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Patty Loveless
BLUEGRASS & WHITE SNOW
(EPIC/JAHAZA)

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Your typical Christmas album is recorded in the middle of summer, gets played for a month or less in the winter, and revolves around the same dozen standards. What’s wanted, then, is comfort and joy, not an artistic adventure. Fortunately, Patty Loveless has one of those phone-book voices (as in, some of us would pay to hear her sing . . . ) and an attachment to this holiday. Although her album is bluegrass only to the extent that she’s backed by acoustic instruments (played by some of bluegrass’s most accomplished pickers), Bluegrass & White Snow treats the usual standards — and they’re all here — with grace, respect, and occasional verve. The first nine tracks will play pleasantly against the holiday fire, a fine occasional counterpoint to conversation. Her own holiday songs, which have been placed at the end, invite more attention. For years now, Loveless has been associated with a train that travels through Eastern Kentucky; it stops in hamlets and she hands out presents to the needy. That’s what she (and husband/producer Emory Gordy) wrote "Santa Train" about, and their engagement shows. It’s as close as the album comes to driving bluegrass, and it’s the song on which she pushes her voice the farthest.

BY GRANT ALDEN

Issue Date: December 19 - 26, 2002
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