OK I realise I just chucked the alphabetical thang outta da window but I own just 4 Xmas albums and I figured what better time to get those outta the way than now…well it is Christmas…

What we have here is Christmas songs played by a rock & roll, boogie woogie big band pressed on lush green and white splatter vinyl…ace! 

This and its follow up, that we’ll get to tomorrow, entered my world only this year. Well that’s not entirely true, I’ve had a download of this one for some years, these records I only acquired in February. They arrived as part of a collection I bought for the shop, both 2019 re-issues of albums originally issued on CD only in 2003 and 2005 respectively. My addiction to all things coloured and vinyl meant I immediately earmarked them as additions to my collection.

For anyone who has been asleep for the last 40 or so years Brian Setzer is the impossibly blonde and be-quiffed singer and guitarist who first made his name fronting Rockabilly Rebels the Stray Cats. After the breakup of that band and a try at a solo career he put together the Brian Setzer Orchestra, a 17 piece Jump Blues and Swing big band with extra added Rockabilly guitars in 1990.

This album is another collection of Christmas (mostly) standards (“Jingle Bells”, “Winter Wonderland”, “The Nutcracker Suite” you get the picture ? Yes we see) with a couple of Setzer originals all revved up to sound something like Cab Calloway or Joe Jackson’s “Jumpin’ Jive” on pharmaceutical grade amphetamines (I am in no way insinuating that any chemical stimulants were employed in the making of this album) all sprinkled with scorching boogie-woogie guitars. Like this…

Jingle Bells - https://youtu.be/juTJQr9WJfY?si=QtVPaLiqhgpDbDxK