It seems that today is Sunday, and for my Advent Calendar that means only one thing: today’s songs will be a selection of Christmas carols, though mostly not in the way they would be sung in church. I’m giving you a bumper set of five today, some of which I have played before while others are making their debuts here.

I’m starting with one I play every year. How could I leave out one of my favourite singers, especially when this charming animation was made just for her:

That is such a lovely version of While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks, which is particular to the part of Yorkshire where Kate Rusby is from. It is the title track of her first album of Christmas songs, which I bought in 2008 when it was released, and have played so many times since then. The animation isn’t an ‘official’ one, but it is a really good fit for the song, and the depiction of Kate is perfect. As folk music isn’t a particularly big seller here the album did well to reach #91, I think.

Another great voice for my second song today. I think this one counts as a carol:

This song is known to have existed in the mid 19th century and may well have been around for longer. It is traditionally sung by carol singers as they make their way around singing and, if they are lucky, being rewarded for their efforts with quantities of mulled wine. I’ve played several songs by Blackmore’s Night over the years but this is the first time for this one. As you might have guessed the band is partially fronted by a certain Ritchie Blackmore. It is a British-American traditional folk rock band formed in 1997, consisting mainly of Ritchie on guitars, hurdygurdy, mandola, mandolin, and nyckelharpe, and of Candice Night on lead vocals and woodwinds. Their lineup has seen many changes over the years, but they are still releasing albums – their latest came out in March 2021 Their lovely music is a million miles away from Ritchie’s days in Deep Purple and Rainbow. Despite the twenty-six year age difference between them (he is now 77, she is 51) the two were married in 2008, having been together for twenty years, since a year or two after they first met: she approached him for an autograph at a Rainbow gig. This is a track from their 2006 album Winter Carols, which achieved the great heights of #74 in the German albums chart and #56 in Japan, though it did also make #7 in the Billboard ‘New Age’ albums chart, of which you have all heard, right? It has been updated and re-released several times, the most recent of which was last year: this is one of a series of lyric videos they gave us to promote the new record. Like all of them, I think it’s rather nice.

I played this next one for the first time last year, and it seems to have gone down well with you. It is lovely, and has more female voices for you:

Rather like the first of today’s selections, this is one of those carols that we used to delight in as kids as we could play about with the words. We Three Kings went by the original title of Three Kings of Orient, and is also known as We Three Kings of Orient Are or The Quest of the Magi. It was written by John Henry Hopkins Jr. in 1857. At the time of composing the carol, Hopkins served as the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and he wrote the carol for a Christmas pageant in New York City. It was the first widely popular Christmas carol written in America. The Wikipedia entry for this carol includes the line “Since the 1970s, the carol has been frequently parodied by children.” I can assure them that it started much earlier than that – around 1960 in my case! The Mediaeval Baebes, who perform this version, were formed in 1996, and have had a widely changing membership since then, varying from six to twelve in number. They have mostly been considered a classical music act, but have had much radio and tv coverage here. This song was on their Of Kings And Angels album, a collection of Christmas songs and carols released in 2013. They have been steady sellers of records through their lifespan, and are estimated to have had sales of around 1m or more – they are best seen as a live act, though, as I can confirm.

Guess what? This next one also has a lead female vocal. This one is a perennial favourite for me, and it wouldn’t feel like I had completed my Advent Calendar without it. I have played several versions of it over the years, but this is the only live performance I can find with the band lineup that originally recorded it:

Gaudete (which means ‘rejoice’) is a sacred Christmas carol, thought to have been composed in the 16th century. It was published in Piae Cantiones, a collection of Finnish/Swedish sacred songs published in 1582. No music is given for the verses, but the standard tune comes from older liturgical books. Steeleye Span recorded their version in 1972 for their album Below The Salt (UK #43), and this was released as a single, becoming a #14 Christmas hit that year. I’ve seen the band perform this on a number of occasions, going right back to the early days, and it is always a show-stopping moment. Maddy Prior is quite exceptional in the way she sings this, and you can always hear a pin drop as the audience holds its collective breath.

Having chosen four songs so far with a female vocalist, what should I do for today’s final carol? Well, I’m going for the full set. This is one that I shared way back in the early Twitter days but not on the blog before, so in my view that means it counts as another new one for you:

Mary-Jess and I have been friends on Twitter and Facebook for more than ten years. She rose to fame in 2009, at the age of 19, when she won the Chinese version of the X Factor talent show, which led to national media coverage here and a recording contract. Her debut album, Shine, was released in 2011 and reached #57 in the UK chart. She has made several more albums, tours a lot, has sung Abide With Me at the FA Cup Final, and has appeared several times on tv: this video is of her appearance on the BBC’s Songs Of Praise programme in December 2011. In addition to singing and touring she gives inspirational talks and presentations about the importance of learning languages and how learning Chinese changed her life forever. She also runs singing workshops and masterclasses, working with young singers and choirs to develop their voices. As you can hear, she has the voice of an angel and to cap it all she is a lovely person.

That’s it for this selection, which I hope you have enjoyed. All that remains is an image for the day. I’ll try and keep it tasteful:

Vaguely so. That’s a Christmas wrapping for today. I’ll be back again tomorrow 🎊