There have been a lot of Reggae Christmas albums released over the last 20 years and the vast majority have in all honesty sucked. There are a few gems on some of the albums but most tracks really come off as sounding cheesy and even I, with a great appreciation of reggae and Jamaican music, wouldn’t want to listen to the crap around the holidays. I have decided to compile all the decent reggae Christmas tracks into one mix and provide them in the hopes that the mix will make an appearance in your holiday playlists to add a bit of Caribbean warmth to the Yuletide season. One Love and Merry Christmas.
The tracks are…
1. Toots & the Maytals – Christmas Feeling Ska
2. The Wailers – Sound the Trumpet
3. The Wailers – White Christmas
4. Alton Ellis – Christmas Coming
5. Joe Gibbs Family – Winter Wonderland
6. Freddie McGregor – O Come All Ye Faithful
7. Yellowman – Where is Santa Claus
8. Anthony Malvo – Reggae Christmas
Various Artists - Reggae Christmas Mix
6 comments:
The Wailers' "Sound the Trumpet" is my favorite tracks... anyone like what they've heard? Is there anyone out there?
hey man, i downloaded all your reggae xmas trax and put them on my ipod on shuffle. it's kind of fun to get a reggae song after dean martin or vince guiraldi :P
Glad to hear it! That's exactly the response I was looking for Johnny $! It would be overkill to hear all reggae Christmas tracks but it does liven a mix a bit to hear an occassional song that strays from the "mainstream."
I've managed to find a couple of the tunes on your list but having trouble with most. I love the reggae Christmas thing though. I once heard a fantastic old tape in a taxi in India of Christmas reggae and it featured a great "black Christmas" sung by a female vocalist - I've tried several times to find it with no luck.
Al Dente - the "Black Christmas" tune you're looking for is by Hortense Ellis and appears on an album called African Christmas on the Top Ranking International label and also features the DJ Trinity. I contemplated using it in this years mix but I need to save something for next year!
Ha! Thank you so much, can't tell you how difficult this has been to track down. I emailed Mark Lamar at radio 1 and he suggested the same, but you've nailed it.
Thanks reggaexx!
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