Santa Claus Is Coming to Town!

The final Saturday Night Live of 2015 welcomed Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band as the featured musical guest last night, which for many of us proved to be an early and much appreciated holiday gift. Bruce and the Band played two tracks from his recently released box set The Ties that Bind: The River Collection -- "Meet Me in the City" and "The Ties that Bind," both of which sounded great. But then there was this show-stopper to close out the night, featuring a very special guest:

I received a holiday gift of my own last Friday in the form of tickets to see Bruce and the E Street Band at the L.A. Sports Arena in March. Sadly, that wonderful old venue is scheduled to close its doors soon afterward. And might I suggest a few lumps of coal for the bastards at TicketMaster, whose near monopoly status allows them to run one of the most despicable businesses in the country. The process for buying tickets to popular acts was easier, fairer and less costly 25 years ago than it is today, which is exactly what a lack of competition guarantees.

But enough of that for now. After all, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town!

Darlene Love's Final Late Show Performance Scheduled for Next Friday

I don't know about you, but the first thing that came to mind when I learned that David Letterman will be retiring next year was "Does this mean no more Darlene Love at Christmas?" For the past 28 years, Darlene Love has been the musical guest on the final Letterman show before Christmas each year, where she's sung her classic hit song from 1963, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." The tradition first began in 1986 on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman, and continued when the program migrated to CBS in 1993 to become the Late Show with David Letterman. Now that CBS has confirmed that Letterman's last show will be on May 20, 2015, it seems clear that next Friday, December 19, will be Love's last holiday appearance on the Letterman show. What's more, Love, who is now 76 years old, recently told reporters that she has no plans to appear on another late night program following Letterman's retirement. Fortunately, she doesn't intend to retire any time soon. In fact, she has nearly finished a new album under the direction of producer Steve Van Zandt, who's also a key member of Bruce Springsteen's legendary E Street Band. Two of the songs on the new record were contributed by Springsteen, who, along with Van Zandt, is a longtime fan. I think I've watched live TV exactly twice so far this year, but I'll be in front of the old box next Friday night, for sure.

SNL Flashback: Bruce Springsteen Visits Weekend Update for Thanksgiving

Not to be unkind, but Adam Sandler and Kevin Nealon fall near the very bottom of my list of favorite Saturday Night Live cast members. Nealon's tenure as host of SNL's Weekend Update was just plain awful, and the fact that Sandler can command between $20 and $40 million per picture tells me all I need to know about just how morally bankrupt the entertainment industry has become. But the pair did manage to score with the following Thanksgiving-themed sketch, which aired on November 20, 1993, and featured a holiday visit from Bruce Springsteen:


NBC will air a special episode of Saturday Night Live tonight at 9 PM (8:00 Central) featuring some of the show's best Thanksgiving-related sketches of the past 40 years. Sounds like fun.

Pentatonix Goes Viral with Beautiful A Cappella Version of "Little Drummer Boy"

I've never been a big fan of a cappella music myself – largely, I think, because of its perceived association with the uberprivileged undergraduates of certain elitist colleges and prep schools. That's nonsense, of course. Sure, the Yale Whiffenpoofs typically include a trust fund kid or two, but today's a cappella community includes people of many different backgrounds and cultures, and they're playing to increasingly large and diverse audiences around the world. One of the leading groups in this new wave of instrument-free music is the Los Angeles-based quintet Pentatonix. The group is comprised of lead vocalists Scott Hoying, Kirstie Maldonado, and Mitch Grassi, who attended high school together in Arlington, Texas; vocal bass Avi Kaplan, and beatboxer Kevin “K.O.” Olusola. The group was formed to compete in NBC's The Sing-Off, and after winning the third season of that program they've gone on to a very successful recording and performing career. Their latest video, an a cappella version of "The Little Drummer Boy," was released yesterday and is now going viral, with nearly 2 million YouTube views in its first day of release. This has always been one of my favorite holiday songs, and while I'm still more jazzed by today's release of the new Bruce Springsteen single, this a cappella stuff is beginning to grow on me:

Santa Spotted at Last Night's Springsteen Show in Anaheim

Last night, I was lucky enough to attend one of the final shows on this leg of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's "Wrecking Ball" tour at the Honda Center in Anaheim, and, aside from the miserable traffic, it was a terrific evening.  (It took us over 2.5 hours to get to the venue from Downtown L.A., and at least an hour of that was spent within half a mile of the venue. The trip home was around 1.5 hours, thanks to construction that narrowed the 5 Freeway to one lane for an extended stretch in Commerce. Sorry, with all the traffic talk, I guess I'm sounding a lot like a bit player in SNL's The Californians, huh? OK, enough of that.) Anyway, the show ran just about 3.5 hours (or an hour less than the total commute [sorry!]), during which they played a great mix of stuff from Bruce's latest album and classics from his 40-year recording career . . . and, of course, their penultimate number featured a much-anticipated visit from Santa and his elves:

(Apologies for the lousy camera work, but I'm still trying to figure out my new smartphone and I'd migrated to the back of the floor area by the end of the show to avoid the little bit of distortion from the amps closer to the stage.) In addition to the 16 members of the extended E Street Band on stage, two additional musical guests paid a visit — Mike Ness of the Orange County-based punk rock band Social Distortion, and Tom Morello, formerly of Rage Against the Machine and currently touring on his own as The Nighwatchman. Morello's become a fixture at Bruce's L.A.-area shows, and he added his trademark high-energy guitar and vocals to seven of the 28 songs last night, including Santa Claus is Coming to Town. There's nothing like a Springsteen show to recharge your batteries, give the old heart a workout and make you feel young again. Next time, however, we're taking the train.

2012 Christmas Season Has Officially Begun

Bruce and the E Street Band in Omaha last Thursday night

Everyone seems to have a different idea about when the Christmas season officially begins. For shopping types, it's "Black Friday," a day on which I try not to leave the house. For merchants, it's typically the day the Halloween stuff comes down. For me, this year at least, it's the night Bruce Springsteen first plays "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" at one of his live shows. Yeah, I know it's been overplayed on radio for each of the past 37 Christmas seasons (it hardly seems that long), but it's a genuine classic that manages in just 4:30 to both call up the Christmas spirit and capture the magic of a Springsteen live performance. Thus, by this admittedly subjective personal measure, the 2012 holiday season officially began last Thursday night when the song made its first appearance of the year as the penultimate number in Bruce's 26-song show at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Nebraska. This was the first time Bruce played the song in public since the death of band mate Clarence Clemons, whose booming "ho ho hos" and signature "you'd better be good for goodness sake" line are such a key part of the E Street version. Rather than designate a single individual to assume Clarence's part this year, Bruce asked the crowd to take on the job. Thanks to the magic of YouTube you can catch the results HERE, HERE or HERE, and you can find out more about the history of Bruce's version of the classic at the impressive Lebanese Tribute to Bruce Springsteen website. I knew that the classic Springsteen version of the song was recorded in 1975 at C.W. Post College and made available on tape to rock radio stations as a promotional item, and I knew it was officially released on vinyl in 1985 as the B-side to "My Hometown," the seventh Top 10 single from Born in the USA. But I didn't know that Bruce first performed the song live in December 1973 at the Bristol Motor Inn in Bristol, Rhode Island, or that it's the best-selling single download of Bruce's entire catalog. The song itself was written by John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie in 1934 and first performed on Eddie Cantor's radio show that November. (I featured Eddie Cantor's 1939 song "The Only Thing I Want for Christmas" on my 2009 holiday mix, "I Just Can't Wait 'til Christmas.") It was an instant hit, with orders for over 100,000 copies of the sheet music sent in the very next day! "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" has since been recorded by scores of other artists ranging from Alice Cooper to the Partridge Family.


By the way, "Santa Claus" is hardly the Boss's only foray into Christmas music. In November 1986, the E Street Band's version of Merry Christmas, Baby was released as the B-side of "War," the first single from the blockbuster five-record set Live 1975-85. Over the years, Bruce has played numerous other holiday classics live, including Jingle Bell Rock, Blue Christmas, and my favorite Christmas song of all time, Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home). He's even written a couple of holiday songs -- a touching tune called "The Wish" that describes how his mother scrimped and saved to buy him his first guitar for Christmas one year, and a second number, touching, too, in its own way, called Pilgrim in the Temple of Love, which, believe it or not, chronicles the Boss's pre-holiday visit to the Fabulous Girls Nude, Nude, Nude strip club. This is one of Bruce's few X-rated numbers, but the live version of the song I've linked to (above) includes a sweet story about the existence of Santa Claus. (NOTE: This one's not safe for work, and make sure you don't play it near any kids or impressionable older folk.) I'm looking forward to seeing Bruce and the Band two weeks from tomorrow night in Anaheim, and I'm betting we'll hear something from his Christmas catalog. In the meantime, here's hoping the 2012 holiday season is a little more merry and peaceful than the pre-holiday run up has been and that Santa's magic touches you this year before the season ends.

Happy Labor Day!

Santa's not ready to leave the beach just yet.  Can you blame him?

It's been exactly eight months since this blog began its post-holiday hiatus, and with just 112 days left until Christmas, this last unofficial weekend of summer seems like a good time to check in and say "hi." Although I've now been out of school for more than a couple of years, Labor Day continues to stir-up that same curious mix of melancholy, dread and resolve that it did for me as a child, and now that Jerry Lewis is off the air I'm not sure I can fairly blame it on the Labor Day Telethon at this point. There's something poignant about the end of summer somehow, and those feelings persist regardless of how one spent any particular season or whether it was a boom or bust. Happily, I've always been one of those people whose processed memories are rose-colored, and I'm grateful for my ability to find great joy in the simplest of things -- for example, holiday music!  And, yes, I'm happy to report that I've already put together around 25 tracks for this year's CD, including a couple of honest-to-goodness monstrosities that will destroy whatever visions of sugarplums might otherwise dance in your heads this season.  More on all that, of course, sometime in December.

Before rejoining Santa on hiatus, however, I do want to share several video clips. First, among the many talented entertainers we've lost so far in 2012 is Andy Griffith, who has always been a favorite of mine.  Although his wonderful series "The Andy Griffith Show" was on television for eight years, the first season was the only one to include a Christmas-themed episode. However, that one episode was a classic, and it's worth watching anytime of year.  So with the Democrats gathering for their Convention this week just down the road apiece from Mayberry, here's a chance to honor Andy and celebrate some true Democratic values with the episode titled "Christmas Story" (in two parts, below):






Finally, one of this summer's biggest concert draws has been Bruce Springsteen, who's been touring throughout the United States and Europe with the remarkable E Street Band in support of his latest album, Wrecking Ball.  I've been watching Bruce play live for 34 years now, and he and the band have never sounded better. With his 63rd birthday just three weeks away, he's routinely doing shows that last three and a half hours or more, and his August show at Helsinki's Olympiastadion clocked in at four hours and six minutes — the longest show he's ever done.  As mentioned here last December, longtime E Street Band member Clarence "Big Man" Clemons died last June, and there was some question about whether the band would be able to go on without the Big Man.  Of course, they have continued, with Clarence's nephew, Jake Clemons, and a five-piece horn section filling the void.  But at each show on the current tour, Springsteen honors Clarence's memory, along with the late E Street band organist Danny Federici, in a most touching fashion.  YouTube is loaded with clips from every stop on Springsteen's "Wrecking Ball" tour, but here are two especially awesome numbers to keep you going 'til our next appearance. The first is from the second night of a two-night stand last month at Boston's historic Fenway Park — "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out," which includes a tribute to the Big Man starting at 3:40:

The second clip features the rarely played but beautiful "Drive All Night," performed in Gothenburg, Sweden.

What do the Springsteen clips have to do with Christmas?  Not so much, really. But they both make me happy, and I wish the same for you, too.  See you in a few weeks, and Happy Labor Day, everybody!

Gee Whiz ... It's Christmas (Again!), Part 11

There are 43 tracks on my latest holiday compilation, Gee Whiz … It’s Christmas (Again!) and for the past couple of weeks I’ve been posting some additional bits and pieces of information about each of them, in turn. With just four tracks left to go, it’s time to share a few thoughts on Tracks 40 and 41. Both are by Clarence “Big Man” Clemons, who, until his death this past June at the age of 69, played saxophone in Bruce Springsteen’s fabled E Street Band. He was a gifted sax player, and his stirring solos on songs such as “Jungleland,” “Badlands,” and “Born to Run” helped create the E Street Band’s signature sound. But that was just one piece of the Big Man’s multifaceted role on E Street. He was also Bruce’s comic foil, protector and running mate. His room was where the party was. He had your back. And for nearly 40 years, he was a vital piece of the aspirational tableau Bruce has sought to create from the stage and through his music. Much has been written about Clarence’s unique contributions to the Springsteen mystique, both real and symbolic. I only met him once, and then only briefly, but Clarence’s death left me with a keen sense of personal loss. I’ve been a diehard Springsteen fan from the first night I saw him and the E Street Band at Boston’s Music Hall. In the many, many years that followed, I’ve probably seen them another 30 or 35 times, and each and every show was a thrilling, unique and life-affirming experience. Bruce recently announced that he’ll be touring again with the E Street Band in 2012, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world. But it won’t be the same without the Big Man.

Track 41
The Christmas Song, by Clarence Clemons (1981)
Thirty years ago this Fall, Clarence entered the studio to record a couple of holiday tunes at the urging of producers Dennis Bourke and Jim Nuzzo. The first was an original tune of Bourke’s called “There’s Still Christmas,” and the second was an instrumental version of "The Christmas Song," which I selected for this year's CD. Originally intended for release as a holiday single in 1981, the two songs were not completed in time and subsequently shelved and forgotten – until this year. News of Clarence’s passing led Bourke and Nuzzo to dust off the old recordings, and they were marketed along with a slightly longer version of “The Christmas Song” as “a Clarence Clemons album.” Of course, three songs hardly constitute an album, especially when two of them are nearly identical versions of the same number. Nonetheless, I was excited by the prospect of hearing the Big Man performing something “new” for Christmas. Unfortunately, the resulting record fell short of my expectations. Clarence’s vocals on “There’s Still Christmas” are strong and emotive, but the production is flat and uninspired and the song itself strikes me as derivative and trite. Happily, the second number, Clarence’s instrumental version of “The Christmas Song,” works better.  Of course, it helps to have good material. Written by Mel Tormé and Robert Wells in July 1944 as a distraction from the heat, “The Christmas Song” is the most frequently performed holiday song of all time, according to BMI. While it’s been covered by a wide range of artists, it’s most closely identified with the great Nat King Cole, who recorded four separate versions of it from 1946 to 1961. Listening to this version, the song almost seems to have been tailor-made for the Big Man, whose saxophone seems to echo the beautiful voice we’ve grown so used to hearing whenever this song begins. 

Track 40
The Big Man’s First Saxophone, by Clarence Clemons (2010)

Clarence liked to tell the story of how he happened to take up the saxophone, partly, I’m sure, because it illustrates that there’s good to be found even in disappointing events. It seems that when Clarence was nine, he asked for a train set for Christmas, and he was told that if he was good, his wish would come true. Naturally, he was good as gold (or so he reported), and on Christmas morning he raced downstairs to open the package that was addressed to him. Upon opening the box, however, he became confused and disappointed. The train set had no wheels. That’s because it wasn’t a train at all, but rather ... his first saxophone. Naturally, he came to love that gift, and the rest, as they say, is history. I'd heard this story several times over the years, and I was thrilled this Fall to discover a video in which the Big Man recounted it just last December in an appearance with his friend Narada Michael Walden. There was just one problem. In this version of the story, Clarence got his facts wrong! He spoke of running to the tree believing there was "a saxophone" in the box (when he actually thought it was a train) and wondering "why the saxophone didn't have any wheels." I admit I did some selective editing on this clip before I included it in this year's compilation as Track 40. With the descriptive title I added, I think it works. What I couldn't edit out, of course, is the sadness that comes from hearing him speak of a 70th birthday that would never arrive. Not among us, anyway. Rest in peace, Big Man.

Here's the full clip of Clarence last December:

And here's one of Bruce's thousands of introductions for "the biggest man you'll ever know," Clarence Clemons (WARNING: It doesn't happen often, but Bruce uses the "F" word in this short clip):



And, finally, a beautiful farewell video by director Nick Mead. Don't miss the ending:

 


Just two more tracks to go. Have you finished your holiday shopping?

Darlene Love's on Letterman this Friday!

One of my very favorite holiday traditions is the annual appearance of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Darlene Love on the Late Show with David Letterman singing what is perhaps my very favorite holiday song of all time, "Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)." This song was first released 48 years ago (can you believe it?) on what Rolling Stone has called "[h]ands down, the best holiday album in the history of pop music," A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector. Letterman first saw Love perform the song in 1986 in a show called Leader of the Pack, in which his band leader, Paul Shaffer, was also performing. Letterman told Shaffer he loved the song and asked him to arrange for Love to sing it on their show during the holidays that year. That performance must have been terrific, because Love's been invited back to perform "Christmas" on the final pre-holiday broadcast every year since. (There was no Late Show in 2007 due to a writers' strike, but even then CBS replayed an earlier Love appearance.) Well, folks, this year's final pre-Christmas Late Show is this Friday, December 23, so make plans to watch or set your DVR! Also appearing on Friday will be Jay Thomas, who, in another Late Show holiday tradition, will join Dave in a unique football-throwing contest and recount his famous Lone Ranger story. To help get you in the proper spirit, here's a mash-up of clips from Love's various performances over the past 24 years: 

Many other artists have tried their hand at cover versions of "Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home," but none have been able to approach the indescribable magnificence of a Darlene Love performance. No, not even Bruce Springsteen, who was joined by an all-star cast in a noble attempt at one of his Asbury Park benefit shows in 2001 (below). 



As one particularly savvy YouTube commentator noted, "Nice try, but it comes off as souless. This belongs to Darlene Love and nobody else will ever get close." I expect Bruce himself would be the first to concede this point. Certainly, Bruce and E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt were among Love's biggest supporters when she was under consideration for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year. A number of years ago, Steve gave Love a holiday tune he authored, "All Alone on Christmas," which Love performed for the movie Home Alone 2:

There's a video out there somewhere of Love playing that one with the E Street Band and its Mighty Horns, but it's not currently available on YouTube. If you get a chance to see and hear it elsewhere, don't miss it! More on Springsteen and company tomorrow, when we look at Tracks 40 and 41 of my 2011 holiday CD.

Gee Whiz ... It's Christmas (Again!), Part 2

My 2011 holiday CD, Gee Whiz ... It's Christmas (Again!), is now being circulated, and in yesterday's post I started sharing some of my thoughts about the 43 individual tracks that appear on it. I plan to review a few tracks each day until done, and while I'm reviewing the tracks from first to last, each day's post will proceed in reverse order to yield a final list that runs from 43 to 1 without bouncing back a few spaces at the start of each new post.

Track 7
Wish List, by Neon Trees (2010)
Released in November 2010 as a free iTunes download, Wish List is perhaps my favorite track on this year’s CD. It’s certainly the best new holiday tune I’ve heard in the past several years. The underlying story’s a sad one. The singer’s at home alone on Christmas, pining for the girl who left him. But he’s ready to do whatever’s necessary to win her back, and the upbeat melody and hook-laden chorus leaves you confident that he’s going to succeed. Neon Trees was formed in 2005 in Provo, Utah, and its four primary members are all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They have toured with and opened for The Killers, My Chemical Romance and Duran Duran, and in 2010 their single “Animal” topped Billboard magazine’s Alternative Rock chart and was eventually certified platinum by the RIAA.


Track 6
Christmas Lost and Found (Part 1), from Davey and Goliath (1960)

For many of us who grew up in the 1960s and ‘70s, Davey and Goliath was a Sunday morning staple. My family typically attended the earlier of our church’s two Sunday services, and I can remember lobbying my father to change that practice so we could watch this and other cartoons on TV before we had to get dressed-up for the day. Sponsored by the Lutheran Church, the series was produced by Art Clokey, who had enjoyed great success with a similar stop-motion animated series called Gumby. Watching Davey and Goliath today underscores just how much our culture has changed in the past 40 years. Its earnest and sometimes heavy-handed style holds up rather poorly, although I’m certain that my brother and I internalized many of its key values during our formative years. The nine clips that are featured in this year’s CD are excerpts from a special holiday episode of the show titled “Christmas Lost and Found,” which was first broadcast in December 1960. My initial intention was to include only the first excerpt, which begins with Davey’s ill-tempered declaration: “I hate Christmas.” Presented by itself, that excerpt is good for a laugh, as in a few short seconds it manages to undermine just about everything for which the show was known. As the overall CD took shape, however, I grew increasingly fond of the message this episode conveyed. I would have preferred to have summarized that message in fewer than nine clips, but it was difficult enough to trim as much as I did without losing the message altogether. In any case, I managed to include multiple instances of Goliath’s famous “Daaavey” soundbite. That always makes me smile.

Track 5

Christmas Day, by Detroit Junior (1960)

This R&B classic was on the draft track lists for two of my previous CDs, Winter Wonderland (2010) and I Just Can’t Wait for Christmas (2009), but it somehow failed to make the final cut in each instance. I’m not sure why. But I knew I’d use it sooner or later – it’s just too good to ignore. This was probably the biggest hit blues musician Detroit Junior ever had. It’s certainly his most enduring record. Born in 1931 in Arkansas, Emery Williams, Jr., developed his interest in music at a young age. By the early 1950s he had settled in Detroit, where he picked up his stage name and started performing with such skillful blues musicians as Eddie Boyd and John Lee Hooker. Junior relocated to Chicago in 1956, and worked and played there until his death in 2005. Despite his long career, Junior only released a handful of records, although you can still find several of his songs on YouTube, including Call My Job, Money Crazy and If I Hadn’t Been High. “Christmas Day” was included as the first track on Santa’s Funk and Soul Christmas Party, which was released in November 2011 on the Tramp Records label and is well worth a listen.

Track 4

Holiday Greetings from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (1974)

Bruce Springsteen, Ed Sciaky, Janis Ian and Billy Joel in September 1974

Track 4 is a short promotional message recorded in late 1974 for Philadelphia radio station WMMR-FM, which, along with Boston’s WBCN, was among the most innovative and progressive rock stations in the country at the time. WMMR was also the home of the legendary Ed Sciaky, who was known for promoting talented new artists including Billy Joel, David Bowie and, of course, Bruce Springsteen himself. Thanks in large part to Sciaky, Springsteen was already hugely popular in Philadelphia when this message was recorded, despite the fact that his breakout album, Born to Run, would not be released until the following September. Few, if any, stations like WMMR are left today, a fact Springsteen lamented in his 2007 single “Radio Nowhere”.

I'm hoping to continue this series with further comments on many of the remaining tracks on this year's CD. There are 43 tracks altogether, so fix yourself some egg nog, grab a good seat by the fire, and get ready for a long ride.