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Our Review

Before I smelled the cinnamon and spruce on this CD, I detected a New Orleans gumbo of different musical fragrances--blues, jazz, swing, american pop, hillbilly, and bluegrass. Their music a creole of styles and periods, the Squirrel Nut Zippers have blended these ingredients in just the right proportions. I liked, I say I liked Christmas Caravan much more the second time I heard it; frankly, I was quite unprepared for my first experience with the smorgasbord of sound presented by the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

I like several of the songs on this record, but none hit me with such mixed emotions as Gift of the Magi. This homage to Austin's legendary writer, O. Henry, is a song I knew needed to be written. I had intended to write it myself, but Jim Mathus beat me to it. Drat! Well, it is a fine song, and I suppose it is appropriately done as a bluegrass ballad, although I had envisioned it as more of a West Texas waltz, a la Butch Hancock. Sorry, Butch!

Beautiful to the ear was My Evergreen. Done in a 1930s crooning style I don't hear enough of, this was a priceless song, and a welcome change of pace from some of the high-energy numbers on this CD. The Squirrel Nut Zippers have made a nice little holiday record, most of it original, some of it quite excellent, all of it very nice to listen to of a chilly winter's eve.

--Richard Banks
(Reviewed in 1998)

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Squirrel Nut Zippers

Christmas Caravan

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Track List