It is a bittersweet feeling when both of your favorite songwriters release covers albums on the same day. Sure, it is great to have another album, but it would be even greater to have another album of original material. This is what happened on October 13, 2009, when Bob Dylan and Nellie McKay simultaneously scheduled the release of new albums, Christmas In the Heart and Normal as Blueberry Pie, respectively. In Dylan's case, it being a covers album was much more tolerable since he had recently released an album of new material, but after release three albums, including two double albums, and an EP in a four year stretch, McKay hadn't released anything since 2007.
Both albums were centered around a theme. For Dylan, this was to be a Christmas extravaganza in order to raise money for charity. For McKay, this was a tribute to Doris Day, mostly in honor of Day's work with animals.
In terms of song selection, I think McKay has the slight advantage if only because the music is less familiar to me. Dylan stuck mostly to classics from the Christmas canon, though he chose ones which seemed to work. When the project was announced, I thought "Silver Bells" would be an okay song for his current voice, and it is. I also assumed he would cover "Here Comes Santa Claus" simply because Gene Autry had written it, and his cover is appropriately Christmasfied country swing. Dylan's three non-canonical choices, "Christmas Blues," "Must Be Santa," and "Christmas Island," are, not surprisingly, among the album's most inspired moments. "Must Be Santa" drives perhaps harder than Brave Combo's. I've always wanted to hear Bob record a polka, and after hearing Brave Combo perform this on his Theme Time Radio Hour, I've wanted this to be the polka he chose to record. "Christmas Blues" is perhaps overpraised by critics, but it does have some nice moments. "Christmas Island," a cover of the Andrews Sisters, is an even better Hawaiian song than Bing Crosby's "Mele Kalikimaka," and the Ditty Bops provide even more endearing backing than the Andrews Sisters.
Nellie McKay's album is composed entirely of covers of Doris Day songs, though some, such as "Sentimental Journey," have reputations which expand beyond Day. Coming into the album, I had only a very passing awareness of Day's later work, such as "Wonderful Guy," "Everbody Loves a Lover," "Que Sera, Sera," and "Teacher's Pet." Only one of those songs, "Wonderful Guy," appears on this collection. Because the music was so unfamiliar to me, I have found it harder to get into than I did Christmas In the Heart, which I was immediately taken with. As I've listened to the album time and again, though, I have come to love many of the songs. I can't provide comparisons with many of Day's versions, but McKay, with help of session men like Bob Dorough, gives the songs the best songs the feeling of early jazz, while the rest seem like torch ballads. The jazz, especially when it swings, works best. Songs like "Do Do Do" and "Wonderful Guy" are fun, but it really burns on "Crazy Rhythm" and "Dig It."
When it comes to album packaging, Bob has the total advantage. the album is adorned with four illustrations. The front cover pictures a 19th century Russian sleigh ride. The back cover features a somberly joyous picture of the three wise men traveling on camels. Inside, there is a Vargasesque painting of Bettie Page and a picture of worn-out street musicians in Rome. These conflicting images of Christmas suggest a coexisting of diverse viewpoints of the holiday and asan extension make the album polylithic.
McKay's album has plenty of pictures of her looking delightfully like a 1950s housewife, and then it has a lot of weird quotes. All of the quotes have to do with animal rights and vegetarianism, but some seem a little extreme, such as "You're better off eating a salad in a hummer than a burger in a prius" from Bill Maher. I get the point, but the ills of corporate farming doesn't exactly make Hummers any more palatable. How about a salad in a Prius? Without the whole mindset that led us to a nation where a car like the Hummer was able to achieve popularity, we never would have strayed away from a localized agrieconomy, so in that respect the salad in the hummer is worse. Chief Seattle tells us "the whited too shall pass," and in context he was right to say that, but to pull it out of context, McKay is simply playing to the same problematic essentializing which led to hegemony in the first place. Also, Seattle probably wouldn't be too pleased with "Black Hills of Dakota" which capitalizes on well meaning, but ultimately stereotypical, notions of the noble savage.
Musically, both albums are great. When McKay cooks, she cooks. I would have put fewer ballads and more uptempo songs in the mix, but even the ballads are good, especially an exquisite take on "Sentimental Journey." The few mid-tempo numbers, such as "Mean to Me" and "Wonderful Guy" are also enjoyable. McKay's vocals sound great as always, but I had trouble understanding her a few times. The most common objecton to Dylan's voice is that you can't understand what he's saying. That has always bothered me as he often overpronounces, and if he doesn't its for effect, to suggest a possible double meaning in a word. Mostly, with McKay I encounter this problem during the middle breaks in "Crazy Rhythm" and "Dig It," which is unfortunate since they are my favorite numbers. Either way, the arrangments on all of the songs are amazing and breath new life into them. The playing is fantastic. While I wish that McKay's luscious piano playing adorned every track, the playing is good all around, particularly Jay Berliner's guitar playing (he sounds like he could put Django to shame) and Charles Pillow's tenor sax.
Dylan enlisted a mixed-voice choir, including the Ditty Bops to provide background vocals, David Hidalgo to play accordion and Phil Upchurch on guitar. He also uses a variety of Christmasy instruments like jingle bells and the celesta to provide the proper aura to the music. It works. It sounds like a 1950s Christmas album, which is what I grew up on this time of year. The arrangement play it straight, and so what stands out is Dylan's vocals. He really tries to sing, and while on some songs he does sound like a moaning whale, on songs like "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" he nails the song like no one before him. That song, and many others, find Dylan reverting back to lyrics which are rarely used. On "Adestes Fideles" he reaches all the way back to the Latin. On "Here Comes Santa Claus" he includes the oft-omitted third and fourth verses, and his gruffness places an extra emphasis on the lines where Santa "doesn't care if you're rich or poor. He loves you just the same." I appreciate the song much more with its anti-classicism intact. And then Dylan adds lyrics, but only on one song; with a song as fun as "Must Be Santa" its hard not to indulge in the fact that Vixen rhymes with Nixon.
Worried I'd be disappointed, I'm not. I'm not completely enamored, either, but I feel comfortable awarding each album four of five stars.
