Audio CD review:
Ventures - Christmas Joy

Ventures - Christmas Joy

Band: Ventures Title: Christmas Joy Rating: Release Date: 2002-10-15 Media: Audio CD Tracks:

Great Guitar Holiday Sounds The Ventures here put an even newer twist on their Christmas favorites even with an added vocal. No wonder this was one of Bob Bogel's favorite albums to record. Talk about a diverse group! You get to hear your favorite Christmas songs with a modern adaptation of the Ventures guitars. This album also features the lead guitar of Jerry McGee which is a treat in itself. Jerry is a class guitarist with a great sound. I'm sure you will enjoy this album for the holidays as much as I did. Merry Christmas!. Christmas joy for you and me On that first album, they grafted the intros of recent hit songs, like "I Feel Fine" and "Wooly Bully", onto the Christmas songs. Almost 40 years after the Ventures released their classic Christmas album, they recorded this second Christmas album. This time around, they dispense with the intros, more or less, but several of the songs do include subtle echos of classic rock and roll songs. For example, "Joy to the World" is reminiscent of "Pipeline" and "Feliz Navidid" is reminiscent of "La Bamba". Anyway, the songs are all played in the classic Venures instrumental style, with one exception. That exception is the last song on the CD, which is not an instrumental. It is an original Christmas song written and sung by Ventures founding member Don Wilson, who turns out to have a decent singing voice. This is a very good Christmas album that upholds the standards set by their first Christmas album. And it's twice as long as that first album. Great Christmas Album They have done a good job on this Christmas album. The Ventures are always fun to listen to. Exmas fun Made a big difference to our Christmas, and it arrived well before Christmas which was a plus seeing I ordered it so late, well done Amazon. Not the original. . . Some of the sounds on this album sound a bit more modern, but to my taste, the guitar work is nowhere near as good or interesting as the earlier album. Overall, this is a pretty good CD, but it just doesn't match their album from the 60s (The Ventures Christmas Album). On most songs, the next verse is note for note identical to the first verse - even in the same octave. Some variety would have been nice. Yet, there are highlights - especially "Silent Night," "We Three Kings," and "Feliz Navidad. " It's not my favorite and not as good as the original, but it is worth owning for guitar and / or Ventures as I am. You can see a complete list of all Ventures discography, or go back to the Ventures tabs