Gunnar And Matthew Nelson Announce ‘A Nelson Family Christmas’ And Seasonal Tour

Gunnar and Matthew Nelson have announced the immediate release of A Nelson Family Christmas. This all-new holiday collection features over a dozen renditions of Christmas standards, none of which are currently available digitally. Making this album a true family affair, the multi-platinum-selling twin brothers also have included holiday tunes recorded by their father, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Ricky Nelson, and their grandfather, Ozzie Nelson. They’ll also be going on a Christmas with the Nelsons Tour.

Gunnar describes:

This album has been our labor of love from the very beginning. Growing up in the Southern California music scene with our father’s Stone Canyon Band, we were inspired by family friends like Linda Ronstadt, Crosby Stills and Nash, Poco, Jackson Browne, and the Eagles. We wanted to produce this record with the same reverence for organic music that these musical heroes of ours had. Real  instruments. Real singing. Timeless and classic while remaining passionate and uplifting. We couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve done on this album.

Though these are well-known holiday tunes, Matthew and Gunnar opted to lean toward the Country Rock sound that they grew up on more than the harder Rock that garnered them their big hits. The twins’ signature harmonies shine throughout A Nelson Family Christmas, particularly on the more intimate numbers such as “White Christmas.”

“This Christmas,” along with the other Nelson tracks on A Nelson Family Christmas, is drawn from two holiday albums, This Christmas and This Christmas Too, that Gunnar and Matthew released on their own Stone Canyon Records in 2015 and 2016, respectively, although the albums presently are not available digitally.

This recording of “This Christmas” also adds to the family nature of A Nelson Family Christmas because it features their childhood friends, Carnie and Wendy Wilson, the daughters of Beach Boy Brian Wilson. The Nelson family is further represented on this album by two Ricky Nelson Christmas tunes, “Jingle Bells” and “The Christmas Song,” which he performed on The Adventures of Ozzie And Harriet TV show, although the tracks were only released commercially after his death. There is a third version of “Jingle Bells” in this collection; this one was recorded by Ozzie and Harriet with the Ozzie Nelson orchestra back in the 1930s.