A Brad Paisley Christmas

1	Winter Wonderland 3:31
2	Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy 4:14
3	I'll Be Home for Christmas 4:05
4	Away in a Manger 4:47
5	Penguin, James Penguin 3:18
6	364 Days to Go 4:28
7	Jingle Bells Instrumental 3:05
8	Silent Night 4:08
9	Born on Christmas Day 4:59
10	Silver Bells 4:09
11	Kung Pao Buckaroo Holiday / Kung Pao Buckaroos 5:23
12	[Untitled Track] 0:34

Barnes & Noble

Dreamy strings on a romantic version of "I'll Be Home for Christmas"; spitfire guitar on a revved-up tribute to Buck Owens's classic "Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy"; a honky-tonk treatment of "Away in a Manger" -- on his first Christmas album, Brad Paisley energizes the old canon in interesting ways and comes up with a real winner of a Yuletide celebration. Paisley's husky tenor sounds exactly right for these tunes, whether he's being reverent (on a rustic, dobro-enriched take on "Silent Night") or frolicsome, as he demonstrates so effectively on his gently swinging original tale of "Santa's secret spy" who goes by the moniker "Penguin, James Penguin." Paisley contributes two other worthy originals as well: the string-rich country ballad, "364 Days to Go," a laconic love letter to the healing spirit of the season; and "Born on Christmas Day," a uncommonly literate memo to the Baby Jesus that he wrote and performed as a 13-year-old -- here the grown-up Brad trades verses with his recorded younger self at the end. For good measure, Paisley assembles the Kung Pao Buckaroos -- otherwise known as Little Jimmy Dickens, George Jones, and Bill Anderson -- to wind up the disc on a comedic note when they discover that, in a P.C. world, almost every Christmas tune they want to sing contains a reference offensive to one special-interest group or another. It's great fun, and the venerable Buckaroos make a point in the process, but they also make sure that they, and their listeners, exit laughing. David McGee

All Music Guide

Brad Paisley has made it no secret that he wants to be seen as part of a tradition of country singers, one that hails back through not just through his obvious musical forefathers Buck and Merle, but stretches back to such Grand Ole Opry mainstays as Jimmy Dickens and runs through George Strait, the gold standard for contemporary country singers. So, it should come as no surprise that when he decided to record a Christmas album -- humbly titled A Brad Paisley Christmas -- he followed the examples of his heroes and kept things simple, cutting an 11-track record that captures the spirit of the season while staying true to the sound of his band. Unlike Buck, Paisley didn't write a bunch of new material for his holiday album: he covers a bunch of standards, including Buck's "Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy," adding a handful of originals to the mix, plus a seasonal variation on his cornpone comedy sketches that traditionally close his albums. It's simple and unassuming, but it's also tremendously entertaining, more so than most contemporary Christmas records. That's because Paisley not only has a sharp ear for picking songs that work for his band, he also lets his band work, giving them the room to turn such standards as "Away in a Manger," "Winter Wonderland," and "Silver Bells" into songs that sound like Paisley and his band -- and on top of that, he's thrown in some new songs that meet these high standards, like the whimsical "Penguin, James Penguin" and the lazy, jazzy "364 Days to Go," which provides the perfect soundtrack to a snowy night wrapping presents. In fact, that sentiment applies to A Brad Paisley Christmas as a whole: it's a sweet, warm, big-hearted Christmas record with more musical weight than the average modern country record -- or, in other words, it has more in common with classic Christmas records, and it feels every bit a classic holiday record itself. Stephen Thomas Erlewine