Customer Reviews

Christmas Collection: 20th Century Masters

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Although I'm a collector of most of the older classic Christmas albums, this CD ranks high on my list of spiritual holiday music and is destined to become a treasured holiday classic in the years to come. It was originally released under the title "Star Bright"

Vanessa's interpretations of some classic spiritual Christmas songs such as "What Child is This", "Hark the Herald Angels Sing", "Do You Hear What I Hear/Little Drummer Boy", "Angels We have Heard on High" and the "First Noel" are soulfully jazzy. A very upbeat medley of "Go Tell it on the Mountain/Mary had a Baby" produced by David Foster adds a somewhat contemporary gospel sound which will give you chills and also remarkebly illustrates her extended vocal range. Her solemn rendition of "Gracious Good Shepherd" features her daughter in a vocal solo and allows the listener to really feel the reason for the season.

Every song beautifully captures true spirit of the Christmas season. This CD will warm your heart.

This is a charming album to give as a gift or play while putting up your holiday decorations. While everyone else is screaming and yelling their holiday songs, Vanessa Williams actually chose to SING. Her voice is rather plain really. I don't mean that as a negative thing. It's just that vocally her voice is very straightforward and simple. She's no Jesse Norman (an african american opera star) but for what she sings, her voice is effective enough.

Gracious Good Shepherd is the sweetest song on the album. Vanessa sings it and all the other songs that tell the Good News with reverence. She does not tend to over sing tunes like many singers do these days. For those of you that have trouble hearing lyrics, Vanessa's diction is quite clear. The words do not get lost in the music. I reccomend it for your holiday music library. This album is appropriate for all ages.

Parents, purchase with confidence.

Vanessa's distinctive sound is that it is well cultivated,
a beautiful tone, perfect articulation, like a polished pearl.
However sometimes these arrangements seem a little artificial,
sometimes obviously Kenny G, or George Benson, (I'll Be Home
for Christmas) or like it was pulled from the soundtrack of
The Lion King (Do You Hear What I Hear. Sometimes her vocal
phrasing sounds too much like she is borrowing from Al Jarreau,
while the band sounds like studio musicians who have used the
same riffs over and over on other album projects.

I do like her rendition of "What Child Is This", "The First
Noel", and her tastefully jazzy "Angels We Have Heard On
High". These arrangements are fresh and interesting all the
way through.

Overall this is still a pleasant album, though I would like
to have heard Vanessa challenge herself more, on range and
interpretation.

I have always been a fan of Vanessa, a smooth easy on the ear voice. Her Christmas album lived up to my expectations, a modern some what up tempo touch to some good classic Christmas favorites like track #1 Do you hear what I hear and # 3 Hark the Herald Angels Sing. and a Jazzy touch to #9 What Child is this. The title track Star Bright blends the true Christmas message of Christ is with us and shines in and through our own hearts.
A beautiful Christmas album through which Vanessa vocalizes her love for Christmas.

If you enjoy the Gospel of the African American style, then this album by our first Black Miss America is for you. Ms. Williams has gone on to prove her God given talent again and again throughout her career in T.V., movies, Broadway, and music,
but this album should be on the top ten best Christmas albums ever made.

"Hark the Herold Angels Sing", and "Go tell it on the Mountain" are instant classics for all time. The album even has a classic Jazz duet featuring Ms. Williams and smooth Bobby Caldwell on "Baby, it's cold outside" reminding you is wintertime and the perfect time to find romance.
Every song is a hit and so well arranged and orchestrated you may find yourself repeating it over and over again.

I loved the cd! Vanessa's rendition of Baby, It's Cold Outside is now one of my favorite Christmas songs.

Fast delivery, which was great as it was sort of an early Christmas present!

This remastering of her 1996 album "Starbright" is a reminder of the original classic.. From start to finish Vanessa Williams takes you on a journey of simplistic sounds that encompase jazzy rhythms - calypso grooves - traditional and even a hint of Gospel on "go tell it on the mountiain"... Her remake of "Baby it's cold outside" is a winner as is "Hark the herald angels sing" and "angels we have heard on high". The ballad "starbright" showcases her pure and honest angelic tone that has been a trademark on every ballad she has sung and became a hit. Honestly this is a CD that can be played year round and when I saw her Christmas special the year the original album was released it made me run out and put the CD in my collection and I look forward to Thankgiving day as the day after Vanessa plays all month long.

My wife and I first saw this CD when Christmas shopping on "Black Friday" 1998. She is a Vanessa Williams fan, and was very interested, and also liked the song selections offered. Christmas being just a few weeks away we didn't purchase it at the time, but she did drop a broad hint that it might make a nice Christmas present. Being a good husband, I dutifully went out and purchased it a couple of weeks later. Although I thought and still do that Ms. Williams is one gorgeous woman, I was apathetic to earlier samples I had heard of her music. So, I was quite pleasantly surprised to find I very much liked this album, and along with her follow up Christmas CD "Silver and Gold", it has become one of our holiday musical favorites.

Why should you consider yet another Christmas CD? Well, Ms. William's arrangements with their jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel/spiritual influences give a fresh perspective to old Christmas classics and favorites, while still preserving the integrity of the original. Some excellent examples of this are her renditions of "Do You Hear What I Hear?" "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", "Angels We Have Heard on High", "The First Noel" and a ratcheted up version of "Go Tell it on the Mountain" coupled with the another African American spiritual "Mary Had a Baby".

I'm sorry to say that I am not a musical scholar by any means, so I can't offer any technical expertise to analyze Ms. Williams vocal ability. All I can say is that her voice has a warm, smooth, mellow sound that is quite pleasing to the ear; it is very relaxing and does very nicely indeed with the selections.

My own personal favorites besides those already mentioned above are the title track "Star Bright", which I believe was a new song at the time by Rob Mathes an extremely talented composer/arranger who was responsible for over half of the arrangements of the numbers. It's a wistful, yearning ballad of someone beseeching the Star of Bethlehem to lead her to love and fulfillment, sang with a lovely simplicity by Ms. Williams. Mr. Mathes also arranged a slow, sexy version of Frank Loesser's classic duet "Baby, It's Cold Outside" where Ms. Williams is joined by singer Bobby Caldwell in a simmering, erotic showcase that is never tawdry or vulgar. This is one of the best versions I have ever heard of this song, kudos to Ms. Williams and Messrs. Mathes and Caldwell! In "Gracious Good Shepherd" another plaintive ballad composed and arranged by Mr. Mathes, there is a special treat when Ms. Williams daughter Melanie Hervey joins her mother and performs a vocal solo of piercing sweetness.

I would highly recommend this CD not just to Vanessa Williams fans, but anyone who truly appreciates the beauty of Christmas music and it's many varieties. I hope you like it as much as my wife and I, if so please try the follow up Christmas CD "Silver and Gold", it's just as good.

I love this cd. I play it when it's not christmas. My favorite is Hark the herald. It put you in the mood for christmas. Vanessa got it right.

After a few moves and items being ruined in flood waters this, my all time favorite Christmas album, came up missing. I have searched (as has my husband) for three years for this album to no avail! I should have known to check Amazon! Thank you! Every song is beautiful and I looked forward to decorating, cooking and wrapping to this music each year. I'll have to wait until next year since I am writing this Christmas Eve and haven't ordered it yet. I will listen and enjoy it whenever it comes though.