Canadian sister folk duo Kate and Anna McGarrigle, from 2005, is even more of a family affair than usual, with contributions from family and friends, including Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Emmylou Harris, and Beth Orton. "The McGarrigle Christmas Hour" is a low-key, intimate record but still refined, with Old World melodies filtered through a thoroughly modern sensibility.

Pianist and composer Ramsey Lewis wasn’t at the vanguard of jazz in the 1950s and ’60s, but he knew how to put together a tightly coherent album, from "Country Meets the Blues" and "Bossa Nova" to "Goin’ Latin" and "Bach to the Blues." One of the best of these themed records was "Sound of Christmas," a 1961 collection of swinging bebop small combo interpretations of seasonal standards.

Harris’ 1979 Christmas album has more in common with, say, Maddy Prior or Shirley Collins than with other Nashville singers of the period  — a reunited version of the Hot Band (James Burton, Ricky Skaggs and Rodney Crowell, among others) turns out reverent, elegant arrangements of traditional carols (as well as some traditional-sounding originals), and Harris’ fine, clear soprano soars. 

A New Yorker of Puerto Rican heritage, Willie Colón has championed various forms of Latin music for decades, collaborating over the years with Rubén Blades, Celia Cruz and Yomo Toro. His 1971 Christmas album, "Asalto Navideño," is one of the great holiday parties on record; a combustible blend of salsa, bomba and more. 

The troubled jazz trumpeter Chet Baker recorded this collection of Christmas standards in 1986,  just two years before he died. The instrumental arrangements are concise and straightforward, but Baker’s soulful playing cuts through the sentiment to create a sad and beautiful holiday album.

Doris Day was one of the biggest stars in the world in 1964, when she delivered sparkling interpretations of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “Silver Bells” on this classy seasonal collection. Day’s version of “White Christmas” is a little overwrought, but her rendition of “The Christmas Song” rivals the definitive recording by Nat King Cole.

In the late 1950s and early ’60s, the journeyman blues pianist and singer Charles Brown revived his flagging career with two soulful classic Christmas singles that appear on this 1961 collection: “Please Come Home for Christmas” and “Merry Christmas Baby.” His jazzy, uptown style was perfectly suited for the melancholy longing of the season.

The enigmatic steel-string guitar genius John Fahey turned his American primitive style to the Christmas songbook in 1968, with pleasantly evocative results. This collection of haunting Old World melodies remains the cult guitar hero’s best-selling album.

This Seattle jazz/traditional pop orchestra was destined to record a Christmas album. When it finally did, in 2010, the results were sparkling — "Joy to the World" ranks alongside Bing Crosby’s "White Christmas" and "Christmas With the Rat Pack"  among classic pop interpretations of the holiday songbook.

Les Paul’s technique as a guitarist and his pioneering technology often overshadow his music. But this 1955 EP (expanded to six tracks for a 2015 Record Store Day reissue) showcases the artistry behind his innovative sound. (Mary Ford’s gorgeous vocals on “White Christmas” and “Silent Night” certainly help.)

The house band for Stax Records turns out a charming album of Christmas instrumentals – not the heaviest weight holiday album, but Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn and Al Jackson Jr. hit a groove on “Jingle Bells” and don’t let go until “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” fades out 34 minutes later.

Strait gamely applies his Texas drawl to “White Christmas,” “Winter Wonderland” and “Frosty the Snowman” on his first holiday album, from 1986. But it’s the Ace in the Hole Band that stars here, with sophisticated western swing arrangements and first-class performances of familiar songs. (Neither Strait nor the band can save the irredeemable “There’s a New Kid in Town.”)

A freaky, funky, sun-soaked reggae all-star jam with producer Joe Gibbs’ favorite artists — Inner Circle’s Jacob Miller, Cornell Campbell and members of the Mighty Diamonds and Culture, among others. The highlight is a dred version of “We Three Kings,” full of heavy organ and rich harmonies.

Maddy Prior, a founding member of British folk-rock giants Steeleye Span, takes a more traditional approach on this album of traditional European Christmas music. "A Tapestry of Carols" includes folk songs and sacred music, familiar and obscure, from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, all delivered with courtly grace and rustic joy.

There’s the excellent but familiar Motown Christmas compilation, and then there’s "Soul Christmas," a smoking 1968 Atlantic Records R&B anthology with paint-peeling originals by Carla Thomas (“Gee Whiz, It’s Christmas”), Solomon Burke (“Presents for Christmas”) and Clarence Carter (“Back Door Santa”), plus holiday covers by Otis Redding, King Curtis and Booker T. and the M.G.’s. It's indispensable southern soul for the holidays.

This Florida garage rock band’s third album is an overlooked alternative to Vince Guaraldi’s Peanuts Christmas album; it’s not strictly a Christmas album, but its highlight is “Snoopy’s Christmas,” a jaunty holiday rewrite of the band’s hit single “Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron.”

There’s a high novelty factor in roots reggae arrangements of “Silver Bells” and the cover illustration of Miller holding a marijuana plant in place of a poinsettia. But Inner Circle — 10 years before breaking into the U.S. mainstream with “Bad Boys” — was one of the great Rasta bands of the 1970s, and it shows on this skanking collection.

Jimmy Smith’s hot R&B-influenced Hammond organ work fired up the jazz scene in the 1950s and ’60s. His sole Christmas album (reissued as "Christmas Cookin’" in 1992) is particularly scintillating, with smoking keyboards and contributions from veterans of the bands of Count Basie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

The first of Martin’s two holiday albums, from 1959, isn’t as well known as 1966’s "A Dean Martin Christmas Album," but it’s the better one — more distinctive and with a lot more swing. Songs from both ended up on "Christmas With the Rat Pack," including “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm,” the definitive interpretation of the Irving Berlin classic.

Chance the Rapper had so many big moments in 2016 — "Coloring Book," his features on "The Life of Pablo," all those Grammys — that it’s easy to overlook this holiday mixtape/EP. But Chance’s reflective optimism and smooth dexterity turn out to be ideally suited for an R&B Christmas album, and Jeremih adds warm and emotional vocals.

Willie Nelson could do no wrong in the 1970s — the decade included his critical and commercial breakthroughs "Shotgun Willie" and "Phases and Stages," the landmark country concept album "Red Headed Stranger" and Nelson’s brilliant interpretive albums "Stardust" and "Sings Kristofferson." On "Pretty Paper" from 1979, he resurrects the moving title track — a Nelson-penned hit for Roy Orbison in the early ’60s — and injects country soul into the Christmas canon with the help of Booker T. Jones of Booker T. and the M.G.'s.

Travis fares best on the new songs on his 1989 Christmas collection — the title track, “Meet Me Under the Mistletoe” and “Oh, What a Silent Night.” He’s far better at hardcore honky-tonk, even at the holidays, than the swinging Yuletide standards. But a particular standout is his powerful, haunting rendition of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman.”

Ray Charles was still in fine form in 1985 when he recorded this album of holiday favorites. But it’s the last track that elevates the collection to must-own status Charles’ smoldering duet with Betty Carter on “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” originally released in 1961. It’s the definitive version.