Santa's Playlist, Sister Hazel (Rock Ridge)

The popular Gainesville, Fla. band stepped up to the Christmas bar in 2007 with this solid collection, heavy on familiar tunes rendered in their roots-rock style. The classic "Merry Christmas Baby" gets the E Street Band arrangement, "Little Drummer Boy" is done in a blues shuffle, "White Christmas" gets the white-boy reggae treatment, but later Joni Mitchell's "River" becomes a medley reprising "White Christmas." A Hanukkah alert for "The Dreidel Song," which becomes a hoedown here, and the original "Christmas Time Again" swings into hip-hop territory. Other originals are "It's a New Year (Just Get Along)," which could be Rodney King's theme song, and "There's Something in the Air (At Christmas)," which resorts to the kids' chorus before swinging into a bit of Salvation Army tuba. We're wondering if the band has visited Mistletunes, as their rocked-up version of Stevie Wonder's "One Little Christmas Tree" responds to our review of the original. Rounding things out are solid, if conventional, readings of "Run Rudolph Run" and "Please Come Home For Christmas." A really nice job here, enough to make non-fans seek them out when the holidays are behind us.