(courtesy Apple Music)
For many years, Amy Grant, an artist I have loved and admired back when I was in the church, and one of the few who came with me on my way out of it, was Christmas for me.
Her Christmas albums – A Christmas Album (1983), Home for Christmas (1992), A Christmas to Remember (1999), The Christmas Collection (2008) and Tennessee Christmas (2016) – filled the house with her wonderfully emotive voice, a pleasing mix of old and new tracks including the much-loved “Tennessee Christmas” and “Breath of Heaven”, and a gloriously intangible but heartwarming sense that this is what the season feels like.
In recent years, a slew of other artists and their festive collections have taken up residence on my festive playlist, but sentimentally, it’s still Amy Grant who make Christmas feels immersively and cosily like Christmas.
Now she’s back with a new reimagined collection of her festive favourites in When I Think of Christmas, which gives us two new songs (“Til the Season Comes Round Again” and the title track) along with remastered takes on nine of the holiday favourites of both Grant and husband Vince Gill and of which Grant has this to say:
Christmas music is a portal to wonder and awe, to nostalgia and ‘remember when,’ to hope and how-we-wish-it-could-be. And because we return to the same playlists year after year, those songs have become the backdrop for our collective memories of gathering, of family, of gift giving, of celebration and solitude. I’ve recorded a lot of Christmas music over the years, and I’m excited to add two new songs to this collection, especially the song Vince and I close our Christmas concerts with, ‘‘Til The Season Comes Round Again.’ I hope these new songs find a place on playlists, whether it’s during the holiday season or all year ‘round. (Music Row)
The playlists Grant refers to are the annual sessions she and Gill play at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, with their “Christmas at the Ryman” residency currently marking its 14th year.
The two new tracks, which bookend the album’s tracklist, are an especially wonderful addition to Grant’s extensive library of songs with “When I Think of Christmas” embodying just the right amount of festive contentment and melancholic wistfulness at what life has taken from us, and “Til the Season Comes Round Again”, a fittingly hushed and beautiful farewell to the season, replete with happiness for what has gone before and a buoyant hope for what lies ahead in future years.
Gill’s powerfully emotive vocals marry (no pun intended) with Grant’s light but emotionally impactful voice to create a song that carries the heart and wraps the middle seven tracks including remasters of, of course, “Tennessee Christmas” and “Breath of Heaven”, along with “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” and “Winter Wonderland”.
When I Think of Christmas with Amy Grant & Vince Gill is a joy, a warm festive hug that honours a considerable legacy of love for the season by Grant herself while bringing something sweetly and beautifully new to the festive table, ready for all the warm and lovely hoped-for Christmases to come.
When I Think of Christmas is out now on MCA Nashville.