''A Christmas Album'' is the fifth studio album and the first Christmas album by

Christian music Christian music is music that has been written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life and faith. Common themes of Christian music include praise, worship, penitence, and lament, and its forms vary widely aroun ...

singer

Amy Grant Amy Lee Grant (born November 25, 1960) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. She began in contemporary Christian music (CCM) before crossing over to pop music in the 1980s and 1990s. She has been referred to as "The Queen of Christia ...

. The album was recorded in nine studios in mid-1983 and was released later that same year. It was issued on the heels of Grant's immensely successful 1982 LP ''

Age to Age ''Age to Age'' is the fourth studio album by Christian music singer Amy Grant, released in 1982 on Myrrh Records. ''Age to Age'' was Amy Grant's breakthrough album, finally earning her serious recognition within the burgeoning Contemporary Chris ...

''. Primarily for the audiences she attracted with ''Age to Age'', ''A Christmas Album'' features well-known sacred and secular standards alongside original songs, and tracks from this album continue to receive airplay to this day during the holiday season on both secular and Christian radio stations. Although not as successful as ''Age to Age'', ''A Christmas Album'' still peaked in the Top Ten of the Christian chart and spawned a Top 20 Christian radio single in "Emmanuel." The album would eventually be certified Gold in 1985, and Platinum in 1989. ''A Christmas Album'' was listed at No. 40 in the 2001 book, '' CCM Presents: The 100 Greatest Albums in Christian Music''. In 2016, Grant re-recorded the song "Tennessee Christmas" as the opening track of her Christmas album of the same name. The song was released as a single from the album and charted at No. 50 on the ''Billboard''

Hot Christian Songs Hot Christian Songs is a music chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine in the United States. It ranks the popularity of Christian songs using the same methodology developed for the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, the magazine's flagship songs ...

chart in December 2016.

Track listing

Personnel

* Amy Grant – lead vocals (1, 2, 4–11), backing vocals (1) *

Shane Keister Shane Keister is an American musician. He is known for his work as a studio musician, writer, arranger and producer. He plays synthesizer, piano, Hammond B3, Synclavier, Fairlight CMI, Fender Rhodes, and others. History Keister was born in Huntin ...

– Fender Rhodes (1), Yamaha GS1 (2, 3, 5, 8),

Oberheim OB-8 The Oberheim OB-8 is a subtractive analog synthesizer launched by Oberheim in early 1983 and discontinued in 1985. As the fourth product in the OB-series of polyphonic compact synthesizers, the OB-8 was the successor to the OB-Xa. The number of ...

(3, 4, 5, 8),

Memorymoog The Memorymoog is a polyphonic electronic music synthesizer manufactured by Moog Music from 1982 to 1985, the last polyphonic synthesizer to be released by Moog Music before the company declared bankruptcy in 1987. While comparable to other polyph ...

(4), Minimoog (4), acoustic piano (7, 9, 10) *

Michael W. Smith Michael Whitaker Smith (born October 7, 1957) is an American musician who has charted in both contemporary Christian and mainstream charts. His biggest success in mainstream music was in 1991 when " Place in This World" hit No. 6 on the '' ...

– acoustic piano (2, 5, 6), Yamaha GS1 (4), Yamaha GS2 (7, 8),

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

(10) * Gary Chapman – acoustic guitar (1), pedal steel guitar (1), backing vocals (1) * Jon Goin – electric guitar (1), acoustic guitar (2), guitar (4, 5, 7–10) *

Dean Parks Weldon Dean Parks (born December 6, 1946) is an American session guitarist and record producer from Fort Worth, Texas. Albums Parks was member of the North Texas State One O'clock Lab Band before moving to Los Angeles to work with Sonny and Cher ...

– acoustic guitar (1) * Mike Brignardello – bass (1, 2, 4, 5, 7–10) *

Paul Leim Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity * Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chr ...

– drums (1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10),

LinnDrum The LinnDrum, also referred to as the LM-2, is a drum machine manufactured by Linn Electronics between 1982 and 1985. About 5,000 units were sold. Its high-quality samples, flexibility and affordability made the LinnDrum popular; it sold far m ...

(4), Simmons drums (4),

sleigh bell A jingle bell or sleigh bell is a type of bell which produces a distinctive 'jingle' sound, especially in large numbers. They find use in many areas as a percussion instrument, including the classic sleigh bell sound and morris dancing. The ...

s (5, 8), wood blocks (8) *

Victor Feldman Victor Stanley Feldman (7 April 1934 – 12 May 1987) was an English jazz musician who played mainly piano, vibraphone, and percussion. He began performing professionally during childhood, eventually earning acclaim in the UK jazz scene as ...

– shaker (1), percussion (2, 5, 6) * Lenny Castro – percussion (4) * Farrell Morris – percussion (7, 9), bell tree (8), glockenspiel (8), coconut shells (8) * Alan Moore – string arrangements (1, 2, 5–11), choir arrangements (2, 6, 11), horn arrangements (2, 5, 6, 11), woodwind arrangements (2, 6, 8, 10) * Gavyn Wright – concertmaster (1, 2, 5–11) * The Martyn Ford Orchestra – strings (1, 2, 5–11), horns (2), woodwinds (2, 8, 10) * The Nashville Contemporary Brass Quintet – horns (5, 6, 11) * Tom McAninch – horns (5, 6, 11) * Fred Bock – choir director (2, 6, 11) * The Hollywood Presbyterian Choir – choir (2, 6, 11) *

Bill Champlin William Bradford Champlin (born May 21, 1947) is an American singer, musician, arranger, producer, and songwriter. He formed the band Sons of Champlin in 1965, which still performs today, and was a member of the band Chicago from 1981–2009. ...

– backing vocals (4, 11) *

Tamara Champlin Tamara Champlin (née Matoesian) is an American singer-songwriter who started her career as a session singer in Houston, Texas, later moving to Los Angeles. She has performed with and written for singers such as Elton John, Leon Russell, Nicky H ...

– backing vocals (4, 11) * Carmen Twillie – backing vocals (4, 11) * Steve George – backing vocals (5) * David Page – backing vocals (5) *

Richard Page Richard Lewis Page (born 22 February 1941) is a former Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and from December 1979 to 2005. Early life Born the son of Victor Charles Page, he went to the independent H ...

– backing vocals (5) * Debbie Hall – backing vocals (8, 9) * Sandy Hall – backing vocals (8, 9) * Edie Lehmann – backing vocals (8, 9) Production * Jim Baird – additional engineer * Brown Bannister – producer * Michael Blanton – cover art concept, executive producer * Mike Borum – family photography * Kevin Burns – assistant engineer * Gary Chapman – executive producer * Ken Corlew – additional engineer * Gene Eichelberger – additional engineer * Bill Farrell – cover photography, scenery * Steve Ford – assistant engineer * Daniel Garcia – assistant engineer * Amy Grant – liner notes * Dan Harrell – cover art concept, executive producer * Dennis Hill – art direction * Brent King – additional engineer * Jerry Mahler – assistant engineer * Rich Markowitz – assistant engineer * Jack Joseph Puig – engineer, mixing * Mike Ross – additional engineer *

Doug Sax Doug Lionel Sax (April 26, 1936 – April 2, 2015) was an American mastering engineer from Los Angeles, California. He mastered three of The Doors' albums, including their 1967 debut; six of Pink Floyd's albums, including ''The Wall''; Ray Charl ...

– mastering at The Mastering Lab, Hollywood, California * David Schober – assistant engineer

Chart positions

Awards

GMA Dove Awards A Dove Award is an accolade by the Gospel Music Association (GMA) of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the Christian music industry. The awards are presented annually. Formerly held in Nashville, Tennessee, the Dove Award ...

Pressings

''A Christmas Album'' was the first Amy Grant album to be released in the

Compact Disc The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Oc ...

format. The original CD issue had a manufacturing flaw that caused a small, but noticeable jump during the transition between tracks 3 and 4. The remastered version does not have this defect. The album was also released as a promotional only vinyl picture disc version in a die cut sleeve.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Christmas Album Amy Grant albums 1983 Christmas albums Albums produced by Brown Bannister Christmas albums by American artists Pop Christmas albums Myrrh Records albums