Get your first sounds of the holidays even before the Harvest Fest or Thanksgiving pumpkins accent your front porch. Brandon Heath wants to warm up your holidays with his latest Christmas Is Here album, which will be an early start to timeless holiday memories.
This five-time Grammy nominee and Emmy Award-winning Christian artist expresses his diversity in musical style delivery in his first Christmas holiday release. This timeless album is a joy to listen to. You may want to tuck away this CD with your special Christmas items that you look forward to pulling out every year to start the season. The album was released on October 15, 2013 on the Provident music label.
Heath takes the listener through a heart-warming story of songs, from classic hymns and Christmas carols remixed to some new playful tunes that get a message across about commercialism and Santa Claus. Perhaps the most thought-provoking song on the album to ponder is called “Just A Girl.”
Favorite Christmas alums from Brandon’s past inspired him on this Christmas musical journey. Some of these albums included artists like Nat King Cole, Harry Connick, Jr., Patty Loveless, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.
Heath’s desire is to spark his listeners to slip back into pleasant memories while they enjoy the album. Brandon Heath invited several well-known names in music to join him in the recording of Christmas Is Here. Along with Brandon’s voice, you will hear Ellie Holcomb, Sonja Isaacs and Matt Wertz.
Three originals and seven classics are included on this latest release. The classics provide a wide array of genres, from upbeat toe-tapping bluegrass to instrument-free a cappella choruses.
The three originals include a song that takes a jab at the commercialism of the holidays with stores putting out decorations starting at the end of the Summer and the rush to the stores after Thanksgiving to pick up the Black Friday bargains. The flurry of activity to turn Christmas into a money-making endeavor sort of tramples on and ignores the Fall season entirely.
In “Momma Wouldn’t Lie To Me,” Brandon Heath takes a light-hearted look at Santa, while putting parents on the spot. He is quick to note, however, that the song is done in a way that little ears are safe to hear without worry of blowing your big holiday secret.
On a more serious note, Heath’s third original song on the album looks at a side of Christmas that is usually not told quite from the same perspective. In “Just A Girl,” Heath tells the story of the innkeeper who turned Mary and Joseph away, leaving Mary to give birth in a stable. The song explains that to the innkeeper, Mary looked like just an ordinary girl. His hope in writing the song is that listeners will look to their own lives and understand the opportunities God gives to ordinary people to make big extraordinary differences.
Several months before Mary faced birthing Jesus, she found herself in a difficult predicament. To her relatives and friends, she looked like “just a girl,” but her obedient heart would eventually serve to birthing a Savior who would offer hope and life to a dying world.
Mary said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it to me according to your word.” The angel departed from her. —Luke 1:38
The album is a 10-song disc, including:
1. “The Day After Thanksgiving”
2. “Momma Wouldn’t Lie To Me”
3. “Just A Girl”
4. “Come All Ye Faithful / Angels We Have Heard On High”
5. “Little Town Of Bethlehem”
6. “In The Bleak Midwinter”
7. “Away In A Manger”
8. “Silent Night”
9. “The Christmas Song”
10. “Go Tell It On The Mountain”
As an added special nostalgic twist, Brandon Heath has made 500 classic vinyl records available exclusively through his website. These would make these sweet Christmas tunes even sweeter for the old-school music lover on your list.