Ronnie Spector - Best Christmas Ever

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Title: Ronnie Spector's Best Christmas Ever
Artist: Ronnie Spector
Audio CD (November 9, 2010)
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Christmas
Format: Free Lossless Audio Codec


Track Listing:

01. My Christmas Wish
02. It's The Time (Happy Holidays)
03. Light One Candle
04. Best Christmas Ever
05. It's Christmas Once Again


Allmusic Review:
Ronnie Spector sang on A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, arguably the greatest rock & roll Christmas album ever made, and even if Darlene Love got the best lead vocals on that classic LP, it still looms large enough in Ronnie's legacy that any time she tries to make a holiday record, it's going to measured against that accomplishment. Ronnie Spector's Best Christmas Ever is an optimistically titled EP that features five Yuletide tunes from the former Ronettes vocalist and girl group icon, and if it predictably doesn't hold a candle to the 1963 classic, it's a solid piece of work and shows that Spector's voice is still in great shape and she knows what to do with it. The real drawback here is that these five songs are serviceable but ultimately nothing special, and while "My Christmas Wish" and "Best Christmas Ever" lean toward '60s style R&B-influenced rock, which plays to Spector's strengths, "It's the Time (Happy Holidays)" is a Latin-flavored number whose style doesn't flatter her, and "Light One Candle" is pre-fab pop with a lamentable sub-Kenny G sax solo. "It's Christmas Once Again" is a sweet and well-crafted bit of '50s-styled pop, but it's also recycled from Spector's 2006 album Last of the Rock Stars. The production and arrangements are competent and professional, if not always inspired, and Spector sounds great and offers moving asides on two numbers in which she shares monologues about her childhood memories of the holiday. No one is likely to recall Ronnie Spector's Best Christmas Ever in 47 years the way folks still remember A Christmas Gift to You in 2010, but it clearly proves she's still one of the great voices of the girl group era, and she still has the pipes and the spunk to make this disc worth hearing, even if the material she's given is flawed.

Amazon Description:
Rolling Stone calls her 'the original bad girl of rock,' but this year 2007 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Ronnie Spector has been very nice. The iconic singer who has influencedgenerations of musicians from the Beatles and Brian Wilson, to Patti Smith and the Ramones, through to Amy Winehouse and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, - and recorded some of the most indelible holiday music of all time along the way - is set to release a new collection 'Ronnie Spector's Best Christmas Ever,' on November 9, via Bad Girl Sounds/The Orchard.

'Best Christmas Ever' features five newly recorded holiday gems destined to become contemporary classics. Ronnie recorded four tracks under the guidance of Bobby Eli - the famed Philadelphia producer, songwriter and founding member/guitarist of MFSB - and the fifth song with producer Johnny Gale (Ryan Shaw/Robert Randolph). Her long-time touring musicians, bassist Jeremy Chatzky (Bruce Springsteen's Seeger Sessions Band, Steve Earle) and keyboardist Joe McGinty (Psychedelic Furs, Ryan Adams), among others, contributed to these recordings.

'Best Christmas Ever' is imbued with Ronnie's deeply felt and vividly recounted holiday memories from her childhood in New York City. 'These songs recapture the original feelings of Christmas I had growing up,' Spector says. 'The minute I got into that studio I knew these were going to be my new Christmas hits.'

And she should know. Spector's group The Ronettes released the definitive versions of 'Frosty the Snowman,' & 'Sleigh Ride,' and 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus' in 1963, and they've dominated the holiday airwaves ever since (Ronnie's 'Sleigh Ride' and 'Frosty' are among ASCAP's Top 20 most played Christmas songs of the past five years). As the New York Times has observed, 'It's hard to think of a more appealing angel to welcome the season than Ms. Spector.'