A Very Special Christmas is not just a series of Christmas CDs, it is a record label that was created by record producer, musician and recording engineer, Jimmy Iovine in 1987.  In 1989, Jimmy Iovine and film producer Ted Field created Interscope Records, which was a groundbreaking record label featuring Alternative music.  Jimmy Iovine spent most of his career producing records for U2, Dire Straits, Tom Petty, Stevie Nicks, Bob Seger and The Pretenders.

The proceeds from the sales of the A Very Special Christmas CDs benefit the Special Olympics.  The CDs are copywritten and published by Special Olympics Productions, Inc.

The first seven volumes were released on A&M Records, which means Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss were also involved in the production of the series.  The original music publishers of the songs featured throughout the series contributed the music without requiring royalties to be paid.

The artists featured throughout the series include mostly late 20^th century and early 21^st century recording artists in the genres of Pop, Rock, R&B, Country and Hip Hop.

The unique artwork was designed by Keith Haring and features a Mayan influence.

If you prefer more contemporary Christmas music by artists already in your CD collection, this series of Christmas CDs is probably your best bet in getting a lot of that type of Christmas music with just a few CDs.

I included 2 other CDs that technically are not in the A Very Special Christmas family, but their proceeds also benefited the Special Olympics.  Both additional CDs feature artwork from Keith Haring and are in the same style as the artwork from the A Very Special Christmas series.

The first of these, “Jazz To The World”, was released in 1995 and features Christmas songs from some of today’s biggest Jazz performers.  The second, “World Christmas”, was released in 1996, and features Christmas songs from some of the world’s leading World Music contributors.  Considering the years of release, both these CDs were issued between Volumes 2 and 3 of the A Very Special Christmas series.