Happy Holidays
This expanded reissue of Willis and Robison's 2003 EP does precisely what the best Christmas albums have always done: reinterpret, revive, and refresh the tradition, while remaining intensely musical. The rotating cast of players--including young Austin pals Andrew Nafziger, Eamon McLoughlin, and Warren Hood, as well as keyboard ringers Chip Dolan and Floyd Domino--serve every song with the right balance of grit and glow. The arrangements, even when stringed up on "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," never cross the line into schmaltz and never overwhelm. The slowly swinging, jazzy opener, "Santa Baby," can't equal Eartha Kitt's definitive version, but Willis's restrained-but-sexy delivery comes close. While the band can't rock the twang quite like the Buckaroos, they still get a swampy romp out of Buck Owens's classic "Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy" and an elegant electric piano-driven waltz from "Blue Christmas," which Willis delicately transforms into a country-soul aria. Robison's lead singing has never been powerful enough to score on the charts; here, he's just playful and amateurish enough to undercut the cornpone of "Please Daddy Don't Get Drunk" and scratchy and sincere enough to redeem the bathos of Charlie Louvin's "Shut In at Christmas." The closing Robison original, a live version of "Oklahoma Christmas," may never become a standard, but its honest and hilarious satire of homestead piety is classic--as is the whole album.--Roy Kasten