One of the Greatest Songs Ever Recorded: “Christmas Time’s A-Comin'” by Emmylou Harris!!!

For as long as I’ve been on the radio, and definitely for as long as I’ve been writing a blog, I will occasionally make a reference to a song being “One of the Greatest Songs Ever Recorded!” (GSER)

I would usually follow that by saying that I would eventually start a category for it, but then never get around to it.

Well, now I’m getting around to it!

My radio show, “Theme Attic,”  is on Wednesdays 12PM-4PM ET.

The show can be heard on WHFR 89.3 FM in the Dearborn-Detroit area of Michigan, or it can be streamed with this link: https://www.whfr.fm/streamer/!

The Greatest Songs will pretty much follow the pattern of The Most Awesomest Song of the Day.

I’ll select a song to celebrate and then give my thoughts about it. Nothing really brand new here that hasn’t been done before. But since I have a website, I can collect them and lay out what my own greatest songs are.

Here’s a link to have a look at “The Greatest Songs Ever Recorded”: https://philmaq.com/the-greatest-songs-ever-recorded/! Occasionally, an “awesome song” crosses over to become a “Greatest Song!”

Even though I always emphasize new music and artists, it’s always fun to take a short drive through the legendary artists, since they influenced those other artists!

But a song doesn’t have to be old or done by a legendary Theme Attic Hall of Fame member to be thus honored.

I can think of several songs that are only a few years old or less that I could identify as One of the Greatest Songs Ever Recorded.

This will be fun, and hopefully you will join me on my journey!

If you like what you see, don’t forget to spread the word by hitting the “like” button on my Facebook page, Phil Maq!

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Back in 1979 when I was listening to The Sex Pistols and was more interested in punk and power pop rock, I would still buy an occasional “country” album.

Often that choice would be something by multiple Philby Award winner Emmylou Harris [Hall of Fame].

And why not?

She had appeared on several Linda Ronstadt [Hall of Fame] albums along with Dolly Parton. The three would eventually form Trio.

As bad as popular music sounded at that time to someone who chose punk first, Christmas music choices were even worse!

Outside of a few recent singles, Holiday albums were often filled with the same rotating list of songs, as if they were mandatory.

And, I guess, it was a way for artists to pick up a few extra bucks by knocking off a mindlessly numb batch of songs in a couple of days.

The Carpenters had released “A Christmas Portrait” the year before. It consisted of many of the same songs, but Richard Carpenter’s creative arrangements, and the warm soothing vocals of Karen Carpenter, made the album sound fresh.

That was the first crack in the Christmas wall of music.

The second crack came with Emmylou Harris‘ Light of the Stable.”

Surprisingly, the album itself is possibly even more traditional than many of the albums I just disrespected.

Traditional bluegrass that is!

Delivered with sincerity and reverence plus honest fun, “Light of the Stable” was a sonic surprise right from Ricky Skaggs’ first mandolin notes on Bill Monroe’s “Christmas Time’s A-Comin'”–a toe tapper of a song that was made for that phrase!

Heavenly harmonies from Linda and Dolly melded beautifully with Emmylou‘s vocals!

The rest of the album was filled with a good variety of hymns that seemed familiar, but were different enough to keep my attention.

An all star cast of additional musicians like James Burton, Rodney Crowell, Glen Hardin, and Brian Ahern-who produced the album, didn’t hurt either!

Those joyous notes on Brian Bowers’ autoharp for “Christmas Times A-Comin'” pulled me in and didn’t let me go!

“Light of the Stable” became my favorite Christmas album for a long time!

It’s still one of my favorites, and I try to listen to it every year.

However, if I don’t get to it, you can be assured that I will always listen “Christmas Time’s A-Comin'” several times every year!

The album that had Emmylou Harris wearing a shawl over her head symbolically depicting herself as Mary, contained some powerful, joyous music!

One of the Greatest Songs Ever Recorded is “Christmas Time’s A-Comin'” by Emmylou Harris!!!

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I have plenty of other musical areas to explore:

My somewhat unusual Hall of Fame can be explored here: https://philmaq.com/hall-of-fame/!

Lastly, but most importantly, is my Philby Awards link! A Philby is my annual award for brilliant musical achievement! https://philmaq.com/philbys/!