Yee Haw-liday: Mr. Rocky Mountain

John Denver popularized the soft rock of hard country living way back when. His “Christmas for Cowboys” (words and music by Steve Weisberg (1975)) is a standard of Christmas songs for cowboys. Most covers imitate best as they can. (JD’s one of those you can’t quite improve on.) (Sorry, Jars of Clay, just leave the original alone.) (Unless you’re willing to interpret.)

Smearing on some honky tonk, Jimmy Rankin ups the party factor.

Crowding the quiet with strings and yodeling, Wylie Gustafson refits the CW genre into something less pop.

A mournful version with washed out vocals from Wasted Rock Rangers barely keeps it together.

Most odd, Drunken Ramblings fingers some of notes but misses the vocal synch in some alt-folk guitar warm-up. It’s just the right amount of off-putting.