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Tiny Angels is a surprising little songwriter showcase from Bramsar Records. Surprising in the form of a nicely packaged songwriter Christmas card, which makes sense for a Christmas CD, to be useful. Surprising in its Nashville country leanings (to me, a reviewer who recognized none of these artists). Surprising in that it came out in aught-three, and I, your humble narrator, am just now hearing it late in aught-six. And little in its relatively diminutive length--10 tracks, with 34 minutes total playing time. Which must be forgiven, in the holiday spirit. That said, I enjoyed several of these tracks enough to play them several times.

The title track, Tiny Angels, set the tone, with a lovely, country-tinged vocal performance by Alan Johnson. With strong lyrics and sentimental arrangement, this tune has a chance of being played on conventional country radio (and maybe it already has; I'm that out of touch).

I enjoyed the unabashed, loping gait of some of these tracks. Christmas For My Missus, for example, was a toe-tapping ode to buying the wrong gifts ("Santa I need a hit, after ten straight years of misses") for "the missus" (redneck for "my wife"). All you men, listen up: men like tools for gifts. Women don't. Think jewelry, perfume, a cashmere sweater, and jewelry.

I also liked the subject of Patsy Shepherd's I Can Still Hear Daddy Calling (vocals by Juli Maners), where she recalls her father calling out a traditional greeting on Christmas morning. We still play a game very much resembling that lyric in my family, with it being something of a contest to be the first to say "Christmas gift!" one to the other (a somewhat pointless game, I'll admit, with nothing but bragging rights accorded to the winner, and a cup of coffee).

I didn't know about any of these nice songwriter folks, but I'll be watching for them now. This is a very nice set of country-flavored new songs, recommended for country music fans and for those who like hearing something new and different each holiday season.

--Richard Banks
(Reviewed in 2006)

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From the liner notes:

Tiny Angels is the work of 16 talented and dedicated songwriters from the United States, Canada and Sweden. The Songs selected for this Christmas CD were carefully selected from over a hundred songs.

From the promotional material:

This CD is a compilation of 10 songs written by 14 songwriters from around the world. Our record label and publishing companies decided byak in 2003 to put this CD together to help promote our song catalog while providing some royalty income for our songwriters. Last year we were able to get track 6, Morning Has Come, placed in a Christmas movie entitled A Halfway House Christmas,

Tiny Angels written by Ray Fontenault and Galen Breen

The Magic Of Christmas written by Billy Morgan, Victoria Boland, Jadwiga Boland

Gifts For The World written by Galen Foulke

Christmas Memories written by Richard Widney

A Christmas Recipe written by Ray Fontenault

Morning Has Come written by Mattias Lundgren and Dan Attlerud,

Little Red Guitar written by Ray Fontenault

Santa's Christmas Party written by Everett Adams

I Can Still Hear Daddy Calling written by Patsy Shepherd

Christmas For My Missus written by Blake Hill, Janice Messer, Paul Buckles

Various Artists

Tiny Angels,
Songs of Christmas Joy,
A Collection of Songs by Independent Songwriters

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Track List