With A Lovely Way To Spend Christmas, Tony-winning and Emmy-nominated Kristin Chenoweth accomplishes a goal. She had wanted to do a Christmas CD ever since signing with Sony Classic eight years ago, and she’s delivered a good one.
There’s really no accounting for taste in holiday music. Some love it. Some hate it. Some love Johnny Mathis. Some love Amy Grant. (Kristin loved Barbra Streisand.) But anyone can find something to like in Chenoweth's A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas: pop, country, traditional. There’s even some genre-busting as she adapts Big Bird and Louis Armstrong to the holidays.
It’s Her Voice, Stupid
As I look over my notes from listening through the 12 cuts on Lovely Way, one point kept recurring: “Clean.”
Christmas albums fall prey to over-production as often as not, but not this one. Although it’s fully orchestrated, nothing takes precedence over the featured instrument: Chenoweth’s voice. She is allowed to sing cleanly through on every cut.
Admittedly, I’m a Chenoweth fan and have been since hearing her as Sally singing "My New Philosophy" in You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, for which she won a Tony. But very few will debate the quality and clarity of her voice or her ability to infuse song with character. And both are on display here.
I’ve always liked "Do You Hear What I Hear?," but Chenoweth, singing her own harmony, may have produced a classic version of it.
Something Old, New Again
The CD goes all the way back to the Andrews Sister for "Christmas Island," and it's here that Chenoweth really hits her stride. There’s a whimsy to her interpretation that takes us back to that aforementioned "My New Philosophy."There are also two cuts, Nos. six and 12, which cross genres for songs not typically associated with the holidays. There’s "Sing," which was written for Big Bird (yes, that Big Bird), but which finds a proper place on this CD. Then there is a lovely combination of "Sleep Well Little Children" with "What A Wonderful World" that hits the right note.
You Can’t Take Oklahoma Out of the Girl
Being from Texas myself, I know a twang when I hear it. Chenoweth, the pride of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, lets her twang come through on a countrified version of "Silver Bells," that also features lovely harmony, and on her favorite cut, a rousing "Come on Ring Those Bells."
As I said at the top, not everyone likes Christmas music. I do, and if you do, too, you’ll like A Lovely Way To Spend Christmas.
A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas Release Details
- Artist: Kristin Chenoweth
- Label: Sony BMG Masterworks
- Release Date: October 2008