Almost Christmas, Lee Aaron (Big Sister)

Lee Aaron is a long-running female rock vocalist from Canada who started off with the hit "Metal Queen" in the 80s, and has since made albums in many different styles, mostly rock-based ones. She's almost completely unknown in the US, except possibly in border cities like Buffalo, Detroit and Seattle, due to Spinal Tap-like machinations by management and record companies (which are detailed in the bio on her website). For 2020 she's released a full album of Christmas songs in what can be best described as a 70s hard rock/pop style. Although this style isn't represented too well in the Billboard charts, it lives on in the hometown music venues of America (or it did until the pandemic arrived). Aaron and her band have rounded up a solid repertoire of tunes for this collection, mixing the familiar and the less familiar and performing them with gusto. She acquits herself well with such chestnuts as "Run Run Rudolph," "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," and "Zat You Santa Claus?," and provides solid versions of lesser-heard numbers like the Eels' "Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas," Pet Shop Boys' "It Doesn't Often Snow at Christmas," the Sonics' "Don't Believe in Christmas," Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody," Over the Rhine's "All I Ever Get For Christmas Is Blue," and Joni Mitchell's "The Fiddle and the Drum." That last isn't strictly a Christmas tune, but its presence here is set up nicely by the preceding song "Peace on Earth," the only original tune of the bunch. UPDATE: This album is reissued for 2021 and is more widely available through Amazon; click the album cover. Oh, and the 2021 edition adds two songs, "Almost Christmas" and "More Fun on the Naughty List."