A Merrilly Christmas, Alan Merrill (MEC Records)

This is the guy who originated Joan Jett's biggest hit, "I Love Rock 'n Roll," with his former band The Arrows, who were a minor sensation in Jolly Olde back in the mid-70s, even having their own TV show for a while. Sometime in the mid-90s Merrill hooked up with Jon and Sally Tiven, Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham and several others to make this album, released finally in 2001, a mostly Christmas outing, but with a couple of non-holiday items, including a duet with the late Arthur Alexander on "Let's Think About It." Given the cast of characters, you can assume lots of blue-eyed soul and boogie behind such song titles as "Christmas In the City," "Holiday Heroes," "Christmas Without You," "Christmas In Love" and "Give All the Children Christmas," the latter a set-closing workout with Felix Cavaliere of the Rascals and Laura Merrill. Surprisingly, given Merrill's claim to fame is writing a hit song, he doesn't write much of the material here; that honor goes to the Tivens, Penn and Oldham for the most part, although Jim Carroll and Tony Visconti have writing credits here too. A little low-key, but not too sedate.