You know: to try and one-up Nat Cole isn’t going to happen. We’d listen to, say, ' The Christmas Song.' We’d listen to Nat King Cole’s version, and we’d listen to Mel Tormé’s version, and it would be like: Well, we can’t do that – but we’ll do something that works, we’ll make it our own. So, before we did ' Silver Bells,' that first day, I think we listened to Bing Crosby and Dean Martin doing it. And you have to be reverent, and you have to do them justice in a way. I mean, these songs, you know, they’ve been around forever and everybody knows them. When asked in an interview if Dylan played classic recordings of Christmas songs for the musicians as reference points, Hidalgo responded: In addition to Dylan's Never Ending Tour band, the sessions featured contributions from other musicians including Los Lobos' David Hidalgo, Chess Records veteran Phil Upchurch, and a choir that included Amanda Barrett and Abby DeWald (better known as folk music duo The Ditty Bops). The album was recorded at Jackson Browne's Groove Masters Studio in Santa Monica. As with most of Dylan's 21st century output, he produced it himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost. 1 on the Billboard Holiday Album chart, No. it's so worldwide and everybody can relate to it in their own way'. Regarding the popularity of Christmas music, he said, '. ĭylan said that, although he was born and raised Jewish (he converted to Christianity in the late 1970s), he never felt left out of Christmas during his childhood in Minnesota. All Dylan's royalties from the sale of this album benefit the charities Feeding America in the USA, Crisis in the UK, and the World Food Programme in perpetuity.

The album comprises a collection of hymns, carols, and popular Christmas songs.

Christmas in the Heart is the 34th studio album and first Christmas album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on October 13, 2009, by Columbia Records.

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