Here’s another holiday offering from Pinecastle Records, a lovely acoustic string arrangement of an all-time favorite song from the 1965 television special, A Charlie Brown Christmas.
The animated show based on the Charles Schulz comic strip, Peanuts, was hugely popular at the time, and remains so being re-run each year since ’65. Children found it immediately believable, possibly because of the fact that child actors were used to voice the roles of the familiar characters of Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, and the others.
Music from the special was highly praised, mixing newly composed pieces by jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi with traditional Christmas songs. The soundtrack album sold well at the time, and has since been voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and added to the National Recording Registry of “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important” American sound recordings by The Library of Congress.
Pinecastle’s release for this season is Christmas Time Is Here, served up by the trio of Tony Wray (guitar and banjo), Tim Crouch (violins), and Ethan Burkhardt (bass). Fans of A Charlie Brown Christmas will recall that this song is heard twice in the program, once as a vocal with all the Children singing, and once as an instrumental performed by the Vince Guaradli Trio. It is that second arrangement that Wray et al honor in this new recording.
Check it out…
Christmas Time Is Here by Tony Wray, Tim Crouch, and Ethan Burkhardt is available now from popular download and streaming services online. Radio programmers will find the track at AirPlay Direct.
You can check out all the Christmas bluegrass music we have covered at Bluegrass Today by following this link.
