The Twangtown Paramours, “Waiting for Christmas to Come”
Becoming the first-ever artists to make a repeat appearance in the Deep Roots Stocking Stuffers department, the beloved Twangtown Paramours—multi-instrumentalist/songwriter/singer Mike T. Lewis and the exceptionally soulful vocalist Marybeth Zamer (the singing former federal prosecutor to those in the know)–offer what is truly a song that captures a moment in time in “Waiting for Christmas to Come.” This introspective ballad is in stark contrast to the Paramours’ 2021 Stocking Stuffer, the frisky “My Gingerbread Man,” in that 2021 presented a starkly different America than the one we are experiencing in 2025, when it seems incumbent upon us to weigh the general malaise and abiding fears against personal challenges, with the resolution of the latter portending hope for those beyond our orbit to experience a rebirth of balance and optimism for the time ahead. Mr. Lewis provides sharp, succinctly drawn scenes of faith abiding in the midst of uncertainty and Ms. Zamer brings those scenes to vivid life with a sensitive, empathetic vocal that lightens into an uplifting lilt in its “we can work it out” moment at the end. “The tune is a folk ballad with a bit of country flavor,” Mr. Lewis wrote in a note to Deep Roots. “It’s a Christmas song and not a Christmas song. The implied message of ‘Waiting for Christmas to Come’ is that the path to peace and harmony in the world starts with oneself and at home.” At root, ‘Waiting for Christmas to Come’ is the musical evocation of Ghandi’s axiom, “There is no way to peace; peace is the way,” underscoring the personal responsibility inherent in achieving elusive goals. Follow this link to the Twangtown Paramours’ 2021 Stocking Stuffer, “My Gingerbread Man,” for a lighthearted Yuletide romp as only the Paramours can deliver. –David McGee
A Christmas Duo, Mark and Maggie O’Connor (OMAC Records)
by David McGee
Recorded Live at the Sheldon Music Hall in St. Louis on December 18th, 2024, Mark and Maggie O’Connor’s A Christmas Duo album is a long-awaited holiday followup to Mark’s 2011 Yuletide classic, An Appalachian Christmas, which became the centerpiece of Mark’s (and now Mark and Maggie’s) annual holiday tours, the latest of which is now underway. As it turns out, A Christmas Duo came about rather by accident. As Mark’s website explains:
During the 2024 Christmas tour, one of the stops for the duo was St. Louis, Missouri at the historic 1912 Sheldon Music Hall. Mark had recorded his solo album Midnight on the Water there nearly 30 years before—the beautiful old hall with its original wooden pews were preserved. When the couple arrived for soundcheck in the afternoon, Mark was pleased to discover that the assistant engineer for his old album was still doing house sound in the hall. After trading a few treasured stories about the recording, Mark announced, “Let’s record the concert tonight!” So what you are listening to is the result of that rather impromptu decision. A single concert of music by Mark and Maggie played through a single microphone capturing their instruments and vocals in front of a Sheldon Hall capacity audience.
‘The Holly and The Ivy,’ Mark and Maggie O’Connor, from A Christmas Duo
‘The First Noel,’ Mark and Maggie O’Connor, from A Christmas Duo
‘God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,’ Mark and Maggie O’Connor, from A Christmas Duo
And so it is: 13 songs, 11 of them cherished evergreens of the Christmas canon; another, “Carol of the Carol Bells,” is reminiscent of Mark’s Hot Swing Trio with quotes from the Yule standard and Mark’s own “Gypsy Fantastic” (a demanding instrumental from the Hot Swing Trio’s 2011 Live in New York album) spicing a dynamic improvisational workout; and then there’s “Hold That Tiger, Rudolph,” in which Mark and Maggie romp through Mark’s jolly variation on the Original Dixieland Jazz Band’s 1917 jazz standard “Hold That Tiger” (another gem from Hot Swing’s Live In New York album, albeit minus Wynton Marsalis on this go-‘round) while adding a cool holiday flair in seamlessly quoting Johnny Marks’s “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” along the way. In addition to her sensitive fiddle work, Maggie offers a tender, plaintive vocal reading of “The First Noel” (with a touching harmony assist by Mark, whose guitar accompaniment is impossibly tender) and a spirited reading of “The Holly and The Ivy.” Elsewhere, Mark (on mandolin) and Maggie (on fiddle) heighten the beauty of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” with Maggie and Mark alternating solos to enrich textures often hidden in vocal treatments; and they deconstruct “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” as a bluegrass barnburner in which Mark’s breathtaking fleet-fingered fiddle soloing evolves into what can only be described as an avant-garde take on the melody complete with dissonant flourishes and plucked sonorities that generate wild applause from the audience. Those fortunate enough to be in cities where Mark and Maggie are bringing their annual Christmas tour should welcome a chance to be part of an evolving American holiday tradition in live seasonal celebrations. Others are advised to cue up A Christmas Duo after An Appalachian Christmas and savor the moment from home and hearth. Blessings ensue, no matter the setting.
‘The Bells,’ Premik Russell Tubbs & Margee Minier-Tubbs (Margetoile Records)
Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem “The Bells,” recounting, as it does, the journey from childhood to infirmity to death, might seem the least likely candidate to inspire a gently swinging, buoyant jazz reimagining in which the bells are celebrated not for their portentous qualities but rather for the joyous tide of Christmas they evoke. But here it is, in a CD single titled “The Bells.” The dramatic personae driving this production are multi-instrumentalist composer Premik Russell Tubbs, born in Croton-on-Hudson, NY, whose resume includes work with a Who’s Who of jazz and world music artists; and his wife, Margee Minier-Tubbs, also a New York native, who composed this upbeat Poe homage, and whose multi-faceted career has found her successful as a fashion designer, fashion journalist, a painter and portrait artist, a French translator–to name a few of her triumphs–and now, according to her website, she continues “to work to promote cultural understanding, non-violence and world peace.” On “The Bells” she also shares narration duties with the superb Patrick Carmichael, whose nuanced reading is both wondrous and awe-struck. To the voices add the cool groove of Premik’s saxophone, Steve Sandberg’s laid-back Guaraldi touch on piano and Zack Broch adding a lively flourish of gypsy violin on the journey. The mood is certainly Guaraldi-like but it also recalls the easygoing vibe jazz pianist David Ian has advanced on four holiday albums with his Vintage Christmas Trio.
What did Ms. Minier-Tubbs do to Poe’s poem? Well, in tune with the season, she has the bells foretelling “a world of harmony” over the course of four verses, two read by Carmichael, two by Margee, all of which employ Poe’s affinity for alliteration and repetition, all of which are clearly constructed for the musical qualities of the verbiage, as was Poe’s approach (the master explained it all thoroughly and dramatically in his “Philosophy of Composition,” being about the origins of “The Raven”). One can also pinpoint Dr. Seuss, Edward Lear, and Lewis Carroll as inspirations here.
Consider how each verse begins:
1st verse:
Hear the sledges with the bells–Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
2nd verse:
Hear the striking Starlight Bells–Crystal Bells
Beyond our world, their resplendent radiance casts spells!
3rd verse:
Hear the festive, zestful sleigh bells–Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
4th verse:
Hear the ceremonious Holiday Bells–Yuletide Bells!
Glimmering, shimmering, mesmerizing spells!
From the slanderous, stupendous, serendipitous, luminous, dazzling Christmas Bells, as Margee concludes the fourth verse, it’s all wondrous and wonderful, an unexpected, uplifting delight for 2025’s Yuletide season. –David McGee
Women’s Own Presents Christmas With The Springfields (1962 EP from Women’s Own Magazine)
In 1962, The Springfields—Dusty, her brother Tom Springfield and new member Mike Hurst (who replaced founding member Tim Field in February of ’62)—were featured on a holiday EP packaged as a special disc with an issue of Women’s Own magazine. Recording with arranged/conductor Ivor Raymonde, the trio, with Dusty’s bright mezzo-soprano soaring over the gents’ warm harmonies and sparking guitar accompaniment, offered a lively “Twelve Days of Christmas”; a tender, calypso-influenced (and Harry Belafonte-indebted) “Mary’s Boy Child” with a gentle wash of strings and dramatic percussion rising atmospherically in the background in a gem of a performance; a reverent take on “Away In a Manger,” in which strings and brass heighten the drama along with a verse Dusty sings in a rare lower register; and a jolly finale with another string-enriched workout, this on “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” complete with a cheery improvised, multi-lingual coda. This. YouTube clip also includes a later Dusty recording of “Jingle Bells,” recorded with Dusty’s stalwart (and vastly underrated) producer at Philips, Johnny Franz. The four songs on Christmas With The Springfields were later included on a Dusty long player issued in 2010, The Christmas Album, along with the A and B sides of two previously issued Springfields Christmas singles (all produced by Franz), “Bambino” (a Top 20 single in England in 1961), “Star of Hope,” “O Holy Child” and the aforementioned “Jingle Bells.”
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‘A Christmas Waltz,” Michael Dinallo
Written and produced by Michael Dinallo
Released on November 21, Michael Dinallo’s new instrumental single, “A Christmas Waltz,” on Memphis International Records, is a beautiful, romantic, tinged with melancholy original tune that, on the one hand, serves as a master class in guitarist Dinallo’s expert deployment of tone and texture to create a captivating mood, and on the other features precision picking as succinct as it is touching in its tenderness and moving in its spiritual resonance, as is common of Dinallo’s music. Some of us who have been around long enough might recall the ethereal experience of Acker Bilk’s “Stranger on the Shore” in the melody’s haunting affect. There’s a reason Dinallo’s instrumental album, The Night’s Last Dance, landed in the Deep Roots Elite Half-Hundred of 2024, and the qualities that made it special are abundant on his 2025 Christmas single. –David McGee
Vintage Stocking Stuffers
‘The Christmas Waltz,’ Frank Sinatra
Michael Dinallo’s ‘A Christmas Waltz’ isn’t the only gem in 3/4 time. Consider the Chairman of the Board’s ‘The Christmas Waltz,’ Frank Sinatra, the official video from the Chairman’s Christmas video playlist. This is Sinatra’s second recording of the Jule Styne-Sammy Cahn classic, coming in 1957 for his A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra album, and released as the B side of a holiday single, with “Mistletoe and Holly” as the A side. For a thorough appraisal of all of Frank Sinatra’s Christmas recordings, follow this link to “A Yuletide Report from The Chairman of the Board” in Deep Roots.
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‘Mistletoe and Holly,’ Frank Sinatra, from the Chairman’s 1957 A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra album. This tune is the rare Sinatra co-write, his partners being Hank Sanicola and Doc Stanford. This was the A side of a single featuring ‘A Christmas Waltz’ on the B side. For a thorough appraisal of all of Frank Sinatra’s Christmas recordings, follow this link to “A Yuletide Report from The Chairman of the Board” in Deep Roots.
