Search - Connie Francis :: The Christmas Album

The Best Of The Connie Xmas Albums

M. D. Baker | London | 10/19/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"All the other Connie Xmas albums are a track or two short. If you are only going to get one of the Connie Xmas albums then get your hands on this one as it has 15 tracks. All other releases I have seen have got 10,12 or 13 tracks and so you lose out on a few decent pieces of music."

Christmas with Connie? Why not!

Tadeusz Zdrojewski | Warszawa (Warsaw) Poland | 12/13/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Among Connie's original MGM albums you can find a selection of popular Christmas songs ("Connie's Christmas" and its repackage "Christmas in my heart"). The reviewed here compilation by Spectrum Music (a PolyGram company) refers to none of them but, containing 15 tracks, is the most powerful (but still not complete) set of Connie's Christmas songs. "The Christmas album" brings to you international Carols ("Silent night, holy night", "Adeste Fidelis"), folk Christmas songs ("Twelve days of Christmas") and songs not exactly connected with Christmas ("Ave Maria", "The Lord's Prayer"), which can be sung also during other Catholic ceremonies (e.g. weddings and... funerals). Placing them in this set is open to discussion; according to this way of thinking, somebody might claim that Christmas is a proper time to sing "God bless America" (many thanks for not including it here). The bulk of space in this CD is filled with typical Christmas love songs, which in my opinion, fit Connie's voice the best. Among them you can find slow, lyric tunes ("Have yourself a merry little Christmas" or my favorite "I'll be home for Christmas") and very vivid ("I'm gonna be warm this winter", comparable only with "Rockin' around the Christmas tree" by Brenda Lee). It's a pity that none of CD editions contain all Connie's winter/Christmas songs. It would be much more accurate if instead of (or in addition to) "Blue winter" (obligatory track of various so-called "Connie's Greatest Hits"; actually not a Christmas but winter love song; the word "Christmas" does not appear in its lyrics) this set contained "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer" (mentioned in the booklet in unclear context) and "Happy New Year, baby". In Catholic (and also laic) tradition we are used to linking together these two holidays wishing "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year". What hereby I also do.
By the way, nothing beats Polish Christmas Carols (Koledy; particularly if performed by Mazowsze), also available from Amazon."

Wonderful mostly mellow Christmas music

Peter Durward Harris | Leicester England | 04/03/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Although some people might argue that not every song here is truly a Christmas song, every song here is entitled to appear on such an album. And any idea that a song has to mention Christmas in the lyrics in order to be classed as a Christmas song is clearly nonsense as that would rule out Silent night, the most popular Christmas song of all, and a whole hot of other Christmas perennials. I agree that some Christmas albums stretch the boundaries a bit too far, but this isn't one of them.



So to the actual music, which Connie recorded at at a time when her popularity was extremely high. Here, Connie was in top form as usual. Most of the songs are Christmas standards including Winter wonderland, The Christmas song, White Christmas, I'll be home for Christmas, Have yourself a merry little Christmas, Twelve days of Christmas, Ave Maria, Silent night, O little town of Bethlehem, The first Noel and Adeste fidelis (O come all ye faithful). Yes, Ave Maria is a Christmas standard, whether it was intended to be or not. The album closes with The Lord's prayer, which is fair enough. Connie is certainly not the only singer to include this on a Christmas album; among others, Barbra Streisand did so on her first Christmas album. With so many familiar songs, this album was no doubt popular with record buyers when first released and deserves to remain so.



That leaves three other songs, these being Baby's first Christmas (a track that you may have come across on Christmas compilations by various artists), Blue winter (which sounds as though it was inspired by the more famous Blue Christmas) and I'm gonna be warm this winter (perhaps my favorite here, being the one song that I was unfamiliar with at the time of purchase).



This is an excellent Christmas album of its type and is a most welcome addition to my ever-growing collection of Christmas music."