Where Will You Be Christmas Day?, various artists (Dust-to-Digital)

This 2004 collection of antique recordings takes us back before even Charles Brown, presenting Christmas songs that, with the exception of "Jingle Bells," are neither traditional favorites or popularized holiday hymns. There is a vocal quintet rendition of "Children Go Where I Send Thee" called "Holy Babe" here, and that one has been popularized in recent years. As for people you may have heard of, there's Bessie Smith, Lightnin' Hopkins, Lead Belly, and McKinney's Cotton Pickers with Coleman Hawkins and Fats Waller. Everything else here progressed as far as making a record, but not much farther. Christmas is the only unifying concept here -- we have a lot of gospel, a little jazz, country, some blues, folk and ethnic music, including Spanish, Italian and Jamaican sounds, and even a little vaudeville. Not being an ethnomusicologist, I call your attention to this disc because something on it just might jump out and grab you, or may inspire a modern-day cover version. Oh, and it's OK when antique recordings have surface noise on them.