Around this time last year, I bought In Time,
the debut album of Celtic Thunder’s Ryan Kelly, from the folks at CD
Baby, an online music store focusing on indie artists. Because of this, I
started getting e-mails from them, and one that I received late last
year caught my attention. Although I’d never heard of Ricky Fitzpatrick,
I was intrigued by their description of him as a James Taylor
sound-alike, and since his MP3-format-only album was being offered for a
mere three dollars on Black Friday, I decided to check him out. Acoustically Christmas
is a nice, mellow collection of songs that make for pleasant Christmas
listening, especially since Fitzpatrick does indeed sound remarkably
like James Taylor.
Fitzpatrick,
a devout Baptist based in Georgia, focuses on the spiritual side of the
season with quiet guitar-based arrangements of traditional carols. Ten
of the tracks feature familiar favorites presented in a reflective
manner, several with choral elements. What Child Is This is slow-paced with a gentle chorus mingling with the guitar in the background; O Come Emmanuel, a pure a cappella track, is even slower and plays with the melody a bit as the deep voices blend, almost chant-like.
Other songs are more upbeat, like the warmly cheerful Joy to the World and the strummy Little Drummer Boy. I love the guitar work and some of the harmonies on God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, and the largely instrumental Silent Night has a rather unusual sound to it. The First Noel,
the only purely instrumental track, is up-tempo with a bit of a jazzy
flavor, and Will Taylor (no relation to James) joins in on Angels We Have Heard on High. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear and Little Town of Bethlehem are pretty straightforward without any really distinguishing features.
Whenever
I pick up a Christmas album, I’m especially interested in songs that
are unique to it. We have three tracks like that here. Fitzpatrick wrote
O What A Song, a song of praise imagining the celestial and
earthly chorus greeting Christ’s birth. This duet with Nathan Sheppard,
who, like Will Taylor, is a Georgia musician, has a very joyful quality
to it. The tone in Lullaby for a King, also by Fitzpatrick, is
quieter and almost a bit muffled; it’s a little hard to catch all the
words the first couple of times around. Similar in theme to O What a Song but more on the contemplative side of things.
God's Song
- Twice as long as any of the others, this final track isn’t actually a
song but is rather a reflection on the idea of God singing: “The song
of God is a simple song; it starts with God and it ends with Jesus.” As
Fitzpatrick gives what amounts to a sermon that turns into an altar call
of sorts, guitar plays in the background. There’s no particular melody;
it’s just rambly ambient music that acts as a nice mellowing agent,
though at times it’s a bit distracting. Overall, it’s a nice message
that closes with a Merry Christmas greeting. It’s neat to hear where he
is coming from, though it’s probably good that he put this track on the
end, since you probably don’t really want to listen to a nearly
nine-minute-long meditation every time you’re in the mood for some
acoustic Christmas carols.
The album’s liner notes are a bit
vague, so I’m not sure in what respect some of the musicians he mentions
were involved in the recording process, but he acknowledges several,
including Michael Card, my favorite singer-songwriter in the Contemporary Christian Music genre, and Livingston Taylor, the brother of James Taylor. Acoustically Christmas
doesn’t offer a whole lot of variety, but if you’re looking for a
reverent collection of Christmas Eve service standards, this is a great
collection.
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