David Foster and the album ‘The Christmas Album’

A pair of radio stations where I live have been playing Christmas music through the month of December. The station that tends to play more contemporary music has included music from The Christmas Album (1993) by David Foster among its more commonly featured songs. As it is the season for such songs, let us look more closely into the dozen songs that comprise this album.

(The Christmas Album by David Foster with friends was released in 1993).

Carol of the Bells opens the 12-songs of The Christmas Album with an uplifting and melodious rendition of this traditional song. Mixing horns, piano and an orchestral mix meaningful to many, the joy that comes in less than three-minutes of playing time is beloved by many. This song, incidentally, receives the heaviest play of any song from this album with my local station.

(The Christmas Album featuring David Foster and friends was released in 1993).

Blue Christmas features Wynonna Judd singing to the instrumentation offered by David Foster. A rendition of this song also accompanied David Foster’s Christmas Album television special, which accounts for the following image. The rendition of the song selected here comes from the album rather than the television special.

(Wynonna Judd accompanies David Foster by singing Blue Christmas from David Foster’s Christmas Album television special).

Bebe Winans and Cece Winans are featured accompanying David Foster with The First Noel. The contemporary sound with support from a chorus and a broad accompaniment of other musicians offer a warm, welcoming and full sound commensurate with the underlying lyrics and music offered. The song offered is from the album, whereas the image is from the television special.

(From left, David Foster, Bebe Winans and Cece Winans performing The First Noel).

Johnny Mathis joins David Foster in performing It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. The enthusiastic time offers an uplifting spirit to a traditional composition known to many through more commonly played alternative renditions of this song.

(Johnny Mathis accompanies David Foster by singing The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. This image is from David Foster’s Christmas Album television special while the rendition linked above is from The Christmas Album).

Natalie Cole joins David Foster in offering Grown-Up Christmas List. Compositional credit for the song belongs with David Foster and Linda Thompson-Jenner. The fresh perspective in offering a new sentiment for the holidays with quality musicianship is heartwarming with a sense of calm.

(Natalie Cole accompanies David Foster by singing Grown-Up Christmas List from The Christmas Album. This image is from David Foster’s Christmas Album television special).

O Holy Night features Michael Crawford singing alongside David Foster‘s piano and other accompanying instrumentation. Crawford is “[m]ost popular to theater audiences from his title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s version of The Phantom of the Opera,” as mentioned by All Music, the American online music database).

(Vanessa Williams accompanies David Foster by singing Go Tell It on the Mountain / Mary Had a Baby. The version linked below is taken from an album published by Williams).

Vanessa Williams sings a powerful medley of Go Tell It on the Mountain / Mary Had a Baby with a choir and David Foster, as featured on The Christmas Album, in David Foster’s Christmas Album television special, and in albums published separately by Williams. In staking out something truly their own in a musical arrangement offering many things, call me intrigued and moved.

(From left, Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack performing I’ll Be Home for Christmas. The image shown is from David Foster’s Christmas Album television special).

I’ll Be Home for Christmas features Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack with musical assistance from David Foster. The mellow feeling of the presentation, taken from The Christmas Album as linked above, offers compositional direction changes at various points in the presentation that offer interesting and warm feelings to my hearing.

(Tom Jones performing Mary’s Boy Child from David Foster’s Christmas Album television special).

Tom Jones sang to Mary’s Boy Child. The linked soundtrack to a ballad with choir harmonies bordering on the up-tempo style of many of the standards of Tom Jones, with a distinct timing difference to the song that comes next on The Christmas Album.

(From left, Céline Dion and David Foster perform The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)).

Céline Dion sings The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) to David Foster‘s piano, set in a distinctly higher key to much of the catalogue offered by The Christmas Album before this song. The juxtaposition of the Peebo Bryson and Roberta Flack duet followed in sequence by Tom Jones and Céline Dion also feels wisely selected to me.

Tammy Wynette sings and speaks Away in a Manger. The orchestration and production value of the song strikes me as more endearing.

The song White Christmas as captured on the album is credited in performance to David Foster, Natalie Cole, Michael Crawford, Wynonna Judd, Johnny Mathis, Bebe Wians and Cece Wians. I distinctly heard Vanessa Williams, Peebo Bryson, Roberta Flack, Tom Jones, Céline Dion and David Foster singing as well.

Matt – Wednesday, December 14, 2021

‘Unmasked: A Memoir’ by Andrew Lloyd Webber

The memoir of English composer Andrew Lloyd Webber was released on March 6, 2018. I have grown up listening to the stylings of the musicals of Lloyd Webber from an early age (I am slightly older than the composer’s first child), and was interested with the autobiographical thoughts of musician that I would come to learn. Disappointed in Unmasked: A Memoir I was not.

(English composer Andrew Lloyd Webber).

The release of Unmasked: A Memoir last March coincided with the composer’s seventieth birthday. The book takes us with wit from his birth near London through his school days, early compositions, the release of his first musical with Tim Rice in 1972, and finally through the release of The Phantom of the Opera in 1986.

(The Phantom of the Opera iconography).

Before getting there, the book takes us through the wayward educational experiences of Lloyd Webber as a history student and son of the musical director of the London College of Music. Partly through the connections afforded by William Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice and Andrew released Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in 1972. The musical telling of the Old Testament story of the Coat of Many Colors from the Book of Genesis was geared to children, gained success, and has grown over time.

(English composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and English lyricist Tim Rice).

The pair of Rice and Lloyd Webber followed that initial success with the musical version of the passion and trial of Jesus Christ with the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. The music evolved first as an album’s worth of music that later evolved into the play and film. The work came as Lloyd Webber was dating Sarah Hugill, who would would become his wife, mother of two children by Lloyd Webber, and later his first ex-wife.

(English composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and his first wife, Sarah Hugill).

During their more than 11-years of marriage, Lloyd Webber gives a mostly favorable account of the life of a composer, husband, and father in Unmasked: A Memoir. From the telling, the story of the marriage was happy if not complicated a bit by Sarah’s diabetes coupled with the medical advice surrounding that diagnosis coupled with pregnancy. A lesser musical came during this period, followed by a successful collaboration between Rice and Lloyd Webber on the musical Evita, the telling of Eva Perón’s early life, rise to power, charity work, and eventual death. Lloyd Webber also had solo project Variations during this period.

It was toward the end of that period, when the professional collaboration between Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice began to end. Lloyd Webber would have success with the T.S. Eliot and themes offered through the work Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. With some relationship mishandling and the use of source material outside Tim Rice‘s camp, Lloyd Webber began finding success outside the collaboration with Rice. As the show was staged and Lloyd Webber had risked much to get it working, his love interests also began to seek alternative expression.

(English composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and his second wife, Sarah Brightman).

The composer and husband took a mutually keen interest in the soprano singing, dancing, acting, and then-married Sarah Brightman. It was a professional review of another that helped focus Andrew Lloyd Webber on Sarah Brightman. It was Lloyd Webber who would choose to cheat on Sarah Hugill and then announce that he would be leaving his first wife for his second. Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the leading role in the musical The Phantom of the Opera for Sarah Brightman.

(The most well-known musicals of English composer Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s career during the period covered by Unmasked: A Memoir).

The man that is Andrew Lloyd Webber is, perhaps, revealed in a bit more vibrant quality of “technicolor” in Unmasked: A Memoir than he likely would prefer. There is much to Lloyd Webber‘s life after the book concludes, including a third marriage with three additional children, that simply are not covered for concerns around brevity. If nothing else, we certainly have gotten to see an intimate portrait of one of the most commercially successful composers of our lives, if not longer than that.

As a fan of some of his musicals, I found enjoyment in reading this memoir while learning more about the man. My overall rating is 3.75-stars on a scale of 1-to-5 stars.

Matt – Saturday, January 5, 2019