2009 holiday reissue. Merry Christmas was Johnny Mathis' seventh studio album for the Columbia label and his first of Christmas material. Featuring the orchestra of Percy Faith, the album would peak at #3 on Billboard's Christmas album chart and make a return appearance for the next 11 years. Pickwick.

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This is a calming and peaceful collection, with songs like "Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" and "Silent Night" taken at a slow and easy pace, with wonderful backing from Percy Faith and his orchestra. Mathis was a 23 years old when he recorded this in 1958, but was already a big star, and shows enormous musical maturity.
The bonus tracks, "Christmas Eve" and "My Kind of Christmas", I feel are slightly out of place. Though they were recorded a mere three years after the original songs for this album, they sound too "modern", as if they are from another era, and perhaps this is because the songs are not familiar classics like the rest; that slight quibble aside, this is an excellent collection of Christmas music, of such quality that it can be enjoyed any time of the year. The re-mastered sound is very good, and total time is 50'29.

32 of 33 found the following review helpful:

BEAUTIFUL REMASTERING OF A CLASSICSep 20, 2003
By Tom Anderson
Christmas albums don't get more lovely or Christmasy-sounding than this 1958 classic. It is widely considered to be one of the very best Christmas albums of all time and has sold over 5 million copies so far in the U. S. alone. This recording has some of the best singing of Johnny Mathis' early career, and Percy Faith's arrangements are very evocative, particularly in the secular songs--you can almost see the snow and feel the chill.

In its previous CD incarnation, the album's only drawback was its fairly anemic and somewhat hissy sound. I am very happy to report that Columbia/Legacy has done a really nice job remixing and remastering this album. It now has greater fidelity and presence, with greater clarity to the vocals and instruments. Also, it seems to me that some of the excess echo has been removed--a good thing, since it was the style in the Fifties through part of the Sixties (particuarly if the tasteless Mitch Miller had a hand in the production) to add so much echo that albums sounded as if they were recorded in a wind tunnel. While certain instruments at times still seem a bit muffled in the mix, this is probably as good as this album
can sound given recording limitations of the time. My advice is to gladly throw out your old copy and quickly snap up the new edition. You'll be very glad you did!

27 of 28 found the following review helpful:

The greatest Christmas album ever recorded. Period.Dec 05, 2006
By quoter
Any lover of Christmas music who doesn't have this cd is missing out terribly. It's amazing these songs were recorded all the way back in 1958. This is the standard that all Christmas music is measured by. With this most current remastered release, we have all the songs sounding better than ever. Christmas in our family wouldn't be the same without this music. That's how special it is.

14 of 14 found the following review helpful:

Best Christmas music CD ever!!!!Nov 26, 2006
By K. Stilwell
I grew up with this Christmas album and it is my favorite! The whole CD is good, so you don't have to skip any songs. It is the one Christmas CD that I always play. I see that they have added two songs to this CD that weren't on the original, so I can't vouch for those. Be sure and buy this CD, you won't regret it!

13 of 13 found the following review helpful:

A Christmas ClassicDec 14, 2002
By Rusir-10
I can't even begin to be rational about this cd. I first heard it as a child when my parents would play it every year at christmas. Yes, I'm old enough to talk about a classic - it was an album that my parents played for me. In fact, I still expect to hear a skip in "I'll be home for Christmas". Since then, I've owned this "album" as a tape and now a CD.

For many of these Christmas songs on this album, Johnny Mathis's version is the standard. I can enjoy and appreciate the new versions of these songs, but this CD is the cornerstone of my Christmas collection.

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