Customer Reviews

Shimmy Down the Chimney: A Country Christmas

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Sure, this album's been out for more than a year, but I waited until last year's post-holiday markdowns to pick this up for less than half price. It has become one of my favorite Christmas albums (and I have more than 200).

While this is a new collection, there is only one new recording: Alison Krauss's sultry "Shimmy Down the Chimney," which was released as a single last year. What makes this such a satisfying collection is that Capitol Records has cherry picked songs from a variety of labels. So you get Dwight Yoakam (Warner Bros.) doing a rousing version of "Santa Claus Is Back in Town," the Willie Nelson (Columbia) chestnut "Pretty Paper," and bluegrass legend Del McCoury (Rebel) performing "Call Collect on Christmas."

In addition, some of these songs date back more than thirty years: Merle Haggard's traditional reading of "Jingle Bells" is from 1973. In fact, other than the title track, only three other tracks are from this decade: Jo Dee Messina's "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" (2002), Steve Wariner's "Christmas in Your Arms" (2000), and Kenny Rogers' "White Christmas" (2000).

There are numerous highlights: SheDaisy perform a rollicking rendition of "Deck the Halls." Dolly Parton offers a playful version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Deana Carter sings a haunting version of "Carol of the Bells." All in all, this quite simply a wonderful collection of some of the season's best songs by some of country's biggest stars. [Running time - 59:17] VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

This is a great CD for your Christmas music collection. I am a big fan of Trace Adkins and his version of Christmas Song is wonderful. Not to mention the new one by Alison Kraus Shimmy Down the Chimney is great. If you love any artists on this CD you have to get it.
Marjorie
San Francisco Bay Area

I try every year to add holiday music to my CD collection and I thought I was safe after reading the reviews for this one. But, unfortunately, it has fallen to the bottom of my collection and is my least favorite.