A Baton Rouge Acoustic Christmas

Some of Baton Rouge’s finest songwriters and musicians have gotten together in the name of Christmas and our entertainment to offer a fresh collection of holiday tunes, and also a couple live performances to go along with it. A Baton Rouge Acoustic Christmas features a grab bag of old classics, originals, and contemporary takes on lesser known traditional songs. This is not your average dusty rehashing of tunes or arrangements heard a million times over, the kind we’ve all grown accustomed to hearing and trying to tune out when we invariably end up getting dragged to Old Navy or some such awful place in the throes of December.

For many (for myself anyhow), hearing holiday music in the grocery store in early November is a disquieting early harbinger of the relentless 8 week in-your-face retail frenzy that will constantly and merrily remind us that we’re probably not living or loving up to our full human potential if there is a single hard earned nickel left among our pocket lint on the evening of December 24th. And many new Christmas albums unfortunately tend to contribute to this clutter instead of offering shelter from it. For me, nothing says Happy Holidays like Michael Buble assaulting our ears with his artful interpretation of what he thinks Frank Sinatra would sound like chock full of Christmas gin and teeming with holiday spirit.

Ultimately, as we try to remember every year amid the drone of TV ads, the glare of silver and gold tinsel, and the barrage of plastic reindeer, sale banners, and blinking lights on stripmalls, Christmas is about celebrating our family and the things that matter most to us. By the time all the retail noise has subsided and we find ourselves sitting around the tree surrounded by family and smiles, we are able to finally focus on and enjoy what the holiday is really all about. This collection of songs does just that, stripping away the extraneous things that you don’t need and getting right to the heart of the holiday.

The album was intended as a gift to friends and family, but fortunately the rest of us are getting to hear it as well. It features multiple contributions from some of the best local songwriters, including Jacob Zachary, Luke Ash, Peter Simon, Ben Herrington, Ryan Harris and Joel Wilson. Their individual selections showcase a broad range of tastes, styles and instrumentation, but the common thread is the overall talent of the group and the bright, beautiful production quality of the songs. Better still than the quality of the record itself is the fact that these folks will be performing two holiday shows (all ages/no cover) this weekend comprised of material from A Baton Rouge Christmas, one TONIGHT (12/7) at 7pm at the Haven Gallery on Laurel St. in downtown BR, which is unquestionably the coziest and most intimate live music venue in Baton Rouge. If you can’t make it tonight, there will be an encore performance Sunday afternoon at Highland Coffees near North Gate. If you can’t make it to either, the CD makes a terrific locally sourced gift for anyone who takes pride in their community.

Each of these talented musicians have dedicated countless hours of their lives to playing, writing, rehearsing and performing. It’s not because they want to fatten their pockets or be famous, but rather because they are filled with the spirit of invention, the drive to create, to express fleeting notions and ideas, the ones that the balance of us would be lucky to even identify let alone be able to translate into layman’s terms. And all of this toil simply for an opportunity to share that sentiment with us. It is the noblest of causes to try and share that which is so often carefully guarded among human beings, and especially to attempt to share it with those you’ve never even met. That, I think, in a nutshell, is the spirit of this album, the spirit of music, and the spirit of Christmas itself.

To listen to or purchase A Baton Rouge Acoustic Christmas, click here.