Arista 18767
Producer: Kenny G
Track listing: Winter Wonderland / White Christmas / Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas / Silent Night / Greensleeves Miracles / Little Drummer Boy / The Chanukah Song / Silver Bells / Away in a Manger / Brahms Lullaby
December 10, 1994
3 weeks (nonconsecutive)
When saxophonist Kenny G’s Miracles: The Holiday Album moved from number six to the summit in its fourth week on The Billboard 200, it became the first Christmas album to reach Number One since Mitch Miller’s Holiday Sing Along with Mitch reached the top in January 1962. Miracles also had the distinction of being the first instrumental album to top the album chart since Vangelis’s Chariots of Fire soundtrack in April 1982, and the first Christmas instrumental album ever to top the album chart.
The commercial success of the record was no surprise. Kenny G’s previous album, Breathless, spent 10 weeks at number two in late 1992. The only thing keeping that album from Number One was The Bodyguard soundtrack, which featured a duet between the saxophonist and Aaron Neville. What was surprising is how quickly the holiday set took off.
The rise of Miracles marked the earliest date in a given year that a Christmas album had hit the top spot. Elvis Presley’s Elvis’ Christmas Album, the previous record-holder, had gone to Number One on December 16, 1956.
When Arista president/CEO Clive Davis called Kenny G to tell him that Miracles had gone to Number One, the artist was in his back yard playing with his year-old son Max, whose photo is featured on the album. “I’m in shock,” Kenny G said when he heard the news. “It’s a dream to be Number One.”
Yet when Davis originally suggested the holiday album, the saxophonist was lukewarm to the idea. “It was not something that I immediately jumped on,” he says. “I really like to do my own originals, and I wasn’t sure my sax and holiday music fit together.”
After Kenny G recorded “Silent Night;” he changed his mind. “When I listened to it again, it sounded really good, like a beautiful lullaby. These are melodies I grew up listening to.”
There was another dilemma as well: Kenny G, whose full surname is Gorelick, is Jewish. “That was another thing about doing a Christmas album that I was concerned about,” he says. The musician was able to come to terms with the concept by calling it a “holiday” album, and since the album is all-instrumental, it does not include any religious lyrics.
To pay respect to his own religion, Kenny G composed the original “The Chanukah Song” with collaborator Walter Afanasieff, who also co-arranged the album. The duo also co-wrote the title track, the only other original composition on the album.
Says Kenny G, “The biggest challenge was to write original songs that could fit in with the other songs, which are some of the most beautiful melodies ever written.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of December 10, 1994
1. Miracles: The Holiday Album, Kenny G
2. II, Boyz II Men
3. Hell Freezes Over, Eagles
4. Merry Christmas, Mariah Carey
5. MTV Unplugged in New York, Nirvana