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The Beach Boys began an early relationship with Christmas festivities with their 1963 Christmas classic single Little Saint Nick backed with The Lord's Prayer . In 1964, despite having already released two studio albums, and a concert album, they contributed a full LP of Christmas material, including five original songs and seven standards.

While the original songs were in a fairly basic Beach Boys rock-and-roll style, the standards included arrangements by Dick Reynolds. All in all, it was never going to be a concoction that would break musical boundaries. However, the originals are pleasant enough and at least two of them ,Little Saint Nick and The Man With All The Toys could be regarded as modern Christmas classics (if you regard 1964 as modern). The standards do feature some fantastic vocals from the band and really showcase the band as outstanding singers.

The 1964 Christmas Album was by no means the end of the Beach Boys attempts to sparkle the Christmas season. A 1974 single Child Of Winter had a Christmas theme, while in 1977, another attempt was made to record a full Christmas album, which was rejected by the record company. However, these sessions make up much of the bonus track material on recent compilations. Of these "newer" songs, Brian's Winter Symphony featues a nice arrangement and a "transitional phase" Brian vocal, but the real meat here is Dennis's spiritual and moving Morning Christmas.

RATING: 7 out of 10