Seasonal music – another good reason for the season

If you’d have said to me when I was a young adult that I’d be enjoying Christmas music later in my life, I would probably have laughed at you.

But here I am, it’s 2019 and I have many Christmas albums and it feels untrue how we develop and change. Now, it has to be said that any fascination for Christmas I had when I was younger had been turned right around by the time I hit my teens and in the intervening years some remarkable transitions have taken place in my life. These have caused me to re-evaluate why Christmas should be celebrated – and celebrated in a totally different way. But, back then I had exactly one Christmas-flavoured record. It revolved at 45rpm and had one song on each side. Now, I have more than thirty albums of seasonal music – mostly songs of faith and about the birth of Jesus but some that are just about the festival and carry their own joy.

This list may come too late for you to listen to them but at least it gives you some time to add to your own collection before next year. It is the nearer the day when the true love brought five gold rings than the day when we celebrate the birth of the Messiah – so perhaps you’ll find some jewels here for 2020:-

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Sweet Tidings of Loudness and Joy

Who: Sweet

Where: Nell’s Jazz and Blues, West London, UK

When: 19th December 2018

What: Live in Concert (50th Anniversary Tour)

Last Christmas on the 15th of December I was stood just in front of the stage as Sweet tore up Nell’s Jazz and Blues playing to a packed house and delivering an uproarious set. Well, having started a good tradition, why break and so I and they are back just a little over a year later for more of the same.

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Mud Rock!

Who: Mud

Where: The Half Moon, Putney, London

When: December 24th 2017

Mud. Now there’s a name to conjure with. It’s only a few days since I was writing about another band from the Chinn / Chapman stable of the Seventies and now surprisingly I get to turn my attention to a second. I say surprisingly because Mud (in this format) have only played a handful gigs since their heyday. For the band this evening are led by original members, Rob Davis on lead guitar and Ray Stiles on bass and vocals.

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