''Through the Many Winters, A Christmas Album'' is a 2005 Christmas album by Michael McDonald. It was one of the first in the longstanding series of annual seasonal albums commissioned and retailed by

Hallmark Cards Hallmark Cards, Inc. is a Privately held company, privately held, family-owned American company based in Kansas City, Missouri. Founded in 1910 by Joyce Hall, Hallmark is one of the oldest and largest manufacturers of greeting cards in the United ...

to have reliable sales figures published, despite being sold through Hallmark's 4,000 card franchise shops, rather than through normal record shops in the ''Billboard'' chart system. The album was released three weeks before Thanksgiving, and reached Gold status (500,000 copies sold) two weeks after its release.Michael McDonald's Hallmark Gold Crown(R) Stores' Holiday CD 'Through the Many Winters, A Christmas Album' Reaches Gold Within Two Weeks of Release Nov 29, 2005
/ref> At the time of its release, the album was priced at $7.95 with a purchase of three Hallmark cards.

Track listing

Silent Night "Silent Night" () is a popular Christmas carol, composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber to lyrics by Joseph Mohr in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria. It was declared an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO The United Nations Educati ...

" – 4:47 #"

O Holy Night "O Holy Night" (original title: ) is a sacred song about the night of the birth of Jesus Christ, described in the first verse as "the dear Saviour", and frequently performed as a Christmas carol. Based on the French-language poem ''Minuit, ch ...

" – 5:06 #"Come, O Come Emanuel/What Month Was Jesus Born" – 4:10 #"

Deck the Halls "Deck the Halls" is a traditional Christmas carol. The melody is Welsh, dating back to the sixteenth century, and belongs to a winter carol, " Nos Galan", while the English lyrics, written by the Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant, date to 1862. ...

Jingle Bells "Jingle Bells" is one of the most commonly sung Christmas songs in the world. It was written by James Lord Pierpont. It is an unsettled question where and when Pierpont originally composed the song that would become known as "Jingle Bells". It ...

" – 2:50 #" O Tannenbaum" – 1:55 #" Wexford Carol" – 5:01 #"

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen", also known as "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen", is an English traditional Christmas carol. It is in the Roxburghe Collection (iii. 452), and is listed as no. 394 in the Roud Folk Song Index. It is also known as "T ...

" – 3:35 #"Through the Many Winters" (

Amy Holland Amy Celeste Boersma (born August 15, 1953), known professionally as Amy Holland, is an American pop and rock singer. Her career spans more than 40 years. She received a Grammy Award nomination for Best New Artist in 1981, following her Amy Holla ...

/ Michael McDonald) – 6:51 #"Christmas on the Bayou" (McDonald / Grady Walker / Shannon Forrest) – 3:41 #"

Auld Lang Syne "Auld Lang Syne" () is a Scottish song. In the English-speaking world, it is traditionally sung to bid farewell to the old year at the stroke of midnight on Hogmanay/New Year's Eve. It is also often heard at funerals, graduations, and as a far ...

/O Tannenbaum (Reprise)" – 2:26

Personnel

* Michael McDonald – vocals, acoustic guitar (1, 2, 9), bass (2–4, 7–10), acoustic piano (3, 4, 7), backing vocals (3), keyboards (5, 10), synthesizers (6, 7),

dulcimer The term dulcimer refers to two families of musical string instruments. Hammered dulcimers The word ''dulcimer'' originally referred to a trapezoidal zither similar to a psaltery whose many strings are struck by handheld "hammers". Variants of ...

(6), Hammond B3 organ (7), Rhodes electric piano (8),

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

(9) * Pat Coil – synthesizers (1), string arrangements (1, 2), keyboards (2, 8), Hammond B3 organ (3), acoustic piano (8) * Josh Henson – electric guitars (3, 4, 6, 7), acoustic guitar (6), bass (6) * Russell Bono – additional electric guitars (3), backing vocals (3) * Tom Hemby – nylon guitar (8) * Shannon Forrest – programming, drums (2–10) * Conni Ellisor – strings (1, 2) * Anthony LaMarchina – strings (1, 2) * Mark Douthit – tenor saxophone (2, 3, 10), soprano saxophone (5) *

Stuart Duncan Stuart Ian Duncan (born April 14, 1964) is an American bluegrass musician who plays the fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and banjo. Life Duncan was born in Quantico, Virginia, and raised in Santa Paula, California, where he played in the school ...

–

fiddle A fiddle is a Bow (music), bowed String instrument, string musical instrument, most often a violin or a bass. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including European classical music, classical music. Althou ...

(6, 9) * Pat Bergeson –

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica incl ...

(8) * Daniel Moore II – backing vocals (3, 7) * Drea Rheneé – backing vocals (3, 7) * Kabanya Vinson – backing vocals (3, 7) *

– vocals (6)

Production

* Producers – Michael McDonald, Shannon Forrest and Grady Walker. * Production coordination – Kathy Walker * Engineer – Shannon Forrest * Second engineer – Grady Walker * Recorded and mixed at Bingham Bend (Leiper's Fork, TN). * Mastered by Jim DeMain at Yes Master (Nashville, TN). * Management – Joel Hoffner and Ken Levitan at Vector Management.

References

{{Michael McDonald Michael McDonald (musician) albums 2005 Christmas albums