Search - 5 Chinese Brothers :: Window Shopper's Christmas

5 Chinese Brothers
Window Shopper's Christmas
Genres: Folk, Special Interest, Pop, Classical

Track Listings (13) - Disc #1
1. Make the Rafters Ring
2. Rockin' in the Manger
3. And to All a Good Night
4. Making Angels in the Sand
5. Honky Tonk Christmas
6. Missing Miss December
7. Dear Santa
8. Age-Old Story
9. Christmas on Interstate 80
10. Fruitcake Song
11. O Little Town of Bethlehem
12. Department Store Santa Claus Strike
13. Christmas in Manhattan

CD Details

All Artists: 5 Chinese Brothers
Title: Window Shopper's Christmas
Members Wishing: 2
Total Copies: 0
Label: 1-800 Prime CD
Release Date: 10/14/1997
Genres: Folk, Special Interest, Pop, Classical
Styles: Contemporary Folk, Holiday & Wedding, Opera & Classical Vocal
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPCs: 782073003521, 827371003528

Synopsis

Album Description

This is not your typical Christmas album. 5 Chinese Brothers adopt a variety of generic folk, country, and rock & roll song styles and then write new, gently comic, Christmas-themed lyrics over them. For example, "Dept. Store Santa Claus Strike" borrows the talking-blues folk song structure most familiar from Woody Guthrie's "Pretty Boy Floyd" for a tale of Santa's management-labor dispute, while "The Fruitcake Song" borrows the shave-and-a-haircut rhythm of "Bo Diddley" to discuss the persistence of that most inedible of Christmas foods, and "Missing Miss December" is a rock & roll tune about a centerfold. The result is a likable collection that will serve as a change-of-pace from those Bing Crosby and Mannheim Steamroller records during the holiday season. ? William Ruhlmann

CD Reviews

It's the Christmas gift that keeps on giving.

Johnny Heering | Bethel, CT United States | 12/14/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a Christmas album by alt-country group 5 Chinese Brothers (they aren't really Chinese and they aren't really brothers, but there really are five of them). The album features all original Christmas songs, other than a very brief instrumental version of "O Little Town of Bethlehem". The songs are all really good. They are alternately touching and humorous. They cover such subjects as singing, the 3 Wise Men, depression, Playboy magazine, absentee fathers, truckers, fruitcake and department store Santas. Very original and very entertaining. "The Fruitcake Song" ranks up there with the all-time great Christmas songs (really). The whole album is great and I highly recommend it."