Los Lobos

Guestpost! Ruud Houweling, once known as Cloudmachine, is an acclaimed Dutch singer-songwriter with a big heart for Americana music. He wrote a few lines on that very cool Christmas album by Los Lobos:
Chicano superstars Los Lobos, the multi-instrumentalist rockers from Los Angeles with their unique musical blend of mixed cultural origin, recorded a Christmas album with songs from Latin America. Obscure traditionals from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Colombia and Venezuela. Save one; the inescapable classic sing along finale: Feliz Navidad. A flavorsome treat.
(Tip: also give their incredible 1996 album Colossal Head a spin)

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Christmas All Over Again

PussNBoots is a sort of all female supergroup from Brooklyn: Norah Jones, winner of 9 grammy awards, Catherine Popper who played with people like Jack White & Ryan Adams and jazz singer Sasha Dobson. For this upcoming season they made a nice (mini) alt. country CD/LP: 'Dear Santa...'. It also includes this great country song:

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Tropical Christmas on Christmas Island

Leon Redbone  (1946-2019) was an artist who was often compared with Frank Zappa and and Tom Waits. He died on dementia this year. In 1988 he released a Christmas album  'Christmas Island'  (in fact a real island, located in the Indian Ocean about 350 KM south of Java). This october the album is rereleased on CD, with two extra unknown new tracks.

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Joe Kane/Radiophonic Tuckshop

Stumbled on this album, originally released in 2017 but put on Bandcamp recently. A joyous seasonal album by singer-songwriter, all originals but chockful of references. Really dug this jangling, Beatles-y track:

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AAAAaaaaand we're back

Hiy'all. Usually, we fire up the blog on November 1. But since the lovely girls of Clean Pete decided to release their brilliant Dutch take on God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen today, we had no choice but follow.
Now, Clean Pete, you might remember them from this Christmas track. Or this one. You might have visited their Xmas shows (two coming up in Decemer). Even if Dutch is not your language, you have to admire their lush voices, and the effort they take to make original takes on Christmas songs. Dutch male vocal hero Thijs Boontjes joins the CP-duo.
On the album, to be released late November, the earlier singles appear (everyting in Dutch), duets with comedian Stefano Keizers, jazz singer Ruben Hein, folkster Lucky Fonz and a few tracks without back up singers. We've already heard it, and think it's B R I L L I A N T. Really. All reworked versions of known carols, xmas pop hits and more. Something to look out for, surely.

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