Merry Christmas melodies

Former Stray Cat Brian Setzer was inclined to make a Christmas album because his friends have been bugging him about it for the past year.

"I had recorded songs for that movie 'Jingle All the Way' ('Deep in the Heart of XMas,' 'Sleigh Ride' and 'So They Say It's Christmas')," Setzer said during a telephone interview from his Southern California home. "Friends of mine were telling me that I had to do a Christmas album and kept telling me until I got off my butt and did one."

He wanted a holiday album that was fun. "I knew I wanted to do a duet and called Ann-Margret. She said, 'Yes.'

"I also knew I wanted to do a choir number, and I arranged 'O Holy Night.' And I had to put some Elvis in there. So I did 'Blue Christmas.' But I didn't want to veer too far from the roots-rock sound. So I didn't. If you take out the orchestrations, it would sound like a Stray Cats album."

When Hilary Weeks started thinking about a Christmas album, she hoped to "create something people would listen to year after year; that it would bring back memories of Christmases past."

Music is a powerful connection to the holiday, Weeks said during a telephone conversation from her home in Colorado (where she is getting ready for a move to Utah). "So many of my memories of Christmas are associated with music."

Weeks, who has won numerous Pearl Awards for singing and songwriting, tends to sing mostly her own material, so it was different singing Christmas songs, she said. "Usually, in the middle of a recording project, I'm still madly writing. This time, I thought, 'Where's all the work?' This is really fun.'"

But deciding which Christmas songs to include was a challenge because she likes so many of them. She sent e-mails to all the people on her list, asking them to rate their top-five favorite songs. "We took that into account. 'O Holy Night,' for example, was on almost everyone's list. But then I included 'Bring A Torch, Jeanette Isabella' because it's my mom's favorite."

She also wrote two original songs for the CD. "Christmastime," Weeks said, sums up "what Christmas means to me."

And these are just a couple of the new Christmas CDs this season has to offer — a list that covers the gamut from wild and wacky to elegant and refined.

---

Holiday music galore for your listening enjoyment