Travis Tritt - A Travis Tritt Christmas: Loving Time of Year (1992)

The harder Tritt rocks on Loving Time of the Year, the better he sounds. His Southern-boogie versions of "Winter Wonderland" and "Silver Bells" make a perfect antidote to sleigh-bell burnout. When he tries to be an "interpretive singer" on "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," he falls flat on his face. Elsewhere, Tritt writes the title track while covering two by Buck Owens and one by Sonny James.

Travis Tritt is a rocker trapped in a country singer's career, and nowhere is that clearer than here on the rousing rock renditions of "Winter Wonderland" and "Silver Bells." Like Dwight Yoakham's five-star Christmas disc, Tritt's album could be played any time of year and the references to Christmas would merely be footnotes. This is a tough, musically minded assortment of cool originals and choice covers, whether it's the homage to Buck Owens on the Buck classics "Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy" and "All I Want for Christmas Dear Is You," or the knockout vocal performance of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" done like a '50s rock & roll ballad. Tritt momentarily goes quiet on a touching version of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." But even on these two, Tritt is singing like the world depended on it. What a great record! --Martin Keller