In late 2008 Sony/BMG released an album called "Christmas Duets". On the "Billboard 200" it peaked at number 17, in the cathegory "Country And Western Music" it even made it to number 3. In 2016 the RIAA honored the US sales with a Gold Award. In Australia "Christmas Duets" peaked at number 20, in Canada the album became a top10 hit. The cover was tastefully designed with a photo of a young Elvis, the booklet includes background information regarding the songs and the album.

Nowadays "Christmas Duets" is available on the various streaming platforms, albeit just in cd quality (44.1 kHz/16 bit). On Spotify it was streamed more than 45 million times.

As the title suggests, Elvis is joined by various artists for artificial duets. Of course they didn't just sing along to the well known recordings, but everything had been reworked from the scratch. All the instruments and harmony vocals were newly recorded, Elvis' original voclas were added afterwards. The exceptions are the mono recordings from the king first Xmas album. Back in 2008 there were no AI tools to separate Elvis' voice from the monaural track, so the complete recording had to be included in the new version. At the time all the engineers could do, was to spice up the original track (which included all voices and instruments) with additional tracks and create a stereo image. However, Chuck Ainlay (producer), Larry Hamby (producer) and Jim Cooley (assistant) did a great job and created consistant sounding versions of the songs.

The album starts with "Blue Christmas", which also had been released on a single as a forerunner. It didn't turn out to be a hit, but at least it reached the top40 of the chart for country & western music and peaked at number 36. The duet with Martina McBride works very well and I also like the new music track, which emphasizes the drums more than the original version did.

In my review of "Elvis' Christmas Album" I wrote, that the young rock'n'roll king sings the ballad well, but lacks the emotional depth the song requires. Carrie Underwood does a lot better and therefore improves the recording.

The mid tempo track is one of the highlights of "Elvis' Christmas Album" and LeAnn Rimes' performance fits in perfectly.

This one is a stone cold classic and I dare to say that nobody ever will top the king's performance. That becomes a problem here, because neither is the song meant to be a duet, nor is anybody able to sing it as well as Elvis. Wynonna Judd does the best she can and this duet is nice to listen to, but it pales in comparison to the original.

Well, "Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht" is my all time favorite song, but the young Mr. Presley was not up the the challenge. He simply lacked the vocal techniques and the emotional depth. These problems become even more evident here, because Mrs. Sara Evans effortlessly upstages Elvis.

The same applies here, but this time it's Amy Grant, who shows how to do it right.

Without doubt "Merry Christmas Baby" is one of Elvis' best blues performances. The problem is similar to "Santa Claus Is Back In Town!". The king's performance is unbeatable and the song isn't meant to be a duet. So it's certainly not Gretchen Wilson's fault, that this track doesn't work.

Another ballad from the young Mr. Presley, another performance suffering of the same problems. The song is nicely sung, but without the necessary depth and vocal techniques. However, Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman (from the band Little Big Town) don't upstage Elvis, but harmonize with him very well. I also like the modified arrangement of the song. "O Little Town Of Bethlehem" certainly is one of the highlights of this album.

Back in 1971 Elvis covered Anne Murray's hit "Silver Bells". So it's a nice idea to have her singing a duet with the king.

The remake sounds less bombastic than Elvis' original version. Olivia Newton-John appears to be more or less a harmony singer instead of a real duet partner. But it's a pleasant listen anyway.

The bonus songs also feature newly recorded music tracks, but no duet partners. The version here sounds very good.

The same applies here. Of course I wouldn't substitute the original recording with this new one, but it's a nice alternative.

The remake sounds less rocking than the version on the album "Elvis Sings The Wonderful World Of Christmas". The new approach is solid, but also cannot hide the king's desinterest in the song.