Home For the Holidays

Home For the Holidays treats Christmas classics with reverence, giving familiar arrangements their due with soft percussion and melancholy strings. Rucker approaches these songs gracefully, and his covers incorporate both the gentle groove of country music (as on "White Christmas") and an elegance inherited from Sinatra—or maybe Bublé. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is relaxed and sincere, and the original "Candy Cane Christmas" is backed by a light orchestral arrangement that makes it sound like an old favorite.