It took B.B. King a long time to get around to his first Christmas album, which didn't appear until about half a century into his recording career. It's an adequate, good-humored reprisal of various holiday chestnuts, among them some material with blues/R&B origins, like "Merry Christmas Baby." King wrote just one new song for the album, the instrumental "Christmas Love," though he did originally record another of the tracks, "Christmas Celebration," back in 1960. Wisely he plays "Auld Lang Syne" as a funky instrumental instead of vocalizing the singalong lyrics. In addition to periodic bursts of King's trademark guitar, there is plenty of brass and organ in the peppy arrangements. The Nashville String Machine adds its strings to just three tracks, which cuts down on over-produced excess (which is only a problem on "Please Come Home for Christmas"). It's hardly the first King you'll pull off your shelf, and not the first R&B Christmas album you'll turn to either, but you could do worse in the holiday season. It took B.B. King a long time to get around to his first Christmas album, which didn't appear until about half a century into his recording career. It's an adequate, good-humored reprisal of various holiday chestnuts, among them some material with blues/R&B origins, like "Merry Christmas Baby." King wrote just one new song for the album, the instrumental "Christmas Love," though he did originally record another of the tracks, "Christmas Celebration," back in 1960. Wisely he plays "Auld Lang Syne" as a funky instrumental instead of vocalizing the singalong lyrics. In addition to periodic bursts of King's trademark guitar, there is plenty of brass and organ in the peppy arrangements. The Nashville String Machine adds its strings to just three tracks, which cuts down on over-produced excess (which is only a problem on "Please Come Home for Christmas"). It's hardly the first King you'll pull off your shelf, and not the first R&B Christmas album you'll turn to either, but you could do worse in the holiday season. false 2025-10-25 08:19:22 2001 2001-01-01 2001-01-01 48 Blues Blues Rock Christmas Music 114285 2242162 47b288f1-9dcd-4c3e-8325-e60650b91d2b dcb03ce3-67a5-4eb3-b2d1-2a12d93a38f3 74e0a85f-51ab-380e-9dff-17486c5790e2 /media/data/media5/Music/B.B. King/The Best of B.B. King_ 20th Century Masters - The Christmas Collection/folder.jpg B.B. King B.B. King 1 1 04:53 1 2 03:04 1 3 03:26 1 4 04:49 1 5 03:47 1 6 05:01 1 7 03:38 1 8 03:56 1 9 02:57 1 10 03:27 1 11 04:15 1 12 02:41 1 13 02:21