Is Christmas a time to be blue? We definitely hope not, however it may be a good time to play the most effective Christmas blues songs. Over time, going way back to Blind Lemon Jefferson, who tragically died in a snowstorm a number of days earlier than Christmas in 1929, blues women and men have sung in regards to the vacation season whereas taking part in the blues. This Christmas, get out your sleigh, pray for a white Christmas, and benefit from the xmas with a number of the finest blues Christmas songs ever.
Take heed to our playlist of the most effective blues Christmas songs on Spotify, and scroll down for our checklist of the most effective blues Christmas songs.
Lightnin’ Hopkins: Merry Christmas
There’s something incongruous about listening to a voice you usually affiliate with singing pained lyrics about heartbreak belting out strains about Santa Claus coming round, however Lightnin’ Hopkins’ tune about his girl returning is definitely filled with Christmas cheer. “Merry Christmas” was first launched as a single within the first week of introduction in December 1953 and stays a basic of blues music.
Jimmy Witherspoon: How I Hate To See Xmas Come Round
Jimmy Witherspoon, the good “blues shouter” who sang with jazz greats reminiscent of Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge, performs usually depressing blues lyrics in a music that’s tied to the festive interval. There’s no cash to buy the Christmas tree, he sang, sadly, on this 1948 basic. The singer was given advantageous musical assist from Louis Speigner on guitar.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe: O Little City Of Bethlehem
In September 1956, gospel nice Sister Rosetta Tharpe reduce a transferring model of the Nineteenth-century Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Who higher than Tharpe, who was raised by her mom, a touring evangelist with the Church Of God In Christ, to sing such a seminal non secular Christmas music?
Little Johnny Taylor: Please Come Residence for Christmas
This Stax Data gem from 1961 options the Arkansas-born blues singer Little Johnny singing “Please Come Home for Christmas,” a music that has been coated by everybody from Bon Jovi to Eagles. Taylor, who started his profession as a gospel singer, died in 2002.
Chuck Berry: Spending Christmas
Chuck Berry’s most sentimental music, “Spending Christmas,” was recorded for Chess Data in Chicago in December 1964, and produced by label house owners Phil and Leonard Chess. The music is nostalgic, with Berry singing about being far-off from residence, far-off from family members, and dreaming of wrapping Christmas presents. Berry, backed by outdated buddies from his St. Louis days, together with Jules Blattner (guitar) and Brian Hamilton (saxophone), provides a reminder of how good he was at singing ballads. (For a extra upbeat little bit of Christmas music from Berry, be sure you examine “Run Rudolph Run.”)
Charles Brown: Merry Christmas
“Merry Christmas” might be the one music that has been coated by each Bruce Springsteen and Mae West, however the definitive model was launched in 1947 by singer and pianist Charles Brown as a part of Johnny Moore’s vocal group Three Blazers. Brown, whose delicate slow-paced type influenced blues performances for 20 years, stated he helped Lou Baxter with the composition. “I wrote the title ‘Merry Christmas Baby’, and I wrote the words, how I was going to sing it, and I mapped it out, played the piano, and I presented it to Johnny Moore. We didn’t know it was going to be a great big hit, but I thought it was unique.”
Albert King: Christmas (Comes However As soon as A Yr)
Albert King took the music “Christmas (Comes But Once A Year),” which had been successful for Amos Milburn in 1960, and gave it a makeover, taking part in some scorching blues guitar. King, who was referred to as “The Velvet Bulldozer” due to his easy singing and measurement (he was 6’ 6”), provides some funk and blues for Christmas time. (For one thing that’s acquired slightly bit extra swing and boogie, attempt “Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin’.”)
Eric Clapton: Christmas Tears
“Christmas Tears” was blues legend Freddie King’s Christmas anthem, written and recorded in 1961. Grammy-winning Eric Clapton launched his personal Christmas album in 2018, after determining, as he put it, “how to play the blues lines in between the vocals of holiday songs.” His solo on “Christmas Tears” is eye-wateringly good. Clapton’s album, which additionally incorporates a model of “Silent Night” that’s worthy of inclusion among the many finest Christmas blues songs, was co-produced by Clapton with Simon Climie and options cowl artwork designed by the legendary guitarist.
John Lee Hooker: Blues for Christmas
John Lee Hooker has one of the mournful voices in fashionable music and the singer-guitarist composed the grim music “Blues for Christmas,” which included the strains “blues for Christmas/blue as I can be/I’m sitting here drinkin’/trying to drink my baby back.” The music was recorded in Detroit in 1949, within the period when Hooker was recording for the well-known Chess label. “Blues for Christmas” options Jimmy Miller on trumpet, Johnny Hooks on tenor saxophone and Tom Whitehead on drums within the moody, sluggish blues lament for higher festive occasions.
BB King: Christmas Love
BB King’s chart-topping 2001 album, A Christmas Celebration Of Hope, contained festive classics reminiscent of “Please Come Home For Christmas,” however one of many actual highlights of the album is his personal composition, “Christmas Love.” The instrumental monitor confirmed that, even on the age of 76, he had misplaced not one of the talent that had made him one of many world’s most good guitarists.
Canned Warmth: Christmas Blues
In late 1967, LA blues band Canned Warmth had been recording their album Boogie with Canned Warmth with Dr John, after they added on the recording of a few singles with novelty band Alvin and the Chipmunks. The festive music “Christmas Blues” was the B-side to “The Chipmunk Song,” which peaked at No. 31 on the Billboard charts in December 1968. “Christmas Blues,” a straight blues boogie within the early Canned Warmth type, was produced by Skip Taylor and co-written by singer Bob Hite, bassist Larry Taylor, guitarists Alan Wilson and Henry Vestine, and drummer Adolfo De La Parra.
Otis Redding: White Christmas
Otis Redding’s sleek, bluesy model of “White Christmas” was produced by acclaimed songwriter and guitarist Steve Cropper – a founding member of Booker T. & the MGs – who co-wrote Redding’s iconic hit “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” Redding’s model of Irving Belin’s basic festive music “White Christmas” was launched as a single in October 1968 by ATCO Data, with “Merry Christmas, Baby” on the B facet. This model was all of the extra poignant for being launched within the wake of the loss of life of Redding, who had been killed the earlier December on the age of 26 in a aircraft crash.
James Brown: Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto
James Brown delivered his personal funky Christmas sound on “Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto,” the opening monitor on his on his 1968 festive album A Soulful Christmas. The music was co-written by Charles Bobbit, Hank Ballard, and Brown’s musical director Pee Wee Ellis, who later labored with Van Morrison, and who performs tenor saxophone on the monitor. Within the music, Brown, who dressed up as Father Christmas for the duvet of the unique album, urges Santa to go for the ghetto and “fill every stocking you find.”
Clarence Carter: Again Door Santa
Clarence Carter, a soul singer from Montgomery, Alabama, who has been blind since delivery, had a minor hit in 1968 with the raunchy two-minute seasonal file referred to as “Back Door Santa,” full with a number of realizing “ho, ho, hos” as he sings “I make all the little girls happy/While the boys go out to play.” The phrases are set to a cool, Muscle Shoals backing rhythm. “Back Door Santa” was later coated by B.B. King, whereas Run-DMC sampled the music on “Christmas in Hollis” in 1987. The Black Crowes recorded their cowl of Carter’s risqué gem in 2005, throughout a break day from their residency on the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles, distributing it as a Christmas deal with to buddies. It was lastly launched commercially in 2020.
Sheryl Crow: Blue Christmas
The heartbreak music “Blue Christmas,” written by Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson, was made well-known by Elvis Presley in 1957. In 2008, on her album Residence For Christmas, Sheryl Crow sings a maudlin and emotional model of this basic, helped by some advantageous organ taking part in from Booker T.
Louis Jordan: Could Each Day Be Christmas
In June 1951, two years after renewing his contract with Decca Data and shortly after recovering from laryngitis, Jordan recorded a sequence of singles in New York utilizing a giant band that used each black and white musicians. One in every of them was his personal charming composition “May Every Day Be Christmas.” His personal common Tympany 5 band – which embrace Aaron Izenhall on trumpet and Invoice Jennings on electrical guitar – was supplemented by a number of marvelous jazz and blues musicians, together with Oliver Nelson on alto saxophone. Nelson additionally acted as an arranger for the session, which confirmed off Jordan’s easy vocals on an upbeat, optimistic festive deal with.
In search of extra? Uncover the most effective Christmas songs of all time.
