The Christmas Spirit [Import, Best of]

I have been searching and searching for this album on CD. This album epitomizes Christmas for me, I remember my father playing the vinyl version when I was a very young girl, and singing along in his own baritone voice. Johnny Cash is truly a poet, and nowhere is this more evident than in the recordings on this CD. 'Ringing the Bells for Jim' still brings tears to my eyes nearly 40 years later!

Since this is the second Johnny Cash Christmas CD I own, I can compare this one, THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT, to his COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CD from 1991. This one is better, in my opinion, but since they are both priced so low, you can buy both on amazon.com for the price of a normal CD, so you might as well do that!

This CD, THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT, has 1996 in the fine print of the CD cover, but other amazon.com reviewers are saying it is from the 1960s, which does agree with the younger Johnny Cash photo on the cover. The CD booklet is just a one-sided insert, and there are no details beyond the names of the song composers.

There are 12 songs for 38 minutes of music on this CD, THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT.

If this CD is from the 1960s, then they did a pretty good job of remastering it for a CD. This is issued by Sony Music, so I think it sounds a little better than the COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CD which is issued by the off-brand LaserLight label.

None of the performances are the same, so you can buy both CDs without duplicating any performance, but Johnny and friends did repeat 3 songs on COUNTRY CHRISTMAS with new performances captured. "Blue Christmas" and "Silent Night" are better on COUNTRY CHRISTMAS, but "Here Was A Man" is better on this CD, CHRISTMAS SPIRIT.

This CD has 3 songs composed solely by Johnny, another traditional one arranged by Johnny, and even one co-written by Johnny and his father-in-law, Ezra "Eck" Carter! June Carter also co-wrote two songs.

"Christmas as I Knew It" is an interesting biographical song about Johnny's Christmas as a kid in Dyess, Arkansas, co-written by June!

"Little Drummer Boy" has a novel focus on the drumming, though it is sparse and a bit strange upon the first listen.

At first I kind of was distracted by the 1950's barber shop quartet styled backing vocals, but then I kicked myself when I realized that has to be the Carter Family ladies for the female vocals! So those oldie styled backing vocals are much more appreciated, but they are still oldies-styled.

Johnny sings lead vocals on all the songs, and the overall feel of the album is calm, with mostly strong, heartfelt lyrics. This is better than the 1991 COUNTRY CHRISTMAS which suffers from being too uneven in quality and tone, with some songs seeming to have little to NONE of Johnny's lead vocals.

My brother bought this in vinyl the Christmas of 1964. I was only 10, but the words of "The Ballad of the Harp Weaver" and "Christmas as I Knew It" became indellibly etched in my mind. I had completely forgotten the album until Johnny Cash passed into glory and I started remembering our old albums. The old Sun recordings were some of his best early work. I don't think any other artist has had a greater effect on the American Music Scene.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 10 reviews  4.1 out of 5 stars