EDITORIAL REVIEWS
Though unable to resist cashing in on the holiday bandwagon, the Spankers decided to look beyond the usual holiday fare when choosing songs for this record. The search resulted in an album that careens from obscure jazz and blues tunes to songs from animated classics. Enjoy a holiday album so fearless in its variety and execution you might even find yourself enjoying it in January.

AMAZON
For those who like their holiday spirits on the saucy side, Austin's foremost purveyors of acoustic swing, naughty blues, and retro hipster jive deliver a good spanking to an eclectic selection of seasonal fare. Recorded at a couple of different Texas concerts, A Christmas Spanking is more playful than polished, with "Red Nosed Reindeer Blues" taking Rudolph on a ride through Muddy Waters's neighborhood, while Vince Guaraldi's cartoon classic "Linus and Lucy" turns into a romp from flamenco through scat. Standards from the songbooks of Charles Brown ("Merry Christmas, Baby") and Mel Torme ("The Christmas Song") mix with original material such as "12.25.61," in which the band's frontman Wammo pays birthday tribute to himself. The torching vocals of Christina Marrs shine brightly through a ukulele-driven rendition of "Blue Christmas." Though there's plenty of novelty fare, the interplay of clarinetist Stanley Smith, guitarist Django Porter, and fiddler Korey Simeone is nothing to laugh at. --Don McLeese