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Our Review

Sarah Pierce has a delicious alto voice, rich and smooth like country-churned butter. More than just a pretty voice, Pierce is also a killer songwriter, and she puts both talents to good use on It Must Be Christmas Time. This wonderful seasonal effort is an endearing country/folk venture with five Pierce originals (one with A. Adinolfi, one with M. Bregante) and superb vocals throughout. The album presents ten tracks, an eclectic mix of the sacred and secular. The tone tends to be gentle, even when the music has a lively, honky-tonk sentiment.

It Must Be Christmas Time opens with a catchy original; Pierce's punchy "Miracle at Hand" has a simple refrain with a bluesy swing beat and nicely-placed background vocals. Her lovingly-constructed "You Make It Christmas" is a sentimental sweetheart, and "It's Santa Claus" is a most pleasurable hard-driving romp. Pierce's title track "It Must Be Christmas Time" is the loveliest ballad, with perfect harmonies floating over a melodic guitar foundation, and her "Soon It Will Be Christmas Day" takes on island rhythms. This artist definitely knows how to sprinkle excellent lyrics over memorable melodies!

Although Pierce does a fine job executing the well-known holiday classics here (especially "Oh Holy Night"), this album (for me) is all about Pierce's excellent originals. This release is a true treat, although at 35 minutes, the beautiful musical experience was all too brief. When the singers end It Must Be Christmas Time with a cheery "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," I definitely felt the holiday spirit strong within, and I'm confident you will, too. Bravo, Sarah Pierce!

--Carol Swanson
(Reviewed in 2005)

Our Review

Sarah Pierce is not just one more great singer/songwriter who happens to show up at Christmasreviews.com in early November. She is also Sarah, my Physician Assistant, who along with my doctor, does a fantastic job keeping me ambulatory most of the time. File that under "Too Much Information" if you like. The real story here is one of shame and chagrin, shame that I haven't picked up on Sarah's music before now, she being an up-and-coming local talent, chagrin that one day I will have to face her and face up to this particular lapse regarding magnificent Austin americana/pop/folk singers.

Because if I had known what a tremendous talent she is, I'm certain Laura and I would have become the sort of "problem fans" every artist learns to dread seeing in the audience every single time they go on stage. (You know the ones--they sit on the front row, looking on with tremendous anticipation and intensity, hooting loudly after every song, making a bigger and bigger spectacle until the artist looks them in the eye and says "wow, you're wonderful, thank you" as she imagines what it might cost to get a restraining order.) But don't worry, Sarah, we're not usually like that.

But seriously, there is a lot to like about this CD--in fact, it is easy to like all of it equally. Not quite equally, though, because I liked the title track, the easy-going, sentimental It Must Be Christmas Time more than all the rest. Though this CD is loaded with beautiful songs (and Sarah wrote half of them, including this one!), I liked the sweet, Anne Murray-like quality of this one, with its melody whose chorus pays off in a Christmas stocking full of pop hooks, confidently delivered on the crystal instrument that is Sarah's delicious voice. Her style has a western or northwestern quality that differs somewhat from "the Austin sound", even though she is based here. (Think Michael Martin Murphy, not Willie and Waylon and the boys.) Several selections feature this northwesternness, though on others, particularly the ones she wrote, she performs in more of a contemporary Christian pop style. (Then, there's her traditional arrangement of O Holy Night, the only well-known carol on the CD: its inclusion "anchors" the CD, broadening its listener appeal and highlighting how little Sarah needs to lean on the genre in order to create such a breathtaking holiday project.)

It would be easy to say that the story of It Must Be Christmas Time is these five wonderful new Christmas songs; it would be just as easy to talk about Sarah's sweet voice, marvelous and well-trained and more than up to the task of singing (often swinging) this unique set. Or it could be about what's wrong with a music industry that hasn't already made a chart-topper out of this artist. (Or the story of how such an unheralded artist could attract other such stellar musicians to her cause, including the likes of Alex Adinolfi, Merel Bregante, and Reiley Osbourn, who do a remarkable job of providing classy accompaniment that so perfectly highlights her talent). I like all of these stories. Just as you will love Sarah Pierce's It Must Be Christmas Time, because it is awesome in every way!

--Richard Banks
(Reviewed in 2005)

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From the liner notes:

Sarah Pierce: vocals, acoustic guitar
Alex Adinolfi: lead and rhythm acoustic guitar, baritone guitar, mandolin, bass, background vocals, lead vocal "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"
Merel Bregante: drums, drum programming, percussion, background vocals, lead vocal on "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer," "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" Reiley Osbourn: B3, piano and orchestration on "Oh Holy Night"
Francesco Adinolfi: bass "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" Tina Carraway: violin "It Must Be Christmas Time"
Alexandra Horn, Ute Adinolfi, Dirk Horn: background vocals "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"
Stefano Intelisano: accordion "Light of the Stable," B3 "Baby King"
Marmoni Kelley: bass "Light of the Stable," "Baby King," "It Must Be Christmas Time"
Julian Adinolfi: heavenly vibe and laughter
Clyve and Lucy Bregante: spiritual advisors, huffers, puffers and waggists extraordinary

Produced by Merel Bregante
Associate producers: Sarah Pierce and Alex Adinolfi

From the Web site:

Sarah Pierce has a wonderfully unique sound. Her music is a blend of both old and new world sensibilities. . . With each song, her lyrics daze with elegant poetry that carries the listener over wide musical vistas on each soul-bearing turn of her incomparable voice.

Sarah Pierce was born in Rockford, Illinois and raised in rural Texas and Colorado. The daughter of a cowboy raised in a family of cattlemen (4 members are in the Cattlemen's Hall of Fame), Sarah's dream was to be a singer, a dream that began to take shape when she was 12 years old. Her stepfather was a small town doctor by day and played bass in the local country band on the weekends. One day he asked her to come along and sing a few songs. After one song, Sarah had a gig. "The stage is like a big comfortable couch; I am so at home there."

Sarah Pierce

It Must Be Christmas Time

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