Belated Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, etc. Survived another one. Hope you did too, my peeps.
Just to tell you briefly about those Christmas albums I mentioned:
The Trail Band - Christmas with the Trail Band Live in Concert
and
The Trail Band - Peace On Earth: A Christmas Collection
I gave them both 2.5 out of 5 stars for an Average rating. The Trail Band in another project of Marv and Rindy Ross of Quarterflash, and they keep pretty much to the Oregon area. They're both folk music (in the full band sense, not the guy or girl with a guitar sense), and each album has its moments. They're both inconsistent though. (And Denise hated it when they used a tuba.)
Celtic Woman - The Magic of Christmas
and
Annie Haslam - It Snows in Heaven Too
I rated them both 3.5 out for 5 stars for a Great rating. The Celtic Woman album is brand new, and while I don't like the current version of this group as much as the original, they do a nice job here. Likewise, as you'd expect, given Annie Haslam's exquisite voice, her LP is also a winner.
But the pick of this year's litter is:
Rick Wakeman - Christmas Portraits
I gave this one a 4 out 5 stars, for an Excellent rating. This is all instrumental piano music done by the master, and it's a definite plus to every Christmas Music lover's collection.
I actually have one more on order, coming in late, that I'll enjoy next season, which is the remastered version of Blackmore's Night - Winter Carols. I gave a 3.5 out of 5 rating to the original, and in retrospect, I probably should have given it a 4. The new version has three extra tracks, and I think some alternate versions, and it's a two-disc CD. I'm not going to bother to review it, since I already did a full write-up of the original (which you can find on this blog in mid-December of 2016).
Anyway, I hope to back later this week with my Top 10 Albums of 2019 list.
