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Our Review

I'm having a lot of fun listening to Michael McCabe's Acoustic Christmas. Truth in labeling, Acoustic Christmas is exactly what it purports to be, a lot of well-known Christmas songs, played in an acoustic, new age, sometimes almost flamenco-flavored style. The arrangements are buoyant and original, with lots of little flourishes and flashy riffs. McCabe is an excellent player, and a talented arranger.

It's fourteen tracks make it ample by today's standards, and each one features an arrangement listeners will not have heard before. McCabe uses a variety of styles to make his musical point, ranging from classical/new age/contemporary fingerstyle to jazz, rock and swing. The CD features solo guitar pieces to full band arrangements. There is just a lot going on here, and all of it good stuff.

I'm a little short on words this year, but despite my newly-acquired brevity, this early addition to the 2008 season rates high on my list.

--Richard Banks
(Reviewed in 2008)

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From the liner notes:

Produced, Arranged, Engineered & Performed by Michael McCabe

Recorded at The Dungeon, Vancouver, WA

Keyboards on Happy Xmas & Silent Night by Burke Harris

About the artist:

Michael McCabe won a CMA Songwriter of the Year award in 1996. His arrangement of John Lennon's song "Happy Xmas" was to be used for a John Lennon Christmas ornament this year through The American Greeting Corp., but the copyright owner wouldn't release the rights to use it.

McCabe used his great grandmother's 1892 Bay State parlor guitar (pictured on the cover) for his arrangement of "We Three Kings".

Michael McCabe

Acoustic Christmas

Artist link

Track List