MARTINA McBRIDE - White Christmas
Martina McBride has always been known for her messages. Since her debut in 1992, the diminutive powerhouse has repeatedly stunned listeners with the unforgettable lyrics of her songs and her breathtaking vocal prowess. Like gasoline and matches, it's an explosive combination that invariably leaves listeners wondering what hit them.
On White Christmas, Martina once again has a message--one that is easily understood by anyone who cherishes the holiday season.
You know the tunes. Familiar hymns like "O Holy Night," "Away in a Manger," "What Child Is This" and "Silent Night." Pop favorites such as "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," "Let It Snow," "I'II Be Home For Christmas" and, of course, the perennial "White Christmas." They're all familiar, but when a vocalist like Martina applies her stunning vocal chords to them, they become emotional expressions of goodwill that come straight from the heart.
"I've always wanted to do a Christmas album, and I felt like this was the right time," says Martina. "It was fun, because it didn't have the same pressure involved as doing a new studio album. A Christmas album is full of songs that have already been done, and you just put your personal stamp on it. Creatively it was a nice breath of fresh air for me. it was just music for the sake of doing music.
"I really wanted it to be very classic and nostalgic, like the Christmas albums you heard as a kid," she adds. "I remember hearing the same ones every year growing up. When I was doing this album, I knew what I wanted it to sound like--the Ray Conniff records, the Johnny Mathis Christmas record--the kind of album that I want to put on at a Christmas party or when I'm wrapping presents or trimming the tree. I wanted classic songs done in a classic way.
To get that sound, Martina gave the guitars, fiddles and drums a rest and enlisted the help of arranger Dennis Burnside, who contributed the warm, lush string arrangements on White Christmas. Among the highlights are a bouncy version of "Let It Snow" that sounds like it could have been lifted from an old Fred Astaire dance sequence. Then there's the swelling vocal chorus (thank you, Ray Conniff) on "The Christmas Song" and the Celtic-flavored instrumentation of "What Child Is This."
"O Holy Night" features a chamber-music intro that slowly builds to a emotional orchestral climax, and the innocent-sounding "Silver Bells, on which Martina sounds like a much younger version of herself.
Finally, there's a quietly whispered "Silent Night," which Martina intended as a lullaby. The end result is a heart-warming collection that establishes McBride as a pop vocalist of the first order.
White Christmas is the latest installment in a career that has repeatedly leapt to new heights. After singing with her family band, the Schiffters, as a teenager (and a short-lived stint singing Pat Benatar songs in a local rock band), Martina hit the road with Garth Brooks in 1991 selling T-shirts while her husband, John, worked on Brooks' production team. By the next year, though, she was Brooks' opening act, having landed a record deal with RCA Records and released her debut album, The Time Has Come.
On the strength of the driving title cut and "Cheap Whiskey," McBride was quickly heralded as one of country music's most explosive new female vocalists--one who had plenty of substance behind her booming voice. Her 1993 sophomore album, The Way That I Am, yielded the hit "My Baby Loves Me" as well as the driving "Life No. 9. Then there was the incendiary "independence Day," whose video and visceral description of domestic violence won the CMA's Video of the Year
award and helped The Way That I Am become Martina's first platinum album. In 1995 Martina released her third album, the platinum Wild Angels, which contained the top 5 hit "Safe in the Arms of Love" and the title tune, which became her first No. 1 single. The album earned her a nomination for CMA Female Vocalist of the Year, and in November 1995 she became a member the Grand Ole Opry.
Evolution, her current album, came along in 1997, and has reached platinum status faster than any previous album. In addition to the hit country duet with Clint Black, "Still Holding On," Martina's duet with pianist Jim Brickman, "Valentine, became a No. 1 Adult Contemporary hit. The album's highlight, the bluesy "A Broken Wing," became an unofficial anthem for women's independence and spent three weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's country chart. "l'm really happy with the fact that the messages in my songs are positive," says Martina.
Which brings us back to White Christmas, which Martina calls "a chance to sing in a totally different way. I mean, those melodies are written differently. I was very conscious of wanting to sing in a way that did justice to the musicalstyle. I wanted to sing it in a way that was interesting but simple. I just kept true to the idea of crooning and being there for the song.
Best of all for Martina was the chance to sing before a full orchestra. "We don't usually get to sing with orchestras," she says, "maybe one cut on an album if we're lucky. So to sing a whole album with an orchestra and to hear the arrangements and the power, it's incredible!"
In short, White Christmas presents an unseen side of Martina McBride, one that celebrates the holiday season and proves her to be one of today's most versatile and compelling vocal artists.
At Christmas, all is calm and all is bright. And when Martina McBride sings, it's easy to believe in miracles.
WHITE CHRISTMAS - Track by Track
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"
"That song feels like Christmas to me. It has an incredible melody. All these songs have such classic melodies that you don't find anymore. So it was a real challenge to sing. One thing I learned from making this album was that with an arranger and an orchestra, once the arrangements are done and once the copyist has written them out, they're set in stone and you're not going to change the key! So that was a little scary, but we lucked out on most of them.
"Let It Snow"
"I came up with the songs I wanted to do, with the feel I wanted each song to have, and I wanted it to be very classic and nostalgic. Then I handed it over to this incredible arranger, Dennis Burnside, who came forth with these arrangements that are truly special and amazing. So the little string flurry that sounds like a flurry of snow and the timpani that sounds like a storm, I can't take credit for that. But it was exactly what I was hoping for.
"The Christmas Song"
"That's probably the most excited I was about doing any song, because I've always wanted to sing that song. It's a beautiful melody, and everybody knows it; it's universal. But very few people know it by its true name. They think it's 'The Chestnut Song'.
"O Holy Night"
"O Holy Night" is one of the cuts with which I was happiest with the vocal performance. I think part of it is that I've been singing it forever. I've recorded it before (on the Mother and Child album), and in the past few years I've done it in my show at Christmas time. So I knew how I wanted to sing it and really felt comfortable. It's one of my favorite Christmas songs, because it really sums up what Christmas is all about, and it's very majestic and emotional. So I had to include that one."
"Silver Bells"
"The lyrics really paint a picture of a city Christmas scene. It was more challenging to sing than I thought it would be.
"Away in a Manger"
"That song has two different melodies. There's the classic way that I grew up singing, and then there's a version that has a completely different melody. So we combined the two; I sing it the way I grew up singing it, and then the chorus comes in and sings it with the alternate melody. I don't care how old you are when you sing "Away in a Manger," you immediately revert back to five years old! One of the first times I can remember singing, I was practicing it when I was about four for a church Christmas program.
"White Christmas"
"We did the whole first verse a certain way, then broke into kind of a swing thing. for some reason that's the way I felt it. I chose this as the title for the album because it is a classic title that sums up the feel of the entire record.
"What Child Is This"
"That arrangement is one of my favorites on the album. We started out really small with just a harp and a vocal and intentionally built it really big. There's something about the melody and that arrangement that's kind of mysterious and very emotional. As a listener, it feels like something exciting is about to happen. It literally makes my heart beat faster.
"l'll Be Home for Christmas"
"When I hear that song every year, it has a lot of meaning for me. I live in Tennessee and my family is back in Kansas. So every year I try to get home for Christmas, and I've only missed a couple of years. So I always want to be home for Christmas; that's part of what Christmas is to me.
"Silent Night"
"This was the last thing we did. We started out singing it in the normal way, in full voice. But it never did feel like I wanted it to feel. So we went in on the very last night before the very last deadline, and 1 was singing it so soft and really right up close to the microphone. I wanted it to be like I'm singing to my children, and I'm singing them the story of what happened on Christmas night. It's very intimate and very quiet and soft. And it's really different. The voice is an instrument, and this is just another way to use it.