Twelve Songs of Christmas

Christmas Down Under with Imogen Clark

This holiday season, Imogen Clark released "Not Christmas Here," talking about how all the wintery signs that Christmas is coming don't mean as much to her because she's from Australia. In the Southern Hemisphere, it's hot in December and white wine is their egg nog. 

The song is a bit of looking ahead for Clark because she’s moving to the States next year. It’s also her fourth Christmas song, so we spoke recently about them, Christmas in Australia, and Australian Christmas favorites. 

In the episode, I mention "A Twelve Songs of Christmas Christmas," a five-hour streaming playlist on Apple Music and Spotify that, if shuffled, will give you the effect of an all-Christmas music radio station minus the songs you've heard to death. 

I also mentioned the 2023 Twelve Songs mix, which you can get free if you email me at alex@myspiltmilk.com to request it. It is a shorter, programmed mix, and it includes some songs that aren't on any of the streaming services including some great indie and Japanese Christmas songs. 

”Holly Happy Days” with The Indigo Girls

This episode has been a few years in the making, but I was finally able to find a quiet moment in the busy lives of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of The Indigo Girls. 

In 2010, they released Holly Happy Days, a holiday album that's very much an Indigo Girls album with their musical, personal, social and spiritual values shaping the songs in the way that they do on everything else the duo has released. 

We had a good conversation not only about the album but how it fits into the long arc of their career--25 years when it was released.

Along the way, we get a little electronic bacon crackling while Amy is talking. I got it figured out fairly quickly, but there was no good edit point unless I dumped that section of the conversation, and I thought what she said was worth a few moments of crackle. 

In the episode, I mention that this year's Christmas music mix is available. Send me a request at alex@myspiltmilk.com. 

In the episode, I also mentioned an interview I did with Amy Ray for MySpiltMilk.com and my 12 Songs interview with Terre Roche.

”A Dave Brubeck Christmas” with Matt Lemmler

Unfortunately, jazz pianist Dave Brubeck is no longer around to talk about his 1996 solo piano album A Dave Brubeck Christmas. Craft Recordings reissued the album this Christmas season, but Brubeck died in 2012 so I asked New Orleans piano player Matt Lemmler to help me get a handle on the album.

The resulting conversation is a deep dive into Brubeck, Louis Armstrong, and jazz piano. We talk about his most famous song, "Take Five," and detour to talk about A Charlie Brown Christmas because it really is that seminal a recording. Lemmler also helps us understand stride piano, a style Brubeck explores on his Christmas album.

One quick note: This is the rare episode of the podcast recorded me and my interview subject in the same room. That created a few audio complications, most of which I dealt with but there may be a few I couldn't catch. Thanks in advance for your patience, and I know how to prevent them in the future. 

You can find A Dave Brubeck Christmas wherever you buy or stream music, and you can find Matt and his music at MattLemmler.com.

Merry Christmas from Japan with ”Holly Jolly Xmasu”

I listened to one episode of Scott Leopold's "Holly Jolly Xmasu" podcast and I was sold. As a Stereolab and High Llamas fan, I felt like there had to be a High Llamas Christmas song, and Scott found one on Christmas Songs, which also included a great Bossa nova version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," a very unusual jazz piano take on "Sleigh Ride," and the ambient pop of Takako Minekawa on "Listen, the Snow is Falling." 

Fortunately, much of that album--but not all of it--was available to purchase in the States. Much of the music he plays and all but one song that we play today aren't available for stream or download in the States. 

Today, Scott and I talk about and play Japanese Christmas music, Japanese Christmas, and how he got into it. Collectors will recognize the contours of his story if not the specifics. 

Christmas with the Blue Man Group

Blue Man Group started in 1987 as a performance art concept by guys who also harbored rock 'n' roll dreams. It has grown into an institution that has ongoing shows in Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York and Berlin. As of October, Blue Man Group now also has a Christmas EP, Overjoy to the World.

Today Blue Man composer Jeff Turlik and performer Bhurin Sead talk about all things Blue Man Group including how songs are written and recorded for a band known for playing percussion instruments made of PVC, and how holiday music fits into their shows.

A Soul Christmas with Eli ”Paperboy” Reed

I love when episodes overlap. Today, soul singer Eli "Paperboy" Reed talks about--among other things--his love of Huey "Piano" Smith's Christmas album, which we recently featured. 

Reed has a new album, Hits and Misses: The Singles on YepRoc Records, and today we're talking about that and his Christmas music, including a snappy version of "Last Christmas" by Wham!

Along the way, we talk about a couple of tracks that weren't available on mp3, "What Do the Lonely Do at Christmas" by The Emotions and Reed's "Party Hard for Christmas." The link will help you get you to the first track, but he and/or his management appear to have taken down "Party Hard for Christmas." You'll hear why in the episode.  

A D.C.Go-Go Christmas with Chuck Brown

Chuck Brown has been dubbed "The Godfather of Go-Go," the distinctive Washington D.C.-based funk sound that has its own aesthetics and culture. This week, New Orleans' musicologist and go-go aficionado Melissa Weber shines some light on go-go and Brown because in 1999, he released The Spirit of Christmas.

Weber is an archivist at Tulane University, and in New Orleans she DJs at WWOZ and throws parties under the name she's best known by, DJ Soul Sister.

We talk about Brown, his Christmas music, and the 1991 compilation, Let's Go-Go Christmas. 

A New Orleans R&B Christmas with Huey ”Piano” Smith

New Orleans venerates its R&B royalty from the early days of rock 'n' roll, and many of them stayed active until they died, including Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, Eddie Bo, Snooks Eaglin and Earl King. Huey "Piano" Smith was not one of them; he lived the last third of his life until his death earlier this year out of the limelight.

Since Smith also recorded one of my favorite Christmas albums, 1962's Twas the Night Before Christmas, I invited journalist John Wirt on the show to talk about Smith--his heyday, his heartbreaks, his later years, and his Christmas album, which comes with a story that I learned reading John's 2014 book, Huey "Piano" Smith and the Rockin' Pneumonia Blues. 

”Christmas Cocktails” with Brad Ross-MacLeod

Capitol Records tried to cash in on the '90s lounge revival with its "Ultra-Lounge" series--albums that pulled tracks from the label's vaults that fell under some of the umbrellas that came to associated with lounge including crooners, mambos, space-age sounds, and tiki bar music. In 1996, it released Christmas Cocktails, with series compiler Brad Benedict pulling together holidays songs from those genres.

It was so successful that Capitol released Christmas Cocktails Vol. 2 in 1997, then Christmas Cocktails Vol. 3 much later in 2012 with a different, more pedestrian creative team. By that point, Benedict and the Ultra-Lounge creative team had gone on to Shout Factory Records for the "Wonderland" series, three similar compilations of Christmas music that had different label libraries to draw from.

Christmas Cocktails was influential at the time and is still fondly remembered, so this week I'm discussing it with the King of Jingaling, Brad Ross MacLeod from one of the OG Christmas mp3 blogs, falalalalala.com.

We talk about his site, lounge, reissues, nostalgia, the contemporary music that bridged these songs from the late 1950s and early '60s with the music of the '90s when the first two volumes came out.

Along the way, we talk about Peggy Lee, who I discussed in an episode with her granddaughter Holly Foster-Wells in 2021.   

Sara Noelle

The name "Sara Noelle" sounds like something made up for Christmas music, but she had been a recording artist since 2010, 10 years before she released her first Christmas track, "Christmas at Sea."

Since 2020, the ambient folk artist has made a tradition of releasing new Christmas music each year, and it's not a reach to think her songs would make sense on David Lynch's Twin Peaks Holiday Special. Noelle's songs aren't haunted, but the electronic atmospherics paired with her treated voice make her songs sound like they come from somewhere else, even while they sound very human.

 We talked about her Christmas music, New Mexico, and her recent releases, a cover of The Beta Band's "Dry the Rain" and her most recent album, Do I Have to Feel Everything? We also discussed a creative writing journal she edits, Lyrics as Poetry, with writing from members of the rock 'n' roll community.