Brenda Lee Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree (MCA/Decca)

Brenda Lee

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree (MCA/Decca)

Subtitled The Decca Christmas Recordings, this collection is allowed to sit out the annual lecture about the wisdom of dropping $15 on yet another Christmas album versus donating the sum to a worthy charity. Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree is a reissue of Brenda Lee's holiday recordings for the popular Fifties label, and these represent 18 of the 256 sides she recorded before she was 20. Subsequently, her chart-topper-turned-seasonal-staple, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," opens the CD and finds her in full voice; she's still a little girl when singing "Christy Christmas," for example. Of course there are the usual syrupy treatments of other traditional tunes such as "Silver Bells" and "Winter Wonderland," as well as string-damaged songs like the gooey "A Marshmallow World," and the positively artificial "Strawberry Snow," which will send listeners into sugar shock. Some regional Cajun flavor with "Papa Noel" and novelty distraction with "I'm Gonna Lasso Santa Claus" offer a little relief, but the saving grace is the closing "Silent Night." It receives a countryish arrangement that makes the best of Lee's gulpy vocals and phrasing, and only the intrusive backup singers mar the song's gentle sweetness. "Silent Night" is an exquisite and simple expression of faith, a reminder that for many people this season is about celebrating the birth of Christ. Would that our lives carried the message of grace in this song every day instead of once a year. Merry Christmas.