Product Description:
Personnel: Kenny Chesney, Randy Owen, Willie Nelson, The Grisby Twins (vocals); John D. Willis (acoustic guitar); Pat Buchanan, Reggie Young (electric guitar); James Gairrett (steel guitar); Tim Hensley (banjo, background vocals); Steve Patrick (trumpet); John Hobbs, Randy McCormick (piano, Hammond B-3 organ, synthesizer); Gary Prim (Wurlitzer piano); Larry Paxton (acoustic & electric basses); Paul Leim (drums, timbales, shaker, percussion); Wes Hightower, Wyatt Beard, Karen Chandler (background vocals).
Producers: Buddy Cannon, Norro Wilson, Kenny Chesney.
Recorded at Emerald Sound, Nashville, Tennessee and Pedernales Studio, Austin, Texas.
No matter who you are, if you're a big enough country music star, sooner or later you're going to wind up making a Christmas album. So it was with Kenny Chesney and ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS. However, Chesney switched things up a bit by abandoning the usual reindeer-and-snowflakes motif in favor of a title song that finds him longing for a Yuletide island vacation a la Jimmy Buffett. The island sound even extends to an unconventional, calypso-style reworking of "Jingle Bells." Of course, Chesney's too savvy to leave his audience completely disoriented, so he includes a straightforward rendition of Willie Nelson's classic "Pretty Paper" with assistance from the red-headed stranger himself, and signs off with a faithful reading of "O Little Town of Bethlehem."