Ben Keith & Friends”Seven Gates” Reprise* Times...

Ben Keith & Friends

“Seven Gates”

Reprise

* Times Line(TM): 808-8463. To hear an excerpt from “Seven Gates,” call TimesLine and press * 5540

About the last thing you’d expect from an album co-produced by Neil Young is hushed spirituality. Yet that’s just the tone this assemblage of rock, country and folk music veterans take in a collection of 13 holiday tunes, mostly standards.

For the uninitiated, project leader Ben Keith probably is best known as the steel guitarist who has played on many of Young’s albums over the years. The list of participants ranges from Johnny Cash and Jack Clement to J.J. Cale and Pegi Young, Neil’s wife, giving you the feeling that Keith phoned up his friends and put this together for the fun of it.

Hearing the Man in Black sing “Little Drummer Boy” is no big surprise, given his strong Christian faith--the surprise is the duet vocal supplied by Young. And who’d ever have thought the Man in Plaid would one day record his version of “Greensleeves”? Then again, “What Child Is This?” isn’t a far cry from the expression of awe in the presence of a miracle in Young’s timeless Buffalo Springfield song “I Am a Child.”

Keith doesn’t depend exclusively on his guests for highlights. His own steel leads sweetly melancholy instrumental readings of Schubert’s “Ave Maria” and Jean Villard’s “Les Trois Cloches.”

A nicely understated addition to the ever-swelling ranks of holiday recordings.