Twelve Songs of Christmas

Bonus Episode: Who Dat Jedi Crossover

Twelve Songs of Christmas is based in New Orleans, so in the spirit of the season and podcaster camaraderie, I recently recorded a crossover episode with friends who figured out how to shoehorn their two great passions into one podcast. Who Dat Jedis usually talks about the New Orleans Saints and Star Wars, and this week they asked me to join them to add a conversation on Christmas music to that mix.

I enjoyed this conversation because Aaron, Fredo and Dave's questions are the ones casual listeners to Christmas music have, and it was fun to connect them to some of the themes that run through this podcast and tie some of them back to specific episodes I've done over the course of the last three years.

We're still giving away our 2021 listeners-only Christmas mix. Write alex@myspiltmilk.com and request a copy. 

If you haven't already done so, please do what you have to do to get Twelve Songs in your podcast feed. You can find it at Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pandora, and Spotify.  

The next regular episode will be in your feed on Thanksgiving. 

The Fleshtones, Susan Cowsill, and Numero Records‘ ”Christmas Dreamers”

Last year, some time after Thanksgiving I had to change format and use excerpts from a few interviews to get to everybody I've talked to about Christmas music before the holiday comes. This year, I have to start now since I already have enough interviews to get to February if I ran one per show. 

This week, I'm talking to some of my favorite people. The Fleshtones are the long-time garage rock gold standard, and singer Peter Zaremba is always a great person to talk to about that corner of the rock 'n' roll world. Since it seems like a shrinking one, we talk about that and how their most recent single, the Spanish-language "Mi Engañaste Bien," plays into that. We talk about the bond between record collectors and, of course, their 2008 Christmas album, Stocking Stuffer.

This week also features Susan Cowsill, the youngest member of the '60s family pop band The Cowsills. Susan has never stopped singing or making music, and has been part of New Orleans' music community since she moved here in the 1990s with The Continental Drifters. Cowsills memories are inevitable for her, particularly now that she and two of her brothers have a podcast of their own, The Cowsills Podcast. We talk about that, Branson, some of her favorite Christmas songs, Karen Carpenter, and the experience of recording a Christmas song for Debbie Davis and Matt Perrine's Oh Crap! It's Christmas Vol. 2.

Recently, the Numero Group reissue label released the very entertaining Christmas Dreamers: Yuletide Christmas (1960-1972), and this week I talk to Adam Luksetich about the process of pulling the collection together, and how his own relationship to Christmas music affected his choices.

Finally, singer Alexandra Scott returns to discuss Mariah Carey's re-entry into the Christmas music arena with her new song, "Fall in Love at Christmas," featuring Khalid and Kirk Franklin.

This episode of Twelve Songs is sponsored by Car-Floats.com, which makes reusable fabric stickers for your car. 

We're still giving away our 2021 listeners-only Christmas mix. Write alex@myspiltmilk.com and request a copy. 

f you haven't already done so, please do what you have to do to get Twelve Songs in your podcast feed. You can find us at Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pandora, and Spotify.  

 

Mannheim Steamroller

It's mid-November, and with COVID numbers trending in the right direction, Mannheim Steamroller will return to the road soon. One of the Monsters of Christmas Rock, the group will start on Tuesday, November 16 in Loveland, Colorado, and it will have two companies on the road until December 30, when they'll finish up in Dallas and San Diego. The tour schedule is online, and tickets are on sale now.

The tour will take place as it has since 2008 without founder/composer/arranger Chip Davis, who talks about why in today's episode, along with his journey from a series of albums with "Fresh Aire" in the title blending classical music, electronic music, and prog rock to 1984, Christmas, and Christmas music. Davis talks about his electronic music influences, as well as how he found an audience for an act that didn't fall neatly in any musical camp.

He also talks about managing his success and dealing with the reality that Christmas music had become central to the Steamroller's identity, even if Davis didn't see it that way. 

Also in today's episode, host Alex Rawls and singer Alexandra Scott discuss two Australian Christmas songs, Paul Kelly's "How to Make Gravy" and Tim Minchin's "White Wine in the Sun."

We're still giving away our 2021 listeners-only Christmas mix. Write alex@myspiltmilk.com and request a copy. 

This episode is sponsored by Car-Floats.com, purveyors of removable, reusable fabric stickers for your car. 

If you haven't already done so, please do what you have to do to get Twelve Songs in your podcast feed. You can find us at Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pandora, and Spotify.  

 

 

Quad City DJs

This episode is bittersweet for me. The things I love on Quad City DJs' All-Star Christmas make me very happy, and this week one half of the Quad City DJs, CC Lemonhead, tells the story of the Jacksonville, Florida DJs' journey from "Whoot! There it Is" to "Tootsie Roll" to "C'mon and Ride It (The Train)" to "What You Want for Christmas." It's the kind of story I love, with people working up homemade solutions to musical challenges, and what happens along the way. 

Unfortunately, one of the things that happened is that CC and his partner Jay-Ski fell out during the recording of Quad City DJs' debut album for Atlantic Records, Get on Up and Dance, and he was out of the picture entirely for the recording of All-Star Christmas in 1996. Equally unfortunately, I didn't know that until a half-hour into our interview. So far, Jay-Ski has not responded to interview requests, but I'm going to keep trying.

Fortunately, last episode's guest, Bill Adler, tracked down one of the singers on the album, an artist who goes by the name of Big Tyme and recorded "Xmas Blues," otherwise known as Bonquisha and Otis, which bounce rapper Big Freedia turned me on to on a previous episode. Adler wrote the story for LL Cool J's Rock The Bells website, so I this episode I read an excerpt of it to help answer one more question about the album.

In this episode, singer Alexandra Scott returns to talk with me about new Christmas music from Meghan Trainor, Ingrid Michaelson, and Amanda Shires. You can hear Alexandra's music on her Bandcamp page.

This episode is sponsored by Car-Floats.com, purveyors of removable, reusable fabric stickers for your car. 

If you haven't already done so, please do what you have to do to get Twelve Songs in your podcast feed. You can find us at Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pandora, and Spotify.  

”Christmas Jollies” with Bill Adler

The impulse to share my findings while collecting Christmas music led me to this podcast, and it led Bill Adler to Christmas Jollies, an annual Christmas mix that he has made and distributed to family, friends, and folks in the music industry since the mid-1980s. 

Adler started his career in the music industry as the director of publicity at Def Jam Records and Rush Management from 1984-1990, so while his tastes are much broader than simply hip-hop, hip-hop Christmas music by Kurtis Blow and Run-DMC play a meaningful part in his own Christmas music story. 

We talk about their Christmas songs today, along with the self-imposed parameters that anyone who makes mixes will recognize immediately. We also talk about some of the songs that he has and hasn't included on mixes in recent years including songs by Joey Ramone, Irma Thomas, and Aaron LaCombe. 

The episode ends with a track that I incorrectly identified in the episode as "Santa Rap." I have thought of the song as "Santa Rap" for so long that it didn't occurred to me to check the title of the Treacherous Three's track from from the Beat Street soundtrack from 1984. If I had done so before I packed up my recording gear, I might have correctly identified the song as "Xmas Rap."

In the episode, I said that you can email me to get a special, listeners-only 2021 Christmas mix. Send me an email at alex@myspiltmilk.com and I'll send one your way. 

Preservation Hall Jazz Band

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band has worked to be more than just the jazz band your parents knew. Creative Director and tuba player Ben Jaffe has worked to ensure that the New Orleans musical institution has a place in the contemporary music conversation. That has led to some choices that purists have questioned, but it also means the band still has a presence in the culture, unlike many of its peers.

This week, I talk to Jaffe about the hall’s holiday traditions and its own Christmas recordings, including a collaboration with singer Irma Thomas for the 2013 Holidays Rule compilation, and four Spotify Sessions recordings that the band did for the streaming service with previous 12 Songs guests Big Freedia, Boyfriend, and PJ Morton.

In this week’s episode, I also talk to Alexandra Scott about new Christmas music from Norah Jones and calypso Christmas music from Mighty Sparrow, Lord Nelson, and Lord Kitchener.

This week on the pod, I announced that am making a special listeners-only Christmas mix. If you wish to receive a copy, email me at alex@myspiltmilk.com.

If you haven't already done so, please do what you have to do to get Twelve Songs in your podcast feed. You can find us at Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pandora, and Spotify. 

 

A Family-Friendly Christmas with Dan and Claudia Zanes

We met Dan Zanes as the singer of The Del Fuegos in the first generation of America's indie underground in the mid-1980s. As he explains in our conversation, he discovered after the band broke up that people were more interested in a cassette he made of family-oriented folk he made with his daughter, her friends and their parents in mind than they were in his solo album. That set his course, and he has been working in the family-friendly field for more than 20 years now. 

We talk about family-friendly music, folk music, and how his Christmas album, Christmas in Concord, fits in to that musical world.

His wife and musical collaborator Claudia is part of the conversation as well, even though she wasn't with him on Christmas in Concord. She is on their new album, the social justice-oriented Let Love Be Your Guide.

This episode also inaugurates a change as singer and friend Alexandra Scott joins to talk about Christmas music with Alex, this week focusing on Kelly Clarkson's new "Christmas Isn't Cancelled (Just You)" and her biggest Christmas song to date, "Underneath the Tree."

If you haven't already done so, please do what you have to do to get Twelve Songs in your podcast feed. You can find us at Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pandora, and Spotify. 

 

Santa Baby

"Santa Baby" has gone through some changes. When Eartha Kitt recorded it in 1953, it was controversial because women--and particularly black women--didn't talk about desire so bluntly. It was a cool artifact from one of Christmas' back rooms until Madonna covered it in 1987, and that seemingly put the song on the radar of a generation or two of women performers including Arianna Grande and Kylie Minogue.

This week, I'm joined by three strong women to discuss what makes Kitt's track special, and what changes when others perform it. Journalist and critic Alison Fensterstock contributed an interview with Rickie Lee Jones to Mojo earlier this year, and she is a regular contributor to NPR.org among other places. Singer Dayna Kurtz's passion and passions are clear in her work, whether the projects explore her personal life, her musical life (as part of Lulu and the Broadsides), or her activist life (as in the case of "What Would Jesus Say"). Alexandra Scott appeared on 12 Songs last year to talk about Dolly Parton's "Hard Candy Christmas," and singer Alexandra Scott has always made songs that sound like direct communications with the listener, whether the lyric reflects her innermost thoughts or something more fabricated. Even musical exercises sound meaningful when she sings them. 

In the episode, I talk about Pearl Bailey's "Ten Pound Box of Money." That's the song from 1958 adjusted for inflation. When Bailey recorded it, the title was "A Five Pound Box of Money." Sorry for the confusion. Maybe a 10 pound box of money reflects my needs and desires more than Bailey's since that's the lyric I sing in my head when I think about the song. 

This episode also starts to pay attention to the releases scheduled for the 2021 Christmas season starting with Brett Eldridge's "Mr. Christmas." The album by the same name won't be out until November, but the title track is out and we give it a first listen. 

If you have any questions, suggestions, or favorites you want to share, I'm at alex@myspiltmilk.com.

If you haven't already done so, please do what you have to do to get Twelve Songs in your podcast feed. You can find us at Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pandora, and Spotify. 

 

A Blues Christmas with Alligator Records

Bruce Iglauer didn’t plan to celebrate Alligator Records’ 50th anniversary the way he has. Iglauer started the blues label in Chicago in 1972 and intended to load up a bus with musicians from the label’s past, present and future and play around the country. Unfortunately, the Delta variant made that unsafe, so instead he has had to celebrate with an anniversary compilation, 50 Years of Genuine Houserockin’ Music, and talking about the label and the stars who defined it on shows like this one.

Iglauer’s here because Alligator has released two albums of new Christmas music, 1992’s The Alligator Records Christmas Compilation, and 1996’ Genuine Houserockin’ Christmas. He tells stories about some of the artists who cut Christmas music including Koko Taylor and Gatemouth Brown, and talks about the world that led him to form Alligator in the first place. Iglauer starts, though, by talking about how the COVID that forced Alligator to change its plans is affecting musicians. 

If you have any questions, suggestions, or favorites you want to share, I'm at alex@myspiltmilk.com.

If you haven't already done so, please do what you have to do to get Twelve Songs in your podcast feed. You can find us at Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pandora, and Spotify. 

 

Grant-Lee Phillips

Singer Grant-Lee Phillips is the first 12 Songs guest to have worked as a mall Santa. The solo artist who rose to fame in the alternative rock band Grant Lee Buffalo had Christmas songs talks about that experience this week, as well as what he learned about songwriting from Christmas songs. 

In 2020, Phillips released the Winterglow EP, and he talks about the role the Gilmore Girls television show played in the title track, as well as how he selected the infrequently covered songs he also recorded for it.

In the episode, Alex also talks about the Texas Western swing band Asleep at the Wheel and music from their two Christmas albums, Merry Texas Christmas Y'all and Lone Star Christmas Night.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or favorites you want to share, I'm at alex@myspiltmilk.com.

If you haven't already done so, please do what you have to do to get Twelve Songs in your podcast feed. You can find us at Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pandora, and Spotify.