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Michael McDonald
In the Spirit: A Christmas Album
(MCA Nashville, 2001)
Now this is just odd. Michael McDonald's voice was once the definitive sound of AOR, as seductive as a warm breath in your ear. He could even sing tosh like "Yah Mo B There" and make it sound like sense. But evidently age hasn't been kind. McDonald hasn't quite lost the silky purr, but from the opening "Angels We Have Heard On High" forward, he also shows off a growl that testifies to something darker - the skull beneath the skin, as it were. This isn't a disc to be lost in the ceaseless Christmas merriment, it's a valid musical statement. A "White Christmas/Winter Wonderland" medley cut with Jonny Lang aside, McDonald has written surprisingly devout originals, giving his Doobie Brothers funk a religious twist. At one point during the ballad "Peace" he confesses "I have come from so far away/ Down the road of my own mistakes." It almost works. "To Make a Miracle" is vintage stuff; "Children Go Where I Send Thee" adroitly employs a gospel choir; and if McDonald believes that "One Gift" is "love and mercy," you can't begrudge him his ultimate generosity. He clearly needs both.
C. Bottomley
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