Newly remixed and remastered Carpenters Christmas collection out for holidays

A&M/UMe celebrates the upcoming holidays with the release of the Carpenters’ Christmas Once More, an all-new Christmas collection featuring 16 Carpenters holiday classics personally curated by Richard Carpenter. This newly remixed and remastered 16-track set includes perennial Carpenters holiday favorites such as “Sleigh Ride,” “(There’s No Place Like) Home For The Holidays,” Richard’s own “Merry Christmas, Darling” featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and many more.

All 16 tracks, which have been culled from the Carpenters’ cherished holiday albums, are available now in multiple formats, including CD, black vinyl, limited-edition gold vinyl, digital download, streaming, and ATMOS. Listen to Carpenters’ Christmas Once More HERE.

Enough material was recorded during the Christmas Portrait sessions in 1978 to allow for the eventual release of a second Carpenters holiday album, An Old-Fashioned Christmas, in 1984, a year after Karen’s death, and it too was an international hit. Soon after, Christmas Portrait – The Special Edition combined tracks from both Carpenters’ seasonal LPs with some additional material for a sort of super-anthology that became yet another holiday perennial. Now comes Christmas Once More, a 16-track best-of compilation from all the duo’s holiday platters.

“With Karen’s marvelous leads,” Richard has written, “combined with an oversize studio orchestra and chorus, terrific arrangements, and timeless music, Christmas Portrait was, and is, an almost incomparable Christmas album.”

Richard conceived, produced, and saw this holiday project all the way through to its completion. In fact, it’s Richard’s voice that begins the proceedings on Christmas Once More, with his twelve-voice, multi-overdubbed arrangement of “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear” leading into “Happy Holiday,” a song that ends on F# above middle-C — the exact same note Karen then sings to begin “Christmas Waltz.” Observed Richard, “I like to connect these things when I can.”

CARPENTERS: CHRISTMAS ONCE MORE [CD]

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

Happy Holiday

The Christmas Waltz

Sleigh Ride

It’s Christmas Time / Sleep Well, Little Children

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Christ Is Born

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Merry Christmas, Darling (RPO Version)

The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)

(There’s No Place Like) Home For The Holidays

Little Altar Boy

The First Snowfall / Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

My Favorite Things

White Christmas

Ave Maria

CARPENTERS: CHRISTMAS ONCE MORE [black vinyl LP / gold vinyl LP]

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