'Two Great & Unusual Christmas Compilations To Look Out For In November'

I am always looking out for new Christmas music to acquire at this time of the year and never grow tired of discovering new festive songs to (hopefully) make each year a special one. Well, now that I have this blog I'm going to flag up some of the forthcoming CD's on the way this year!

Firstly, for lovers of the 1950's, theres a great looking compilation out on Nov 4th entitled 'A 50's Christmas - Times For A Cool Yule'. A double CD, it has 50 festive songs to discover and interestingly includes a number of early U.K. seasonal hits that are now otherwise almost impossible to find on CD. Since I started my research into the U.K.'s festive hits I've had much more interest in the early classics and so this is on my pre-ordered list at Amazon.com!

 The 1950's were a bit before my time but its nice to  be able to step back and experience a totally different feeling Christmas inspired by records from just the one era. A lot of more popular compilations mix and match songs from all eras and perpetuate the same selection of established classics each time. I'm really looking forward to getting hold of this set even though most of the tracks were not U.K hit singles. Most of the content originates from the states so its going to be rather a showbizzzy collection I imagine but hey! I love Marilyn Monroe and so I'm up for a U.S. Christmas! I hope the quality of the sound is as good as the appealing cover. It makes a HUGE difference to a music nutter like me if a product I'm interested in looks great. At the end of the day a CD is just a CD but if the cover looks desirable then I'm much more likely to buy it!

The second compilation I want to draw your attention to is for those of you who love soul & disco music. 'A Funky Christmas' is in fact a CD re-issue of an old Cotillion records compilation from 1976. While the cover looks a bit naff, the album is of real interest because it includes two Christmas songs by the group 'Luther'. Now it will be no surprise to any of you who don't know already that the lead singer of 'Luther' was Luther Vandross. None of the bands original albums have ever seen the light of day on CD (Vandross himself ought up the rights to prevent this for some reason) and so the two tracks from the band here are just about all that its possible to get. 

With some nice songs from The Impressions, 

Margie Joseph, John Edwards and others as well as a few 'funky Christmas instrumentals' this album is sure to be full of sweet delights. I have checked out a few of the songs on Youtube (maybe more on that later) but don't want to spoil the surprise too much when the CD arrives so won't hunt for any more of the tracks. I can tell you though that Mr Vandross sounds every bit as good as we all remember and that must make this album worth the price of admission alone!

Well, more Christmas blogging about forthcoming releases later. 'Funky Christmas' is due to be released in the U.K. on Nov 11th this year.

Happy Listening!