Putamayo's great illustrations on their album

If you celebrate Christmas, you usually have a small collection of Christmas music.  My parents favored Neil Diamond, Manhattan Transfer and Whitney Houston. (Yes, a collective EWWW! is permitted here!)  I couldn’t wait until I got older and could build my own little stash of Christmas music.  But, honestly, I have never, ever bought one.  Maybe it’s time?  Our music reviewer, Tuey Connell, reviews Putamayo’s new Christmas album that’s out now.

Putamayo Presents – A Family Christmas

by Tuey Connell

Putamayo has consistently delivered an amazing array of world music and their 2009 Holiday presentation, “A Family Christmas” is decidedly early Americana in vibe. The instrumentation and arrangements are generally old timey, as in 1920’s stride, boogie woogie, Dixie, country swing, folk, traditional Irish with a few aberrations like Ska and Hawaiian music in the mix for variety. One can imagine Gram & Grampa dancing in the kitchen as the rest of the extended family sings, plays instruments and claps along with enthusiastic enjoyment.

At 33 minutes and 6 seconds, the 11-song sequence is supposed to go down easy and it does with one exception. Why would the talented folks at Putamayo Land put the weakest vocal performance as their first track? Johnny Bregar, hailing from Seattle, is sharp (as in out of tune) right out of the gates on his version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” The first long note he holds is the tail end of the hook: “Santa Claus is coming to tooooooooown,” and boy is it rough. Thankfully however, with the second track, Martin Sexton, exudes a sense of ease and swinging relaxation in his solo guitar + voice delivery of the old chestnut “Holly Jolly Christmas.” In fact, there are more than a few shades of Burle Ives in Martin’s delivery, except that Burle is just so square where Martin makes it sound so groovy and effortless.

And so the CD goes with a variety of early Amaricana takes: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is campy in a Chick Webb meets Cab Calloway – with a slightly creepy element a la Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas; Leon Redbone, truly an American original, sings and plays within his sweet spot (a bluesy range of no more than an octave) and delivers with authenticity: 1920’s style – tuba, piano, slide guitar, and light snare drums in the background. The vocals are mixed on top and you can really feel and hear the quality and character of Leon’s voice. Several tracks are notable, and Sam Bush’s western style country swing rendition of “Sleigh Ride” is a standout with a terrific arrangement complete with mandolin chorus in the backgrounds and then after the solos a wonderful interlude and chromatic ending.

As far as Americans are concerned, this Family Christmas CD is right down the proverbial Americana highway spanning North, South, East and West and covers both urban and country styles of Christmas fare in an easy-to-listen to package.

Tuey Connell is a professional musician (who just happens to be married to this blog’s Founder!) and has performed and/or recorded with Taj Mahal, Arturo Sandoval, Vassar Clements, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Livingston Taylor, Don Stiernberg, Robbie Fulks, Slavek Hanzlik and other equally talented musicians and entertainers. With 15 records under his belt, many of which he produced, he listens to a lot of music- and loves to review it!

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