Various Artists – Where Will You Be Christmas Day?
Of the commercially available holiday collections, this two-dozen-track entry goes to the top of the list. After last year’s astounding and mammoth Goodbye, Babylon set, Lance Ledbetter had every right to take it a bit easier with this single-disc set. Which is not to say he cut any corners. He and Dick Spottswood culled through 78s dating from 1917 through 1959.
The breadth of the music is impressive, but connected by dint of the overriding thematic hook. Moreover, it all flows with the healthy diversity of a great radio program. In the words of Terry Adams, “If you just colored with a red crayon, why would you want to color with a red crayon again?”
Continents and decades are traversed with good cheer, ingenuity, and musical logic. Take, for example, these three: the singing of Pasquale Feis, accompanied by zampogna (bagpipe) and ciaramella (reed pipe), gives way to Buell Kazee accompanying himself on banjo, which is then followed by the glorious fury of the Alabama Sacred Harp singers. And if you want names, also on board are McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, Bessie Smith, Leroy Carr, Lightnin’ Hopkins, the Maddox Brothers & Rose, Reverend Gates, and Lord Beginner.
Never cloying, Where Will You Be Christmas Day? is a reminder that, like the parable of the three blind men describing an elephant, it takes more than one vantage point to accurately and honestly describe things as multifaceted as spiritual matters, traditions, and the continuity of community.