Elvis Presley - The Classic Christmas Album

Elvis Presley's The Classic Christmas Album collects the King's holiday recordings on a single 150 gram LP, rock and roll swagger wrapped in tinsel.

First assembled in 2012, the collection draws on two very different Elvis Christmases: the youthful, hip-shaking sessions behind his 1957 holiday album and the bluesier, grown-up sound of his early-1970s seasonal record. Two modern duets, with Carrie Underwood and Martina McBride, pair newer vocals with his original performances. Together they show how much his voice deepened in little more than a decade.

"Blue Christmas", refreshed as a duet with Martina McBride, keeps every bit of its familiar ache, while "Santa Claus Is Back in Town" struts like a juke-joint blues with the fairy lights switched on. "Merry Christmas Baby" is a gloriously loose, slow-burning jam that shows Elvis the bluesman in full flight, and "If Every Day Was Like Christmas" brings a warm, wistful croon.

From reverent carols to rocking novelties, it captures every side of a singer who never treated the season as an afterthought, sliding easily from church-pew sincerity to Memphis grit, often within the same side.

It makes an easy, joyful soundtrack for trimming the tree, and a reminder that nobody sang a Christmas blues quite like him, before or since.