LeAnn Rimes for some ridiculous, double-standard reason has lost her audience in the country community. Jason Aldean makes a similar indiscretion in his personal life, his career goes to new heights. LeAnn does it, and her career on country radio is seemingly over. I will never understand that aside from knowing the more subtle, far-reaching consequences of continued sexism, particularly in the country music industry, but perhaps the struggle of women on country radio has something to do with it too. For that reason ‘One Christmas: Chapter One’, surprisingly enough only her second ever Christmas album (doesn’t it feel like she should have several under her belt right now?), didn’t make the impact on the charts that it should have done.
Not quite a full length album, at just six tracks it functions as more of an EP, one that is easily digestible and clearly indicates further festive releases from the power vocalist. In fact, LeAnn has revealed that two further holiday EPs will arrive in 2015 and 2016, meaning fans will have plenty to look forward to as Christmas appears on the horizon each year. Featuring all covers, ‘One Christmas: Chapter One’ collects a variety of traditional, classic and more quirky choices, setting the tone for the other releases with renditions of well-known songs that attempt to defy expectations. Lead single from the project, for example, is the campy, fun ‘I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas’, certainly showing a totally different side to LeAnn particularly in her role as stepmother, and providing fodder for a potential children’s album in the future.
She also produces a smooth, jazzy but also updated pop version of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Someday At Christmas’, before turning to the Dolly Parton classic ‘Hard Candy Christmas’ from 1982 movie ‘The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas’, stripping back the instrumentation and slowing it right down. The only issue I have with the inclusion of this track and its inclusion in holiday playlists year after year is the fact that it’s not a Christmas song; it’s actually a song, to quote my friend Rita Ballou, about “sad whores”. It was written for the movie, and illustrates the scene when the whorehouse closes and each girl is musing on where she’ll go with her life next. The reference to a Hard Candy Christmas is simply a metaphor for the situation they all now find themselves in, and time after time it is assumed to be a holiday song which frustrates me no end (because if you actually listen to the lyrics, the underlying meaning is pretty clear even without the movie). That said, LeAnn has recorded a good version that separates itself from Dolly’s famous early ‘80s version, updating it and making it more introspective, sadder (if that’s possible).
Elsewhere we have gentle, vocally virtuosic renditions of ‘Silent Night, Holy Night’ and ‘Blue Christmas’, with LeAnn showing off her acrobatics as well as strong soulful tone, all within the confines of a largely acoustic arrangement. This is where she shines the most; we all know LeAnn’s strengths are in ballads, so when she comes into her own on these tracks it’s no surprise. It must also be said that on this EP she sounds different, somewhat older, with a raspier touch peeking in, slight technical imperfections joining the smooth, beautiful vocal runs. There’s something different about these recordings, and I don’t know whether it’s because they’re her first releases not with Curb Records (her contract ran out and these have been released under Iconic Entertainment Group), but there’s a new LeAnn emerging out of the suspense-building drama of ‘Carol of The Bells’. If that song can provide the soundtrack to a more powerful being emerging, perhaps its place at the end of the EP is all too calculated. Could she come back bigger and better than ever?
Only time will tell.
