Daddies don't always come home for Christmas. From the snow-covered plains of Wisconsin's Driftless region to the palm-lined avenues of Los Angeles, the loneliness of the holidays is a universal theme, best expressed by tear-in-the-beer country music hopefuls.

Sung and strummed (and plucked) by an unlikely assortment of Nashville aspirants, our Christmas Dreamers spent the '60s gambling their futures on the AM airwaves of a forgotten America.