HO HO HO Merry music

Every year, just as surely as green leaves turn to brown and bring out the rake patrol, Christmas albums in numbers nearly as vast as the falling leaves land in stores and at online sites.

All that holly jolly yule stuff we hear was mostly recorded during those long, hot summer days when body and spirit are weighed down by heat and humidity. Merry Christmas? Humbug! Get that AC blasting!

How do these singers get in the mood? Some decorate the recording studio with lights, Christmas trees and wrapped packages. But soulful singer John Cowan didn’t need any of that when he stepped into a dark, rural Tennessee studio in July. Neither did heavy metal icon Rob Halford. “I ...