Christmas Soul

My wife bought this CD home from Kohl's yesterday. It seems they've teamed up with good ol' Rhino Records and put out this Ray Charles Christmas CD. It's a part of the Kohl's Cares For Kids program, and "100% of the net profit from the sale of these items will support health and educational opportunities for children nationwide." It's waiting in the impulse purchase section of their stores and online, and can be yours for just five bucks.
I'm not usually big on department store music releases, but there's not a bad track on this CD. I did a quick google search and couldn't find an original release of Ray Charles Christmas, so I'm assuming this is some kind of compilation made to look like a re-release. The 24 hour Christmas radio station is in heavy rotation in my house all through December, and this will be an excellent addition.
The big three classics "Little Drummer Boy"; "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"; and "Winter Wonderland" are here and Ray makes each of them his own. In addition there are some other songs that I've never heard before, from what sounds like a bunch of different eras. They're all original sounding and full of jazz, soul, and some gospel.
You can't go wrong here. Good music, good cause, good price.

Other Jimmyhead Christmas Faves:

• Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Santa Claus is Coming to Town (Live)
• James Taylor: Winter Wonderland, and anything else from his xmas CD
• Dave Matthews: Christmas Song
• Anything with Bing Crosby singing

And as a Jew I'm sad to say that for me, aside from Adam Sandler's Hannukah Song, we have nothing that can compete with the classics. It's a shame considering all the great songwriters we've got in the tribe. I mean with Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Bob Dylan, Burt Bachrach, Billy Joel and all on the team you'd think we'd have one decent song. No such luck. Just the friggin' Dreidel Song.