Playlist:
Arbolito (in English) Tish Hinojosa 4:33
Jesus on the Couch Otis Gibbs 3:00
American Noel Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer 3:40
Down the Road to Home Cori Connors 4:04
Music notes
Arbolito (in English) Tex-Mex Tish Hinojosa grew up in San Antonio in a household in which Spanish was their native language, the youngest of thirteen children born to Mexican immigrant parents. She began song-writing and singing professionally in 1987 and since that time has released 16 albums. On her website she writes:
The journey of singer-songwriter is an unpredictable one. There are some given elements such to it as gigs and travel. The artistic muse is more of a mystery. Sometimes creativity flows so quickly that you have to run to keep up. Other times it feels like the well is empty and you’ll never find it again. The road and streams of records has kept me going for five decades.
This song about talking to Christmas trees was originally written in Spanish, and you can hear her singing it that way in concert here. I got this track of her English version from a 1990 compilation album called A Child’s Celebration of Christmas. When I included this song on my 2008 Sampler Tish’s touring schedule indicated the international scope of her appeal, with concerts in Connecticut, London England, Hamburg Germany, and Nicaragua. This year she released a new album but I see that her touring schedule is now closer to home.
Jesus on the Couch Otis Gibbs is another long-time singer-songwriter who is still performing and recording. Although now based in Nashville, he grew up in the rural town of Wanamaker, on the outskirts of Indianapolis.
He says that while his parents worked countless hours to make ends meet he was often left in his uncle’s care. The two of them would frequent bars together, where Otis would sing for tip money (which really just meant more booze for his uncle.) He enjoyed performing and would often ask if they could stay and sing more songs. The answer always was: “Only if you promise to never tell your parents.” He continued busking after he grew up. Now, besides being a singer-songwriter he is a storyteller, painter, photographer, and podcaster.
This song is from his 2003 album Once I Dreamed of Christmas that Gibbs recorded "for people who don't like Christmas".
American Noel Like a few of the other songs in this sampler, American Noel sets the Nativity story in a contemporary context. It was written by Dave Carter and is sung by him here with Tracy Grammer on the violin. Tracy lived and performed with Carter for four years before he died in 2002 of a heart attack at the age of 49. This song is from a posthumously-released album of his Christmas songs that they had recorded in their kitchen. Since then Tracy has continued to record and tour as a solo act but recently her career seems to have turned more towards acting.
Down the Road to Home This song by Cori Connors had been waiting patiently to get onto one of my Christmas samplers ever since I bought her first 2001 Christmas album Sleepy Little Town a few years earlier. I wanted just the right context for it and that turned out to be as the closing song for this sampler. Also, I was traveling back to Minnesota for Christmas that year and I refused to leave it off for another year. I knew my mother would love this song.
In the introduction to her liner notes Cori says:
Not long ago, when my family had gathered together at my mom’s house, we set up the old brown card table in the middle of the living room. Out from the cupboards and bookcases came boxes and albums full of old family photos. Those photos called up memories for all of us; some painful, but mostly sweet. They were a tangible representation of all that brought us to where we are today.
[Writer and artist] Richard Exley said: “Experience again the full range of emotions memories invoke. Let them play a nostalgic melody on the strings of your heart. Remember the warmth of a special friendship, the comfort of kindness, the closeness of family....Blink back the tears if need be, and swallow past the fist-sized lump in your throat, but don't quench the memories. They are part of your history, part of the web of experience which God has woven into the tapestry of your personhood."
I have counted the years by Christmases, written on a series of envelopes and papers, and set to music in the wee silent hours at home. These songs are the pages of my scrapbook.
Cori is one of the few singers whose website I check every year to see if they have recorded a new Christmas album, and in 2010 I was rewarded for doing so when she released another one called One Small Boy.
Sampler-making recollections
By 2008 my Christmas music collecting was proceeding in earnest. My Christmas album collection had grown to over 500 albums, and I was adding about 40 more albums each year. I had also discovered online communities of collectors of Christmas shellac and vinyl music records, participated in their “sharity” of rare and out-of-print discoveries on websites, and joined in with their willingness to exchange their annual compilation CDs (“comps”) with others.
However my musical tastes are quite different from the other Christmas record collectors. They mainly collect the physical recordings, and I just as happily acquire songs that are new to me from compilations or digital copies of the songs. In other words, I think of myself as a collector of the songs, not the records.
Also, they tend to prefer the kitschy or quirky privately-published albums and/or the big overblown arrangements that became almost emblematic of Christmas songs recorded by pop music stars in the 1950s and ‘60s. But some members in this community monitor and review newly-released Christmas music. Through those sources I learned about new releases from regional musicians and songwriters whose albums I would then seek out.
This sampler is perhaps the hardest to explain of any that I have compiled. It has my usual special opening and closing songs to serve as a prelude and postscript. But other than that, when described it sounds just plain weird. There are three movements: the first has cowboy and country-western songs; the second is songs from tropical lands; and the third section has a social activist edge with songs about the spirit of Christmas.
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