A Coko Christmas – Coko (Music Doll Entertainment/Light Records 2008)

A Coko Christmas
Coko
Music Doll Entertainment/Light Records 2008
www.lightrecords.com

As the Memphis soul singer Carla Thomas once crooned, “Gee Whiz! It’s Christmas!”

Indeed, the Holiday season is nigh upon us, and with it come new gospel music recordings to celebrate the Yule from home, car, iPod, office, computer, and so on….

It’s a gospel music tradition reaching back to the pre-gospel 1926 recording of “Silent Night” by the Elkins-Payne Jubilee Singers, though it was Sister Rosetta Tharpe who demonstrated the sales potential of marketing Christmas recordings to church folk when she waxed the two-sided “Silent Night” and “White Christmas” in 1949. In so doing, Tharpe scooped her chief competitors, Mahalia Jackson and the Ward Singers, who didn’t record Christmas singles until the following year.

Fast forward to 2008 and Cheryl “Coko” Clemons, formerly of RnB smash group SWV and Hezekiah Walker’s Love Fellowship Tabernacle Choir, is among the first to get in the Holiday spirit with A Coko Christmas. This brief collection features a good deal of previously released material and was likely intended to bridge the gap between Coko’s successful debut gospel album in 2006 and a brand new solo effort in 2009. That is, three of the tracks on A Coko Christmas are from SWV’s 1997 A Special Christmas (their last record as a group), and two (“Grateful” and “Holy”) can be found on Coko’s 2006 album.

Of the four new tracks, a duet with “American Idol” contestant-turned-gospel-recording-artist George Huff on “Give Love on Christmas Day” has the most appeal, although truthfully, “The Christmas Song” and “O Holy Night” from the SWV album are the real standouts. In fact, after hearing those two latter recordings – which best showcase Coko’s tremendous vocal ability – I concluded that if more Christmas songs couldn’t be recorded and added to the album, the project would have been stronger as a budget-priced EP. The EP could have showcased the album opening “We Thank You,” the duet with George Huff, and offer the three SWV cuts as “bonus tracks.” So it goes.

Regardless, A Coko Christmas reminds us that Coko’s attractively tuneful soprano is ideally suited for singing Christmas favorites. Perhaps down the road she will release a full album of newly-recorded Christmas songs accompanied only by piano. Whoa — now that would be something!

Two of Four Stars