Twelve Songs of Christmas

We're in December now, and this week we have three conversations. William Shatner's face is on the pop culture Mt. Rushmore, and when I had a chance to interview him for The New Orleans Advocate in advance at his appearance at Pop Expo in town, I couldn't pass up the chance to ask him about 2018's Shatner Claus. It's a short interview, but I have it so you get to hear it. 

The interview begins with us talking about You Can Call Me Bill, a documentary from 2023 about his life and career. The story I wrote for the Advocate deals with the way that his career has opened up opportunities for him late in life.

The episode also features a new song, "I am Falling Snow," from Sara Noelle. In 2023, Sara was a guest on 12 Songs to talk about her body of Christmas music. 

Jazz vocalist Jane Monheit has become well known for Christmas music with two Christmas albums and a yearly holiday season tour that will bring her to New Orleans on Sunday night. 

This conversation is an edited version of a longer conversation that we'll run in its entirety next season 

Finally, singer Kelly Finnigan has a new Christmas single. Earlier this season, I talked to Shawn Lee about recording "Say It Again" with soul singer Kelly Finnigan. 

I first talked to Finnigan in 2020 when he released A Joyful Sound, which I consider to be a modern Christmas music classic. It sounds like a lost R&B record from the late 1960s or early 1970s with psychedelic and moody touches. We talk more about that album five years later and his new Christmas single, "I Can't Wait (for Christmas Time)."  

Finally, we revisit the new A Strange Daisy Christmas, a collection of Christmas songs by members of the New Orleans indie rock community. A week or so ago I featured Loucey's "Christmas (bAbYpLeAze CoMeHoMe), and this week's show ends with The Self-Help Tapes' version of Christmas Treat." The song started as a late-in-the-show Saturday Night Live sketch that The Strokes' Julian Casablancas remade as a rock 'n' roll Christmas standard. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) made itself part of this year's music story with AI acts The Velvet Sundown, TaTa Taktumi and Breaking Rust making news one way or another. 

This week, Ken Kessler of the podcast The Sounds of Christmas and Gerry D from the Totally Rad Christmas podcast join me to talk about the way AI Christmas music foreshadowed some of this. We talk about an early effort created by University of Toronto researchers, "Rudolph the All-Gracious King" and it's companion how-it's-done video), and the heavy metal "Christmas Overdrive." We also talked about faux-vintage Christmas songs posted at the RAI Music page.

 

Multi-instrumentalist Probyn Gregory remembers playing and recording with Brian Wilson from 1999 until he retired from live performances in 2022. We talk about the recently reissued Brian Wilson: Live at the Roxy, Brian Wilson presents SMiLE, and his 2005 solo Christmas album, What I Really Want for Christmas. 

In the process, Gregory provides insight into the later stages of Brian's life and musical career, including perhaps why What I Really Want for Christmas received a lukewarm response (other than following the completed SMiLE, of course).

Last week started this look back at Brian's Christmas music with his biographer David Leaf on The Beach Boys' Christmas Album. 

In the episode, I mentioned my 2005 interview with Brian and story on the remaking of SMiLE, and my review of Brian's 2017 show in New Orleans.

I also mentioned Amazon Music's “Amazon Music Originals- Holiday” playlist.

 

I started thinking about how to address Brian Wilson’s death on the podcast since we learned of his passing. “Little Saint Nick” and The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album are Christmas classics that needed to be addressed, but how or with who? The answer came when Oglio Records announced that it planned to reissue a 25th anniversary edition of Brian Wilson: Live at the Roxy. The promotional efforts behind that release put a number of possible interviews at my disposal. 

This week, writer David Leaf talks about Brian in 2000 and 1963’s The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album. Leaf has written liner notes for numerous Beach Boys and Brian Wilson releases, and wrote The Beach Boys and the California Myth (1978) and SMiLE: The Rise, Fall & Resurrection of Brian Wilson, which was released earlier this year. 

In the episode, I mentioned the new Beach Boys’ holiday EP A Little Saint Nick Christmas with The Beach Boys. It’s all previously released songs and mixes, but it’s on sale now. 

I also mentioned the upcoming Strange Daisy Christmas, a compilation of Christmas songs by the New Orleans indie community on Strange Daisy Records. You can order it now online from Bandcamp.

I featured Loucey’s version of Darlene Love’s “Christmas (bAbYpLeAze CoMeHoMe)” in the episode, and earlier in the year I interviewed Cherie McCabe of Loucey after the release of their debut album, Participation Trophy Wife.

Next week, I’ll be back with more on Brian Wilson when I talk to musician Probyn Gregory about playing in Brian’s band in concert and in the studio when he recorded his 2005 solo Christmas album, What I Really Want for Christmas. 

Producer and multi-instrumentalist Shawn Lee has a history of making recordings that hover uncertainly in time. Sounds from different eras and genres come together in his music to sound like lost, regional 45s. 

We talk about his influences--library music and hip-hop--as well as his two Christmas albums: A Very Ping Pong Christmas from Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra (2007) and Kung Fu Christmas by Shawn Lee (2021).

Toronto's Kristian Noel Pedersen has released 27 EPs or albums of Christmas music, 26 of which are on his Bandcamp page. What started as a goof became a project that stretched him as an artist. We hear music from all phases of his Christmas career including (in order):

1. "Home Alone Pt. 1"

2. "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis"

3. "All I Want for Christmas is You"

4. "A Step-Mother's First (and Worst) Christmas Ever"

5. "Merry Christmas Baby"

6. "Christmas Without You"

7. "Hard Candy Christmas"

8. "Silver, Never Gold"

9. "What Are You Doing (on Christmas Eve)?"

10. "Pack Your Bags!"

We also hear a new song, "A Very Gen X Christmas" from The Static Dive.  

In my conversation with Kristian, I mention the episode on Hanson with Isaac Hanson, and the one that traces the musical life of "Hard Candy Christmas." 

I've been out of town this week, and when I thought of an episode from the archives to revisit, this one from 2021 with guitar hero Steve Lukather came immediately to mind. It's useful to remember that this was the second year of COVID--not full lockdown, but a lot of precautions and a lot of staying home. I gather Lukather is or has been a social animal, and in a time when it was hard to be social, I was the fortunate beneficiary of his willingness to talk and share.

Since we talked, Lukather has released another album, 2023's Bridges with Toto singer Joseph Williams. 

Since streamed playlists and all-Christmas radio are the way most people hear Christmas music, they're fascinations of mine. This week I'm back on the radio beat with long-time radio guy Kevin Robinson. 

I wanted to talk to Kevin when I saw a post he wrote for the industry site Barrett Media on best practices for the all-Christmas format shift.  Since we talked, he interviewed me along with station programmers about programming Christmas stations and playlists. 

In the episode, we hear music from The Glad Singers' awesome Christmas with a Beat.

We also hear "(There's No Place Like) Home for the Holidays" by The Carpenters, "Frosty the Snowman" by Esquivel, "O Tannenbaum" by Vince Guaraldi Trio, and "Santa Tell Me" by Ariana Grande. 

The episode finishes with the audio from a performance of a Christmas version of PSY's "Gangnam Style" performed at a benefit fundraiser in Washington, DC with an audience that included President Barack Obama and his family. The video is worth seeing to fully appreciate the moment. 

Photo by selim buka on Unsplash.

Chris Murphy of the Canadian indie rock band Sloan describes them as "a cult band," but they're a cult band with legs. They started in 1991 and recently released their 14th album, Based on the Best Seller.

This week Murphy talks about how a band with kids and members in their 50s works, and what democracy looks like in a band. Murphy talks about the fake B-movie trailers the band shot to draw attention to songs from the new album, and they're well worth seeing.

We also hear part of three songs from Based on the Best Seller:

1. "Live Forever"

2. "Dream Destroyer"

3. "Capitol Cooler"

Of course, we also talked about their Christmas recordings and a possible Christmas album.

In the episode, I mentioned a story that quotes me on programming all-Christmas radio and Christmas playlists.  

Finally, the episode ends with Los Del Rio's "Christmas Macarena," which has an entertaining video on YouTube.

Mark Davis has turned the in-store music cassettes he pocketed while working at a K-Mart in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s into “Attention K-Mart Shoppers,” a digitized collection of that background music at the Internet Archive (archive.org, not archive.com as I announced on the show). 

Others have since contributed parts of the K-Mart and Kresge’s lore, augmenting his collection with tapes and vinyl records distributed 10 to 15 years earlier than Davis’ time with the one-time retail giant. Oddly, where Christmas music is concerned, it changed very little from decade to decade, and while Christmas 1990 has nods to modernity, there were still easy listening favorites including The Living Strings and Perry Como. 

The episode deals with the enduring legacy of a formal, lightly orchestral musical ideal and the way certain musical values were assumed to be immutable. That’s a subject for future conversations, but we start it here.

In this episode, I played a number of songs without identifying them. Frequently, the artist or song is obvious, but that’s not the case this week. You hear in order:

1. “Let It Snow” - Ferrante & Teicher 

2. “Winter Wonderland” - Frank DeVol and the Rainbow Strings

3. “The Christmas Song” - Al Hirt (from an amazing Christmas album, The Sound of Christmas)

4. “This Christmas” - The Jets

5. “Christmas Tree” - The Glad Singers

This episode also has information on JD McPherson’s Christmas tour this year. McPherson’s Socks is one of my favorite modern Christmas albums, and we had a good conversation about it on the podcast in 2019.

Finally, we ended with The Weather Girls’ “Dear Santa (Bring Me a Man This Christmas).” The song benefits from the video treatment.