Light Of The Stable + Bill Monroe

Not surprisingly, one of my favorite Christmas albums is Emmylou Harris' Light Of The Stable (1979). Emmylou mixes popular carols such as Silent Night with less-well-known (but still great) material like Rodney Crowell's Angel Eyes. She delivers the material over an accoustic band with just the right tinge of twanginess. Backing vocals are provided by none other than Willie Nelson, Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, and Neil Young. Read the excellent AMG review here.

Get a taste with these two tracks:

Angel Eyes

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Then do yourself a Christmas favor and buy it.

As a bonus, here is one of Emmylou's heroes, Bill Monroe, performing a track that she covers on Light of the Stable: Bill Monroe - Christmas Time's A Coming (buy album).

And because you can't have just a little Bill Monroe, here's another one with a winter theme: Bill Monroe - Footprints In The Snow (buy album). (By the way, what happened to Nellie?)