John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

Forever Blue

As done, perfectly, by Chris Isaak. We loved his performance here a while back. I'd buy tickets for a return show in a heartbeat. A true, old-fashioned entertainer.

Musical advent calendar: Chris Isaak's Christmas

There are some other recent Christmas albums that are better (Diana Krall's Christmas Songs, Aimee Mann's One More Drifter in the Snow), but I picked Chris Isaak's album, named just Christmas, as today's pick for the musical advent calendar I've been putting together this month.

Maybe it's because Martha and I saw Isaak and his longtime band perform here in St. John's last year; the man not only has a great voice, but has charm coming out of his pores. I bought Christmas last season, and it's been on a lot lately. Like a lot of Isaak's music, it covers the bases: a little edgy, a little retro, a little rock and roll, a bit of kitsch and humour tossed into the blender. A few of those elements come through in his rendition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which he performed in the clip below on the Leno-era Tonight Show, when the album came out in 2005: