Joining the legions of fabled music-makers who’ve released Christmas records, the singer/songwriter approaches her 2006 holiday album in true Mann fashion, dispensing with forced jollity and rather injecting her covers—and two originals—with vintage class, anguished strings and bittersweet laments. Jimmy Webb’s “Whatever Happened to Christmas”, with its tremulous guitar, is beautifully forlorn, while melancholic original “Calling On Mary” is dedicated to “all the lost souls”. It’s not all miserablism here, though, as Grant-Lee Phillips lends his vocal theatrics to “You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch”.