Christmas time – that’s Country-Christmas time! At least for me. That’s why every week, until the Christkind comes on December 24th, I will present one of my song favorites of the season. It Won’t Be Christmas Without You” by Brooks & Dunn is the beginning of the sounding Advent calendar.
A naturally sensitive, comforting, warm-hearted, but – as so often in this genre – deeply sad song. With such deliciously kitischig depressing lyrics as “I stare into the flame, all I see is your face, all this joy and happiness seems so out of place” – fantastically soulfully sung by Ronnie Dunn. This is exactly how the Christmas blues sounds. Also because the musicians who took part here recorded the song composed by Steven Busch, Ronnie Dunn and Jerry Lynn Williams in a great and sensitive way. Especially worth mentioning: the guitar solo lasting over eight bars, probably played by Kenny Greenberg (unfortunately the booklet doesn’t tell you that exactly). The song is also the title track of the 2002 Christmas CD by Brooks & Dunn – probably one of the best Christmas CDs from the country trade. The nice thing about it is that the two gritty Westmen didn’t just rely on well-hung Xmas classics like “Winter Wonderland”, “White Christmas” or “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” for their song selection, but also wrote some new songs for them. Among them are tracks like “It Won’t Be Christmas Without You”.
