This Christmas (I'd Rather Have Love)

Teddy Pendergrass\'s distinctive husky voice and soul-man persona turn Christmas standards and inspired originals throughout This Christmas (I\'d Rather Have Love) into a lovable Tedfest. While many similar records and their singers tend to overproduce and oversing holiday work, Pendergrass and company keep the schlocky string arrangements and excessive emoting to a minimum. They\'ve also cranked out great holiday tunes in \"Having a Christmas Party\" and \"Happy Kwanzaa,\" and devised tasty new versions of \"Joy to the World\" and \"We Three Kings.\" The former gets a lilting funk treatment while the latter works as a jazzy, bluesy ballad. In his most surprising choice of covers, Pendergrass even reinvents John and Yoko\'s \"Happy Xmas\" as a romantic plaint and plea for racial harmony. --Martin Keller (Amazon)