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White Christmas

CD

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Overview

Nobody loved Christmas songs more than Elvis, and his abiding affection for them came through in his sensitive interpretations of seasonal hymns and carols. White Christmas is a compilation comprising songs from the two Christmas albums he cut in his lifetime, Elvis' Christmas Album and Elvis Sings the Wonderful World of Christmas, plus the curious addition of a non-Yuletide country song, "Mama Liked the Roses." All of which means there's some lively standard touchstones here on the order of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" and "Winter Wonderland," as well as the reverently rendered hymns that made up almost the entire second side of Elvis's first Christmas album. Not least among the latter are two monuments from the pen of the father of gospel music, Thomas A. Dorsey: the beautiful "Peace in the Valley" and "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," neither one of them Christmas songs but nonetheless reflective of the day's true spirit. For fanciful balance, there are a few tough-minded Yuletide blues classics, "Blue Christmas" and the jaw-dropping, relentlessly grinding workout on Charles Brown's timeless "Merry Christmas, Baby," along with the lascivious Leiber-Stoller blues-rock greeting card, "Santa Claus Is Back in Town." Add in a couple of Elvis's most poignant vocal performances ever -- on the heart-tugging ballad "If I Get Home on Christmas Day" and the wistful lament "Holly Leaves and Christmas Trees" -- and it's clear why Elvis owned this subgenre lock, stock, and barrel. No one has ever topped the King in the conviction and sincerity he brought to his journeys through the emotional tides of the holiday season. The songs on White Christmas prove the point: They are the alpha and omega of rock 'n' roll Christmas repertoires, their production and performance representing a standard that everyone from Phil Spector to Bruce Springsteen has taken aim at over the years.