Tony Perry

Item: Christmas
Author: Marie Asner

Christmas

(2002)

Reviewed by Marie Asner

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Label J-School RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth2002

acoustic adult contemporary ccm

Tony Perry is a Pennsylvania singer/songwriter who works with two other musicians as Tony Perry 3. Previous CD's have been Honest Weight and On the Innocent Side. Here comes their first Christmas compilation with a few gems. The group has Perry on vocals with guitar and/or piano accompaniment.

Perry certainly has a voice and uses it to good advantage on traditional carols such as "Away In a Manger," "Silent Night" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." There are four of his original compositions on the CD and two stand out. "Because He Loves Me" presents to the listener that "I am alive because he loves me so." Perry's voice and pronunciation make this contemporary song work. The same goes for "Sweeter" in which the singer states that after a baby was born in Bethlehem, "...it grows sweeter now I'll never be alone again."

Perry also shines on the Ron and Carol Harris song, "Delivery." Bill Ingraham is a good piano accompanist and he and Perry glide smoothly through the lyrics. Other songs that stand out are a rhythmic version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" that would have many people clapping. It has an imaginative ending. "Joseph's Song" and "Mary, Did You Know?" are back-to-back songs where Joseph asks the question, "...son of my love...how am I to raise a king?" In "Mary," she is told, "...when you kissed your little baby, you kissed the face of God."

However, the arrangements on this CD begin to sound the same and Perry doesn't give us variation from song to song. Out of the thirteen songs on the CD, seven come to the forefront and the rest blend into each other. At times, it took concentration to discern one song from another. One does notice that on Perry's own song, "Only," the arrangement has guitars over-powering the singer so that Perry seems hard-pressed to catch up. "Silent Night" is so drawn out that "night" becomes "n-ah-ght". This reviewer would say that to keep a listener's attention is to have variety and that was sometimes lacking here.

2.5 tocks