Alan Jackson - Honky Tonk Christmas

Alan Jackson's Honky Tonk Christmas puts a cowboy hat on the holidays, his 1993 seasonal favourite pressed on 140 gram vinyl.

His fourth studio album and first Christmas record, it arrived when Jackson was among country music's brightest stars, and it skips the tuxedo for jukebox neon. Longtime producer Keith Stegall keeps the arrangements lean and twangy, the sound of a Georgia boy who never forgot the dance halls that raised him, with plenty of steel guitar and fiddle in the mix.

The title track sets the scene with a wink and a two-step, while "The Angels Cried" pairs him with Alison Krauss for a hushed, achingly pretty duet. Merle Haggard's "If We Make It Through December" finds the bittersweet heart of the season, and "There's a New Kid in Town" features the late Keith Whitley, a touching tribute to one of the genre's great lost voices.

There's room for humour too, with Santa rolling up in a pickup truck alongside The Chipmunks, and room for real sorrow in a child's plea to a father at Christmas, a song that still stops conversations.

Three decades on, it still sounds like Christmas at a roadhouse where everybody knows your name and the jukebox never stops.