Christmas with Dino culls holiday tracks from two of Dean Martin's albums: 1959's A Winter Romance, recorded for Capitol, and 1966's The Dean Martin Christmas Album on Reprise. The compilation is useful as a concise collection of Christmas-specific Dino choons, especially considering A Winter Romance also covered non-winter holidays and moods. But, in the spirit of the twenty-first century's need for more, the disc also includes a beyond-the-grave duet between Martina McBride and analog Dino on "Baby, It's Cold Outside." The choice of a country singer is appropriate, considering Martin's aesthetic cues from the genre (he often included country & western material on his albums), but the recording itself is sloppily edited and makes his faceless original -- a call-and-response with a female chorus -- preferable. Outside of this misstep, Christmas with Dino collects notably slick, though occasionally maudlin, renditions of classics like "White Christmas," "Winter Wonderland," and "Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!" as well as a few bonus alternate takes of said songs.

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Artist: http://www.deanmartinfancenter.com/

Label: http://www.capitolrecords.com/