Anne Murray

Item: What A Wonderful Christmas
Author: Marie Asner

What A Wonderful Christmas

(2001)

Reviewed by Marie Asner

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Label EMI RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth2001

adult contemporary country pop

Anne Murray releases her sixth Christmas compilation with 28 tracks of old favorites and new songs. Anne is accompanied on many selections by the London Symphony Orchestra.

Anne Murray's singing career began in 1968 with her first album, What About Me. She has gone between country and pop with almost forty albums as her flowing contralto reaches out to the listener with a one-on-one touch. Five of the albums are Christmas-related and What A Wonderful Christmas will make number six. Still present is her clear enunciation; so precise it slices through words like a crystal knife.

Murray's contralto is starting to show the inevitable aging process and the smooth glide from a lower range to a higher range isn't that easy any longer. The selections on this CD have the same drowsy beat, though sometimes disguised in calypso ("Mary's Boy Child"), it's still a fox trot tempo. Murray doesn't hold a phrase out as long, and in fact, cuts the end word off abruptly time and time again. "O Little Town of Bethlehem" especially suffers here.

CD one is the weaker of the two. "It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas" is slightly off-key with a weak vocal arpeggio. "Let It Snow," though virtually a standard of Murray's, is not firm and sounds forced.

On the other hand, when accompanied by back-up singers, Murray sounds like her old self. "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear," is strong and confident. "Coventry Carol," which is used to introduce "White Christmas," "Christmas in Killarney" and "Christmas Song" flow like warm butter. "Winter Wonderland," "Do You Hear What I Hear" and "I'll Be Home For Christmas" are a lesson in pronunciation and warmth.

What is unnerving is having a singer divide a word into more syllables than the ear can distinguish. Case in point: "O Come All Ye Faithful," triumphant sounds like tri-um-ph-ant and Bethlehem sounds like Beth-le-he-m while in the otherwise beautiful "Sweet Little Jesus Boy" born sounds like bo-horn.

Anne Murray definitely sounds comfortable and at home with the selections on disc two where it sounds as though Anne Murray were in your living room singing to you. The first two tracks, "The Santa Medley" and "Rudolph/Frosty Medley" are especially well done. "Away In A Manger" combines both traditional carol melodies. "This Season Will Never Grow Old" and "Christmas Wishes" are newer songs. "Go Tell It On The Mountain" gives us the same Murray tempo, but with a gospel setting. "Mary's Boy Child" is an innovative carol with calypso-style instruments.

The London Symphony Orchestra certainly is not intrusive to "What A Wonderful Christmas," in fact, if you didn't read it on the CD cover, you wouldn't know they were there. Fans should relish having old Christmas favorites and newer songs on a CD-pack. This is meant to be Anne Murray's album, and Anne Murray's album it is.

3 tocks