Have Yourself a Rockin' Little Christmas, Lucinda Williams (Thirty Tigers)

The 2021 winter pop charts may be under the sway of Adele and Taylor Swift's latest albums, but the queen of Americana has dropped a Christmas collection, and attention must be paid. Imagine if Car Wheels on a Gravel Road were a Christmas album, and you've pretty much got it, except for the fact that Lucinda has stuck pretty much to covers here. Not that her writerly sensibility has gone to waste; she recasts "Blue Christmas" as a shopping trip for blue Christmas lights, deepening the familiar tune's downcast vibe, and she turns the blues chestnut "Little Red Rooster" into a Christmas song. She adds three other blues to the playlist, Freddie King's "Christmas Tears" and Charles Brown's "Merry Christmas Baby" and "Please Come Home For Christmas," and filters some jazz through her familiar approach on "Christmas in New Orleans," "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," the latter with the "muddle through" lyric. She takes a funkier approach to "If We Make It Through December" and covers some real funk with "Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin'." Also here is a cool minor-key take on "Run Rudolph Run" and a more heartfelt version of the Ramones' "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)." Not just a great holiday album, but a record that you can use to explain to non-music fans what Americana is.