Twelve Songs of Christmas

In 2021, I talked with music journalist Alison Fensterstock and singers Dayna Kurtz and Alexandra Scott about versions of Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby." That was a good conversation, but I still had questions and found some of my answers in other less famous Christmas songs recorded by Kitt. Those songs and some others in her repertoire filled in some blanks that we'll explore today.  This episode is based on an essay I wrote for The Daily Beast than ran on Christmas Day 2022. 

The Roches' 1990 We Three Kings is the Christmas album you'd expect from the folk trio as sing a set of holiday classics gorgeously, often a cappella, and occasionally with their tongues ever so delicately in their cheeks.  Terre Roche remembers their Christmas shows, the Caroling Carolers, and getting shooed off the sidewalk in front of Trump Tower in a conversation about singing with her sisters. The occasion for the conversation is Christmas and the release of Kin Ya See That Sun by Terre and Maggie Roche. It's a book that reflects on their first foray into the music business with humbling results. Terre talks about being young women in music in the early 1970s and some of the challenges they faced.  In the episode, Terre talks about a video of one of Suzzy's introductions to "Good King Wenceslas."  I also mention my Christmas mix, which I'll send you. Write me at alex@myspiltmilk.com to get one. You can also find Jim Goodwin's indie Christmas mix at ChristmasUnderground.com, and Brad Ross-McLeod's old vinyl Christmas mix at FaLaLaLaLa.com.  We also heard "Marshmallow World" from Nikki Yanofsky, which you can hear now on all the streaming services.

This week's episode features indie Christmas music--indie hip-hop with DJ and producer Amerigo Gazaway, British indie rock with Les Bicyclettes de Belsize's Charlie Darling, and British music journalist Kevin McGrath, who compiled 108 indie Christmas tracks for Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas Volume 1 and Volume 2. All of their music is available now on Bandcamp. Right now, Amerigo is also selling a limited edition vinyl pressing of his A Christmas Album paired with a vinyl pressing of the accompanying remix album with vocals.  During my conversation with Amerigo, we talk about his collaboration with rapper Mega Ran, who appeared on 12 Songs in 2020. While talking about his search for indie Christmas music, McGrath mentioned visiting the Christmas Underground website. Last week, I talked to Christmas Underground's Jim Goodwin on the show.

With Christmas approaching, it's time when I have more good conversations than I have weeks until December 25. Today, I have two conversations that I really enjoyed, one with Dennis Diken of rock band The Smithereens, and one with Jim Goodwin, who runs the indie rock Christmas website ChristmasUnderground.com. The Smithereens' 2007 Christmas album Christmas with The Smithereens was released on vinyl this holiday season, and Goodwin has been busy posting new and new-to-you indie Christmas tracks that he found on Bandcamp. During the episode, I mentioned this year's Christmas music mix, which you can get by writing alex@myspiltmilk.com. For those who would rather stream music, I have posted a four-hour holiday playlist on both Spotify and Apple Music. Not only will you not hurt my feelings if you shuffle it; you'll make the experience better. I didn't sequence the songs because at that length, I can't feel like there's a right or wrong sequence to the songs. Besides, I shuffle it when I listen to it, and it helps keep it fresh for me.

British pop/soul singer Joss Stone released Merry Christmas, Love earlier this year, and it's a bit of a departure for her as she set out to make a "posh" album, something on the surface very different from the music she's known for.  It's still very much a personal project, down to the influence of her daughter and the son she was pregnant with while recording the album. We talked about the ways that personal choices show up in a project as big and orchestrated as Merry Christmas, Love.  In this episode, Alex also talks about The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, The Old 97s, and two British indie Christmas compilations, Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.

In 2020, I had a good conversation with Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips about the surprising amount of Christmas music they have, starting with Atlas Eets Christmas, which they recorded and credited to "Imagene Peise." We talked about that album's origins, which make sense when you hear them, as well as the Christmas on Mars project and a host of other holiday one-offs the band has recorded. I ran this conversation that fall, but since I'm on family vacation this Thanksgiving week, I'm re-running this episode.  This year's "Twelve Songs of Christmas" Christmas mix is available now. Write me at alex@myspiltmilk.com and I'll send you a folder with the file and a song list. You may know some of the songs from the show, but I think it's a safe bet that most of these songs or versions will be new to you.   

Laurie Berkner had one of those days when we got together to talk. A plumber came to work on her bathroom while we did our interview, and his work is the occasional backdrop for our conversation.  Still, the children's music artist talked at length about the making of her second Christmas album, Another Laurie Berkner Christmas, and the way making music for children affects her art. She's part of a generation that grew up with rock 'n' roll and makes music true enough to its spirit that parents who themselves love music use her music as a first step in that direction for their kids. In our conversation, we talk about musicality, faith, and the song she'd love to do but won't. It's a lot of fun and shines a little light on the children's music world.  

In 2020, I interviewed Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of the indie rock band Low, whose 1999 album Christmas is one of the great indie Christmas albums, and a bold one because rock bands didn't record Christmas music at the time--at least not like that. Maybe they'd contribute a track to a label promo compilation, but they wouldn't tie their financial and artistic futures to such an unlikely project.  Low's music at the time was dubbed "slowcore," and while it wasn't necessarily slow, they did stake out a very individual musical space that was driven by introspection and meditation more than energy.  When I interviewed Alan and Mimi, they were sitting at a table at home in Duluth, Minnesota, and even though we were on opposite ends of a Zoom call, the coziness of their space and the conversation gave the conversation a vibe I'll remember.  I'm re-posting this interview because on the weekend, Mimi Parker died of ovarian cancer. People have been sharing photos and memories of Mimi on social media, so I wanted to add our conversation to the demonstrations of love for her, the band and the way they moved through the world. 

Vince Guaraldi scholar Derrick Bang wrote the liner notes for the 2022 Super Deluxe edition of the soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas, and this week he talks about the 1965 cartoon, Guaraldi, and the soundtrack album sessions included in the digital and CD packages.  The digital version is out now and up on streaming platforms, and it includes the original 1965 mix, a new mix, and all of the sessions that have been found so far. The CD version also includes a Blu-Ray disc with the animated special, and it's due out December 2. The two-record vinyl version includes the album's original mix and a record with highlights from the sessions.  I've talked about Guaraldi and A Charlie Brown Christmas on 12 Songs with Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips, Kristin Chenoweth, George Winston, and The Ornaments, and I wrote about Guaraldi's impact last year for The New Orleans Advocate.  If you want to read more by Bang, you find his film writing at his Blogspot. 

Last year, Canadian folk artist Bruce Cockburn belated launched a tour celebrating 50 years in music. When we ran an excerpt from this interview last Christmas season, we started off talking about the tour. Since he's not on tour now, I cut some of that material but did start with a conversation on how someone with 50-plus years in the business relates to the music he wrote decades ago.  We focused our attention on Christmas, his 1993 album of Christmas music. We talk about its humble origins and the versions that inspired some of his takes. To let you in on the conversation, I also included Sam Phillips' version of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon's "Christ was Born on Christmas Morn," which Cockburn recorded as "Early on One Christmas Morn."  He also talks about why he chose to sing the Huron Christmas carol "Jesus Ahtonnia" in its native language. It's a good conversation that fits the album into conversations about faith and life, and what can happen over the course of more than 50 years.  On November 25, he will have three new releases—the digital album Rarities, which features songs previously on the Rumors of Glory box set along with tracks recorded for tribute albums to Gordon Lightfoot, Pete Seeger, Mississippi Sheiks and Mississippi John Hurt. He will also release vinyl versions of 1997's The Charity of the Night and 1999's Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu. You pre-order all of them now from his label, True North Records.

In 2008, the garage rock legends The Fleshtones released a Christmas album, Stocking Stuffer, and in true Fleshtones fashion, they made Christmas sound like them. Since 1976, they have delivered a brand of garage rock influenced by punk, R&B and soul with more than a hint of glam in their style and sound.  In this interview from 2021, singer Peter Zaremba talks about the album, its origins, and what was most important to them while working on it. He also talks about where the audiences for '60s-inspired rock 'n' roll are and how those communities come together. He reveals the bands that inspired the way they covered some of the songs, and those bands help explain why nobody sounds quite like The Fleshtones.

One of my favorite Christmas albums of 2021 was Merry Christmas from José James, which featured the jazz vocalist in a classic quartet that included pianist Aaron Parks.  We talked in 2021 and ran part of the conversation last holiday season, but we covered a lot of ground, some of it COVID-related but a lot of it focused on James and the way he bridges musical genres. We chew on jazz, hip-hop, and some of the subtle challenges involved in making Christmas music. The music's good, but I also love the way he turns conventional narratives and hierarchies on their head. It's tempting to give jazz musical primacy--certainly here in New Orleans--but he talks about how hip-hop set him on his jazz journey. If you want more Christmas music news, follow 12 Songs on Facebook, and if you miss any episodes, you can find them at your podcast provider or TwelveSongsOfChristmas.com. 

The world met Julian Koster as part of the Elephant 6 Collective in the 1990s, when he played a variety of instruments with Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, and his own projects, The Music Tapes and The Orbiting Human Circus. In 2008, he released The Singing Saw at Christmastime, and part of the conceit is that the saws actually do the singing. He's not playing the saws; he's encouraging them to sing. That element of whimsy is part of the fun of Koster's projects and our conversation, though he brought engineer Nesey Gallons on the call with him to be a lifeline when Koster starts to drift too far out.  Our conversation covers some ground, from an unexpected appearance by Leadbelly to a Christmas interlude courtesy of Japanese filmmaker Akira  Kurosawa. Koster and Gallons also turned me on to a Folksways compilation of Ukrainian Christmas songs. The song we hear is "The Miracle of the Birth."

The Cowsills answer a number of pop culture trivia questions, starting with "What real life family pop band inspired the 1970 television show, The Partridge Family?" They had hits with "The Rain, The Park, and Other Things"--best known for the refrain, "I love the flower girl"--and "Hair," but the experience took a toll on family members, particularly Susan Cowsill's older brothers. She was a kid along for the ride and still under 10 when it hit, but as she talks about during our conversation, her teenaged brothers with rock 'n' roll dreams had a hard time dealing with what they became.  The Cowsills are a starting point for today's conversation because while Susan and her brothers worked for a few decades to establish themselves as solo artists, she regularly performs now as The Cowsills with Bob and Paul, and the three of them have a podcast now, The Cowsills Podcast. This summer, they performed on the Happy Together Again tour, and from November 1-December 10, they'll be guests on the Andy Williams Christmas Show at the Moon River Theatre in Branson, Missouri. There are musicians who might have a hard time adjusting to a Branson residency, but Susan compartmentalizes her creative endeavors. She was part of the Americana/indie pop supergroup The Continental Drifters and she still plays solo gigs in New Orleans in support of solo efforts, but after all these years, singing with her brothers remains a powerful, important of her musical life. Today we talk about the Christmas music she made and the Christmas music she loves. 

Documentary filmmaker Mitchell Kezin released the movie Jingle Bell Rocks! in 2013. In it, he focused on the human side of Christmas music, whether with the musicians who make the music--much the same way we do on 12 Songs--or by talking to collectors about the music they're passionate about. Last year, I talked to Kezin about the movie and his Christmas music collection, and ran part of the conversation during the holiday season.  This week, I'm running a longer, more complete version of that conversation, where we talk about collecting, the song that got him started on Christmas music, and the lengths he went to get one of the interviews for Jingle Bell Rocks.  Right now, Kezin is at work on his 2023 "Merry Mix," the name he gave to his series of Christmas music compilations. You can get a hold of Kezin and see the songs he has used on previous compilations dating back to 1998. It's a dizzying compendium of songs you don't know by artists you haven't heard of, but they're consistently entertaining.  

Twelve Songs returns after a life-induced hiatus with a good interview with Ray Benson from the Austin-based Western swing band Asleep at the Wheel. We talked in the spring when the band was coming to New Orleans to play Jazz Fest, and you can see my story focusing on the band celebrating 50 years in the game with its Half a Hundred Years album and tour. That tour is always going on or soon to restart, so check your local listings because if they aren't coming to town, they'll get there sooner or later. We talk about COVID, which became very real for the band when members of the band were hit hard by it earlier this year. We also talk about his long-time musical friend Willie Nelson, Benson's admiration for his "Pretty Paper," and hear Christmas music by the band, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, The Resentments (on a song by one of my favorites, Jon Dee Graham), and Folk Uke, which features Willie Nelson and Arlo Guthrie's daughters.  

In 2014, Molto Groovy Christmas remade holiday favorites inspired by Italian and French movie soundtracks from the 1960s. Tracks also reference Esquivel, Jimmy Smith's soul-jazz, and other out-there sounds, and the project as a whole is defined by unlikely, psychedelic textural juxtapositions over gently funky grooves. The album came with a mystery, though. The cover reads, “Roman Coppola and Alessandro Cassella presents,” but it's not until you open the package that you discover who actually made the music. That task fell to Italian musician and producer Carlo Poddighe, who arranged the songs and played all the parts.   This week, Carlo Poddighe tells the story of the album and talks about the fun and the challenges that accompany having a studio full of the vintage gear needed for a project like this one.    Molto Groovy Christmas isn't on Spotify or Apple Music, but CDs and mp3s are available through Amazon and a few vinyl copies remain for sale at the album's Bandcamp page.    Poddighe talks about the influence of a number of Italian soundtrack composers including Ennio Morricone, the best known in the United States. A Morricone track is included, as is a track from the 1995 album Vampyros Lesbos Sexadelic Dance Party, a very psychedelic collection of soundtrack music that prompted renewed interest in European soundtrack music from mid-‘60s to the early ‘70s.  If you haven't already done so, please subscribe to Twelve Songs wherever you get your podcasts so that you don't miss an episode.   

Twelve Songs returns to regular programming this week with writer Annie Zaleski joining me to talk about Wham!'s “Last Christmas” and our favorite versions of it.    On Christmas Day last year, Zaleski told the song's story at Salon.com, which is just one of the places where she has covered pop music and Christmas music over the years. She also wrote a book on Duran Duran's Rio for the 33 1/3 series.    The song has become a fascination of mine for a lot of reasons, one of which is that I've only really come around to it in the last few years. For a long time, I understood those who played Whamageddon online during the holiday season, but eventually the durability of the song and its stylish, bonkers, of the moment video won me over.    Annie and I also talk about cover versions by Jimmy Eat World, Carly Rae Jepsen, Manic Street Preachers, and Lucy Dacus. The episode closes with one of my favorites from last year by Japanese noise rock band Boris. If it speaks to you, you can find it at Boris' Bandcamp page.    In the conversation, I mentioned the video for the version of "Last Christmas" by the Japanese rock band Chai, and Annie and I break down Wham!'s video. 

When I started to look back at the highlights of our first 100 episodes, I envisioned it taking an episode or two, but once I started, I couldn't keep the number down that low. Here we are with the fifth and final installment, and I can easily envision another episode or two of interviews conducted before 2021.  This week's episode includes a few interviews that were special for me, including Steven Drozd of Flaming Lips, 11 Acorn Lane, guitar hero Steve Lukather, jazz vocalist Jacqui Naylor, ZE Records' Michael Zilkha, Latin ska band Mento Buru, and singer Danny Boy and label exec John “JP” Payne of Death Row Records. There's something special in each of these for me. Some were people I had really wanted to talk to, others were really good, provocative conversations, and in the case of the Death Row interview, it led to a story I wrote for The New York Times.  Next week, I'll get to work on the next 100 with a new conversation. If you haven't already done so, please subscribe, like, follow, or do what you have to do with your podcast provider to get Twelve Songs in your podcast feed weekly.   

We're in the home stretch of the look back at highlights from the first 100 episodes of Twelve Songs, with this episode getting into interviews during the pandemic when COVID affected everybody's plans. Guitarist and producer Chas Justus from Lafayette, Louisiana talks about how COVID made his collection of Cajun French versions of Chrlstmas classics--Joyeux Noel, Bon Chrismeusse--possible.   I really appreciated getting romantic pianist and composer Jim Brickman on the show because someone who has 10 albums of Christmas music has a more nuanced take on it than those who have only dipped their toes in the water. We talked in 2020 about how his Christmas music relates to the music he makes the rest of the year.  Many of my guests are indie musicians, in part because their music frequently lines up best with my aesthetics and ethics, but it's also important to me that we hear Christmas music as something people make today in a variety of forms and not simply nostalgia from our parents or grandparents' generations. Excerpts of conversations with retro soul artist Kelly Finnigan (who made the modern classic A Joyful Sound), Christian vocal group leader Ernie Haase, Jamie Hilsden of the Christmas punk band The Myrrhderers, and Amy Carlson of pop band Office Romance all come from that place, though the conversations are very different.  I hope after hearing this show and the other retrospective shows in this series, you'll want to subscribe to Twelve Songs (if you haven't already), listen to back episodes, and tell your friends. I hope these looks back make it clear that conversations about Christmas music aren't necessarily about Christmas or to be set aside until that time of year. 

My look back at the highlights of The Twelve Songs of Christmas this week come from from a transitional period. I had good and very different conversations with musicians with very different careers, including the pop purists Hanson, the bluegrass crossover artist Rhonda Vincent, and indie rapper Mega Ran.  This week's show includes excerpts from those conversations, along Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low, and Martin Lynds and Jen Gunderman of The Ornaments, a band of Nashville session players who at the time of the interview had played the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack for 14 years running.  One note on this episode: I was surprised when I grabbed the file for the Rhonda Vincent interview that I found my voice distorted on it. It didn't sound like that when I produced the episode, but there's not much to do about that now. I tried to minimize how much of me you needed to hear in that excerpt, but you needed some of my fuzzy voice to give her answers context.  If this is the first of your retrospective episodes, you can hear the first two here and here.  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. During our post-Christmas break, we went live on the IHeartRadio platform, TuneIn, Audible, and Amazon's podcast platform. Now, you can ask Alexa and Siri to play the Twelve Songs of Christmas podcast and let them pop it up on your voice-controlled personal assistant.  Here in New Orleans, it's Mardi Gras, so I'm taking the rest of this week and the start of next week to be part of my city. We'll meet again in two weeks.  

Last week, I started a look back at some of the highlights from the first 100 episodes of Twelve Songs of Christmas. This week, Scott McCaughey of The Minus 5 talks about his relationship to his Christmas songs when a stroke prevented him from playing them at their CD release show. Americana rocker JD McPherson talks about the inspiration for the songs on his modern Christmas classic, Socks, and Magic 101.9 program director Steve Suter takes us behind the scenes on the all-Christmas radio format. New Orleans singer Debbie Davis talks about what it's like to have a Christmas show that becomes a tradition, and songwriter Josh Rouse remembers Christmas music in Spain.  In the episode, I mention a few stories I'd link to--my piece for Nola.com on the all-Christmas radio format, and my interview with Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet. 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. During our post-Christmas break, we went live on the IHeartRadio platform, TuneIn, Audible, and Amazon's podcast platform. Now, you can ask Alexa and Siri to play the Twelve Songs of Christmas podcast and let them pop it up on your voice-controlled personal assistant. 

The previous episode with singer Meryl Zimmerman was number 100, and now that I've made it that far, I think it's time to stop and help some of you catch up. I've had a lot of episodes I'm really happy with that have moments I'm glad I helped to get into the world. Some realizations probably came together for the first time when we talked. The conversations shed light on creativity, musicality, business, and spirituality--aspects the pop music enterprise that are too often overlooked or treated with too much care. I'm interested in all of these things, and Christmas music is a great vehicle to get into those topics.  You can hear all that in these excerpts from season one with guests Panorama Jazz Band, Robert Earl Keen, The Waitresses' Chris Butler and Mars Williams, PJ Morton, Pink Martini, and Lowland Hum. Originally, I thought I'd simply do one retrospective episode, but I realized pretty quickly that it would be three to four hours' long, or it would leave out too much to be satisfying for me. So I'll be back with more next week and likely the week after that. Listening back is a little humbling, hearing some ratty production and a laid back intro affectation so extreme that I don't need to share any of that with you. You can't help but notice it though if you go back and check out the early episodes.  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. During our post-Christmas break, we went live on the IHeartRadio platform, TuneIn, Audible, and Amazon's podcast platform. Now, you can ask Alexa and Siri to play the Twelve Songs of Christmas podcast and let them pop it up on your voice-controlled personal assistant.   

This is the 100th episode of The Twelve Songs of Christmas, and I'm spending it with New Orleans' jazz vocalist Meryl Zimmerman. In late November 2022, she released her second album, A Very Meryl Christmas, so we talked about it as a business proposition and chewed on the uncommon song choices she made for it. Some standards are there, but so are some less common choices. As you'll see, the more familiar ideas are dressed up in uncommon arrangements that take them into interesting places. Her bossa nova version of “What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?” was compelling enough to make me seriously consider an episode focused on versions of that song to fit in the week after Christmas. It didn't happen, but maybe next year.  In this episode, we talk about her cover of Louis Armstrong's “Zat You, Santa Claus?” and I mention how Buster Poindexter's version helped me see the song Meryl's way. Here's that version.  On this episode, I also draw attention to Attention K-Mart Shoppers, and online archive of digitized albums of background music played in the 1960s and ‘70s in Kresge and K-Mart stores. I'm fascinated by the Christmas albums, of course, but there's a lot to hear there.  After this episode, I'm going to take a week off the start the next hundred episodes with a look back at the best of the first seasons. That will take more listening and editing than I can manage in a week, but I'll be back with that in two weeks.   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.  During our post-Christmas break, we went live on the IHeartRadio platform, TuneIn, Audible, and Amazon's podcast platform. Now, you can ask Alexa and Siri to play the Twelve Songs of Christmas podcast and let them pop it up on your voice-controlled personal assistant. 

One sidebar in the last few years of 12 Songs has been the role of COVID in the creation of Christmas music. Some artists recorded Christmas albums to remind themselves that they were musicians during the pandemic shutdown of 2020. Some were able to get musicians who would otherwise be unavailable because COVID forced them off the road, and others had specific circumstances related to COVID that led to their Christmas albums.  San Antonio-based roots rocker Patricia Vonne falls into the latter category. In this week's episode, she tells the story of what prompted her to record My Favorite Holiday, and how she got an army of musical friends including Rubén Blades, Alex Ruiz, David Grissom, Rosie Flores, Stephen Ferrone, Carmine Rojas and more to participate.   I love Vonne's energy and positivity in this conversation. She never stops selling, but that makes sense. Her story is a working artist's story, and she lives from gig to gig and album to album. That's a perspective that's easy to overlook in the show biz world that many Christmas albums live in.    This week's episode also takes a quick look at the last Christmas-related hit of 2021, “Christmas Tree” by V of K-pop stars BTS. I argue that it's not really a Christmas song and pay more attention to an earlier, truer Christmas song from BTS, “Christmas Day” by Jimin and Jungkook.    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.  During our post-Christmas break, we went live on the IHeartRadio platform and Amazon's podcast platform. Now, you can ask Alexa and Siri to play the Twelve Songs of Christmas podcast and let them pop it up on your voice-controlled personal assistant. 

How does a white guy from Detroit end up playing Latin music? Pianist Arthur Hanlon, one of the stars of the HBOMax concert film Piano Y Mujer, talks about that and his relationship to Motown in this week's conversation. We talk about the EP he released before Christmas, A Holiday Christmas Piano, and the roles Facebook and COVID played in making it happen. Along the way, we also talk about earlier Christmas releases and how Christmas music fits into Hanlon's big picture.  This week, we also look at one of the bigger songs of the 2021 holiday season, "Merry Christmas" by Ed Sheeran and Elton John, and the song that beat them to become number one on the British pop charts at Christmas. During our post-Christmas break, we went live on the IHeartRadio platform and Amazon's podcast platform. Now, you can ask Alexa and Siri to play the Twelve Songs of Christmas podcast and let them pop it up on your voice-controlled personal assistant. 

This is the last episode of the Christmas season, but The Twelve Songs of Christmas is a year-around affair, so the conversations will continue in January after I take a much-needed week off. This week's episode includes an interview with filmmaker Mitchell Kezin, whose documentary Jingle Bell Rocks! takes a deep dive into the world of Christmas music, talking to people who collect it and create it. It's streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime, and we'll talk more about the movie next year, but this week we discuss its origins including the songs and ideas that set him on the path for a documentary on Christmas music.  Then I talk to songwriter Jim McCormick, an old friend and successful songwriter in Nashville. Last year, he co-wrote his third number one, Gabby Barrett's "The Good Ones," and we catch up on the story behind that, as well as some of his favorite country Christmas songs. We talk about Kacey Musgraves, Randy Travis, Alan Jackson, Luke Bryan and more, thinking about the songs from the songwriter's or the industry's perspectives. Finally, I talk to young country artist Bailey James, who is still finding her audience. We talk about dealing with COVID times and her two Christmas recordings, which at the time of the interview made up a quarter of her output. How does Christmas music create marketing opportunities?  Alexandra Scott returns this week to discuss two of Phoebe Bridgers' Christmas songs--"The Christmas Song" and her cover of Merle Haggard's "If We Make it Through December."  We also hear some of our favorite contemporary Christmas albums, JD McPherson's Socks and Kelly Finnigan's A Joyful Sound, and The Polyphonic Spree, who put tickets on sale for their 2022 Holiday Extraganza this week. JD, Kelly, and Tim DeLaughter of the Spree have all appeared on Twelve Songs. We also heard new lofi Christmas music this week from Brooklyn's The Fundamental Sound.  Last week, my story on the influence of Vince Guaraldi's soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas appeared in The New Orleans Advocate. This week, a story I wrote on Christmas on Death Row, the Death Row Records' Christmas album, appeared in The New York Times. It's based in part on an interview on the podcast with Death Row vocalist Danny Boy and label exec John "JP" Payne from earlier this year. I'm going to take a week off and return in January with a new episode. Christmas will be over the conversations continue.  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.   Thanks to Car Floats for the sponsorship.

This week, we have a few guests again as Christmas nears. Americana artist Amanda Shires is on hand to talk about For Christmas, and the way it reflects some of the less common impulses behind Christmas music. The husband and wife team of Rod and Rose—country singer Rodney Atkins and Rose Falcon—talk about why they recorded “Winter Wonderland,” and how their conflicting writing styles got them to a new song for this holiday season. Finally, indie multi-instrumentalist Julian Koster drops by to talk about his role in the 2008 album, The Singing Saw at Christmastime.    We'll have more with all three in 2022.   In the news this week, host Alex Rawls contributed a story on the influence of Vince Guaraldi's soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas to The New Orleans Advocate. The story includes quotes from George Winston, Steven Drozd, Kristin Chenoweth, Joey Burns of Calexico, Mega Ran, and Jen Gunderman of The Ornaments, all drawn from episodes of this podcast.    If you're maxing out on the Christmas music you have, let us help. At Spotify, you can listen to our 24-hour “Twelve Songs of Christmas Radio.” Just click Shuffle and you get the Christmas radio experience minus the repetition. Or, you can email Alex@myspiltmilk.com to get an mp3 of our 90-minute holiday mix.    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.  

Last year, Twelve Songs did its first crossover episode with Jonathan and Julia Pretus of the Ranking the Beatles podcast. During the COVID shutdown in 2020, Jonathan took the time on his hands as an excuse to rank all of The Beatles' songs, from his least favorite to his favorite. That list morphed from a Facebook conversation into a podcast with his wife Julia as the voice of reason.  Since The Beatles didn't release any true Christmas songs during their time together, last year we ranked the annual fan club-only releases, testing Julia's patience in the process. This year, we got together for a second crossover, this time ranking their post-Beatles Christmas music. Julia had reached a saturation point between watching, discussing, and podcasting about Peter Jackson's Get Back and opted for a badly needed night off. Jonathan and I discussed the obvious choices by John and Paul as well as less obvious ones from George and Ringo.  If you like what hear, you might consider adding Ranking The Beatles to your podcast feed. Thanks as usual to our sponsors at Car Floats, who asked me to contribute a Christmas music playlist to their website. I'm pleased to have curated a number of playlists this season including the 23-hour “Twelve Songs of Christmas Radio” playlist on Spotify. Go to it and click Shuffle to get the all-Christmas radio experience but with a greater variety of music. You can also still get this year's downloadable listeners-only playlist by writing me at alex@myspiltmilk.com to request it.  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.  

Last week, Kristin Chenoweth was part of the episode focused on A Sentimental Christmas, an album of remakes of songs by Nat "King" Cole. Today, we continue that conversation to cover her new Christmas album, Happiness Is ... Christmas and 2008's A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas.  This episode also includes my interview with country legend Ronnie Milsap, whose Christmas with Ronnie Milsap was reissued this year, and guitar hero Paul Gilbert, who got in the Christmas music game this year with his new album, TWAS. Unfortunately, we had a wifi disconnect and, as you'll hear, had to pick up more or less where we left off. That gives us a choppy moment part way in, but that's life on the Internet.  This episode also includes new music from New Orleans-based jazz vocalist Meryl Zimmerman, who released A Very Meryl Christmas this year, and a cover of John Prine's "Christmas in Prison" by Aidan & the Wild, Lewin, and the Revanche Family. It's on Another Christmas Vol. 2, and I'll talk to someone from Revanche Records in Amsterdam next year about the label sampler as a marketing strategy.  This episode also includes new music from Americana band Loose Cattle, who recently cut a version of Neil Young's "Star of Bethlehem" with the holidays in mind. Michael and Kimberly of Loose Cattle were early guests on Twelve Songs, and if you're in New Orleans, they'll play a holiday show Saturday at The Broadside with many of their musical friends. Finally, the episode closes with a version of "The Christmas Song" by The Polyphonic Spree. I interviewed Tim DeLaughter of the Spree last summer about their then-new album Afflatus and their Holidaydream Christmas album. At the time, he said that they planned to bring back their Holiday Extraganza this year in Dallas. It's on for December 18, and last time I checked, there were a few tickets still on sale. I'll be there this year, and if your tastes run toward the maximalist and psychedelic, it might be for you too.  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.  

For this Christmas season, producer Jay Landers put together "A Sentimental Christmas with Nat "King" Cole," an album that refreshes some of Cole's holiday classics with new arrangements and a handful of new duets with new singing partners Johnny Mathis, John Legend, Gloria Estefan and more.  Today on the show, Landers talks about the hows of whys of putting together this kind of project, and why Cole continues to sing these duets well after his death. Kristin Chenoweth and Calum Scott are two of Cole's singing partners this time around, and they talk about the experience, Cole, and what they learned about him in the process. Singer Alexandra Scott returns this week to talk about Icelandic pop artist Dadi Freyr and the Christmas songs he released in 2020 and 2021.  This episode ends with a lovely cover of Low's "Just Like Christmas" by Gabrielle Aplin. Last year, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker appeared on Twelve Songs in an episode that felt surprisingly intimate and, perhaps for that reason, became more personal than I expected.  This episode of Twelve Songs is sponsored by Car-Floats.com, which makes 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.  

This episode drops on Thanksgiving, and if you're listening on Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving. Friday is Black Friday, the official, incontrovertible start to the Christmas season, and just in time for it, Twelve Songs has created an alternative to the all-Christmas radio station, Twelve Songs of Christmas Radio on Spotify. It's a 20-plus hour playlist of songs that are or should be Christmas favorites, and all you have to do is click Shuffle to get the radio effect, minus the commercials and station breaks.  If that sounds a little daunting, you can also email me at alex@myspiltmilk.com to get a copy of this year's 90-minute listeners-only Christmas mix. It covers a lot of ground and offers some new takes on Christmas classics, and it will almost certainly introduce you to some Christmas songs you haven't heard before. For those looking for a more irreverent, indie-oriented Christmas collection, I recommend XO for the Holidays Vol. 10, which fits the bill nicely. In this week's episode, I'm again featuring excerpts from interviews I conducted this fall. José James presents himself as a jazz vocalist for the hip-hop era, but that's only occasionally obvious on his new Merry Christmas from José James. On it, he and a traditional jazz trio give us a beautiful, timeless Christmas album that sounds like what might happen if a Sinatra-like singer fronted a Bill Evans-led band. I also talk to Canadian folk artist Bruce Cockburn, who is starting his tour celebrating 50 years in the business in December. The tour should have started last December, but, you know, COVID. We talk about the tour and his 1993 Christmas album, Christmas, including one of the less likely songs on the album and where it came from. Finally, I talk to Nashville's Twangtown Paramours, who have a new album, Double Down on a Bad Thing, due out in February. We talk a little about that, about how its recording was affected by COVID, and how they used a new Christmas song, "My Gingerbread Man," as a marketing tool. This episode of Twelve Songs is sponsored by Car-Floats.com, which makes 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.    

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. 

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.    

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.      

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.  

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. 

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.   

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" 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.   

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.   

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. 

Think of this as a remix. Last year, I interviewed New Orleans bounce artist Big Freedia for an episode about his Christmas music including the EP he released last season, Smokin' Santa Christmas. In early January, I interviewed New Orleans' founder of "rap cabaret" Boyfriend about Amy Grant's A Christmas Album. We also talked about her work with Big Freedia--a part of the conversation I saved because the Amy Grant conversation was a full episode on its own. (Boyfriend has also appeared on the show to talk about her love of The Carpenters.) So this week, I've pulled the two interviews together, combining highlights of the Big Freedia interview with Boyfriend's behind the scenes point of view, and I've included a short digression into Boyfriend's first Christmas song, a version of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. This episode also includes another call-back. When I interviewed Calexico's Joey Burns, we talked about the Spanish language Christmas song, "Mi Burrito Sabanero," which they performed with singer Gabi Moreno on their Seasonal Shift. This week, I go through some of the recorded highlights of the song's history, though they really don't make it any clearer why that song has developed a seasonal following in Miami.  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. 

This week, Jamie Hilsden and I have a meeting of the minds about how punk's meaning and associations have changed over time, and his punk Christmas EPs--The Myrrhderers Slay Christmas and The Myrrhderers Slay Some More--give us the place to start that conversation.  Hilsden brings a very interesting perspective to the conversation as a Canadian Christian who grew up in Israel just a few miles from Bethlehem and started working up the demos for these songs while on tour with a band in Poland.  We chew on the challenges involved in converting Christmas songs to to punk, and which songs simply didn't interest him. We also talk about the record that served as proof of concept that Christmas punk could be good as punk and Christmas music. You can find both EPs on his Bandcamp page. In this episode, I also talk about a modern Christmas classic, Nick Lowe's Quality Street. I talked about the album and Lowe a bit with Eddie Angel of Los Straitjackets back in 2019, and other artists have talked about finding it reassuring because it proved that they could be themselves and still make seasonal music.  If you like what you hear or are curious, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts—Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pandora, or Spotify.  

Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Cheap Trick weren't sure a Christmas album was a good idea when asked by their label to do one, but 2016's Christmas Christmas worked out, and it's better when bassist Tom Petersson makes clear the thoughts behind some of their versions. They revisited the rock 'n' roll Christmas canon and made those songs rock more. No small feat in some of the cases.  We got time to talk because Cheap Trick has a new album, In Another World, which took on unintended meanings since it was finished in 2019 before COVID-19 hit. Petersson talks about what it's like to be a band that lives to tour when you can't tour.  If you like what you hear or are curious, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts—Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pandora, or Spotify.

In 2017, filmmaker Larry Weinstein shot Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas (available to stream on iTunes) for the Canadian Broadcast Company. The documentary starts in a fictional Chinese restaurant in 1967, and a number of music video-like performances set in that restaurant give structure to an exploration of the Jewish relationship to Christmas. The documentary is built on the fact that many of the Christmas classics were written by Jews--the same writers who wrote many of the great American songs.  Our conversation deals with the way that Christmas crosses cultural lines, and one additional line we talk about is Weinstein and the musicians he includes being Canadian. While much of the film is about the experience of Jews in America, we talk about how that experience was the same and how it differed in Canada.  In the episode, I included Bing Crosby's "White Christmas," The Platters' "Winter Wonderland," "The Little Drummer Boy's Bolero" by the University of Texas at El Paso Wind Symphony & Ron Hufstader, Lou Reed's "September Song" from the Hal Willner tribute to Kurt Weill, Lost in the Stars, and Lena Horne's "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."  I also ask Weinstein about a video by Rob Kapilow during which he argues that there are specifically Jewish musical choices made by Irving Berlin in "White Christmas." Here is that video.  The episode also features two Johnny Cash songs, "Merry Christmas Mary" and "Christmas as I Knew It."  In the conversation, I talked to Weinstein about musical director and producer Hal Willner. Last October, I interviewed producer Mark Bingham, who also worked with Willner.

The Dallas-based Polyphonic Spree formed in 2000, and the 22-person band seemed inconceivable. Former Tripping Daisy member Tim DeLaughter pulled together a band that gave him strings, horns, a harp, and host of voices to sing along. At the time, the band's look including choir robes and Dallas' proximity to Waco prompted the British press to speculate on the band's cult-like tendencies. DeLaughter talks about that including the origins of the robes in this week's episode.  In 2012, The Polyphonic Spree released Holidaydream: Sounds of the Holidays Vol. One, and it successfully merged the band's maximalist sensibility, its tendency toward psychedelia, and songs people can sing. It emerged from the band's annual holiday extravaganza in Dallas, which DeLaughter says will return in 2021.  We also talk about the band's new album, Afflatus, which also emerged from a live show. The Polyphonic Spree were scheduled to play a show of covers in March 2020, but decided that it wasn't safe hours before the show. As DeLaughter explains, they decided to record the songs that night to document the arrangements, and this spring he decided to release those versions of songs by Rush, INXS, The Bee Gees, Daniel Johnston, The Monkees and more. For my story on the album, go to MySpiltMilk.com. This week's episode also includes my favorite band from this year's Eurovision Song Contest. Iceland's Daði og Gagnamagnið. This weekend, I discovered that they recorded a Christmas song in 2020, "Every Moment is Christmas with You." I've included that song in this week's episode and close with the Icelandic version of it, "Allir Dagar Eru Jólin Með Þér." If you like what you hear or are curious, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts—Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pandora, or Spotify.  

In December, I talked to "folk pianist" George Winston about his then-new Christmas single, "Silent Night," which he released to benefit Feeding America. His version was inspired by electronic artist Joseph Byrd and New Orleans piano player Professor Longhair, and at the time I ran part of our interview.  This week, I'm running the interview in its entirety, as he talks at length about his affection for New Orleans' piano players then and now, and another pianist who influenced him--Vince Guaraldi. Through the conversation, we see Winston as a fan and as a technician, someone who methodically hears things in others' performances that he can repurpose for his own music. He also, understandably, talks about his own best-selling December and the challenges it posed.  In this episode, I also share my love of honky tonk hero Dale Watson, his Christmas album Christmas Time in Texas, and my favorite track on it, "Santa and My Semi." In the episode, I mention the Ranking the Beatles podcast, which this week examines the closest thing to a Christmas song The Beatles recorded, "Christmas Time is Here Again." Jonathan and Julia from Ranking the Beatles appeared on 12 Songs last holiday season to rank The Beatles' Christmas fan club releases including "Christmas Time is Here Again."  If you like what you hear or are curious, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts—Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Pandora, or Spotify.

The 1996 album Christmas on Death Row has always stood out because it seemed so improbable. Death Row Records made its name on indo-fueled g-funk telling gangsta stories from the 'hoods of Los Angeles, and nothing in that sound or subject matter conjures up warm fuzzies. Digital wise guys writing listicles in the 2000s during the holiday season inevitably slagged it as a bad idea or a cynical one. According to John Payne and Danny Boy, the story is far more complex, and they suggest that the album is better understood as a sign of what might have been had the label's signature stars and personalities not left Death Row in the months before, whether voluntarily (Dr. Dre), in handcuffs (Suge Knight) or murdered (Tupac Shakur).    Payne was one of Death Row's founders, and he is currently helping to shepherd the company through its 30th anniversary celebration, which involves reissues, releases of music from the vaults, and the creation of DeathRowExperience.com, a digital, gameified Death Row gallery.  Danny Boy was a 15-year-old singer from Chicago when he signed with Death Row, and he sang three songs on Christmas on Death Row. During our interview, he was in the process of going through an airport, and the interview gets a little extra sonic texture as a result.  This episode also includes a favorite from the 2005 Merry Mixmas on Capitol Records--Lou Rawls' version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," remixed by awayTEAM.

In 2018, violinist Lindsey Stirling released her Christmas album, Warmer in the Winter, and although she doesn't usually sing on her songs, today she explain why she decided to sing the title track.  Today's conversations is largely about versions of songs--the hows and whys of picking one version over another. It's an issue in her case because she has released two versions of "What Child is This?" including one from 2020 with Darius Rucker, and this year she has released an electric and an acoustic version of a new song, "Lose You Now." Christmas music is all about versions, and Stirling talks about how some choices highlight her musicality while another reflects her faith.  We also talk about touring because she announced this week that she has an American tour that starts July 3 in Kansas City.  Before I talk to Stirling, I quickly trace the journey of "I Wish it Was Christmas Today" from Saturday Night Live sketch to unlikely rock Christmas anthem with versions by Julian Casablancas, Cheap Trick, and at the end of the show, the Italian indie band Mikhail y Julio. 

Starting in the mid-2000s, mp3 blogs were a way to share a musical passion and find the community that shares it. I wrote about two such mp3 bloggers who share their love of Louisiana music for 64 Parishes, and this week on the show I talk to Brad Ross-MacLeod, also known online as the King of Jingaling at FaLaLaLaLa.com.  He has shared his love of Christmas music since 2004, for much of that time digitizing old Christmas albums that were never released on CD or in digital form. For the most part, he focused on albums that come with a heavy side of nostalgia, or those where the holiday marketplace led to such improbable projects as strings or vocal groups adapted for the season to the trappings of pop music.  Ross-MacLeod's interests aren't simply retro though, as he shows in our conversation. He makes some unlikely connections and embraces a lot of music, not only the offbeat and mercenary.  In keeping with the mp3 blog mode, I also feature today a song I found on an mp3 blog on African funk from the 1970s. "A Groovy Christmas and New Years" by Ghana's Pee Pee Dynamite is awesome, and I'll let the blog that led me to him tell what story there is to know.  In the episode, I mention that there are other Christmas music mp3 blogs that I like. Since copyright holders began cracking down on mp3 blogs, I haven't visited them much in recent years and can't vouch for what you'll find there these days--a quick scan says YouTube videos have replaced the downloadable tracks in a lot of cases--but since these people's work helped me find a lot of Christmas music, I want to recognize them and share their sites in case you want to go digging too. Santas Working Overtime Hi-Fi Holiday Ernie (Not Bert) Christmas a Go Go Christmas Underground