Taylor Hicks performed "White Christmas" during the tree lighting ceremony held in New York City's Rockefeller Center last night. Taylor's performance was fun and jazzy, a groove filled, ever soulful take on a favorite Christmas song.
As a small girl, I remember watching the televised Christmas specials popular in the '70's; shows featuring the greats like Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis and Bing Crosby. These musicians performed Christmas songs like songs, they gave them a twist and shout of their own. The Rat Pack gave Christmas songs some 'cool', removed the trite feeling often showcased in renditions of many deliveries of the old holiday tunes.
Last night at Rocker-feller Center, we were treated to another hot glimmering facet which shone as bright as the lights on the giant tree, the very real palpable talent of Taylor Hicks. The Soulman elevated the show, gave the production some reminiscent smack back to the days when musicians could make music work and be cool ... even old Christmas songs.
I could run a listing of my own of some cool Christmas music but instead, I'll give you this link to check. For you 'players' folks who actually know how to read sheet music, here you go. I've put a link to Amazon below for Charles Brown (no, not Charlie Brown...) He's an old-style blues artist with a nice Christmas CD, one I have in my collection. Charles Brown was a talented, yet underrated musician, check him out and his tunes, if you're not familiar. This is a link to his album listing.
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Enjoyed your comments about Taylor's performance last night. He was great. Wanted to mention that I was listening to the Christmas channel on our xm radio and "Merry Christmas, Baby" came on. It sounded really good and when I walked over to see who was singing it, the read-out said Charles Brown. I asked my husband if he had heard of him and he said no. So, I run across your blog and there's a mention of him. That's a song I could definitely see Taylor singing especially since he added parts of it into "White Christmas" last night.
ReplyDeleteMichele, Charles Brown was an underestimated, talented and fun musician. I'm glad you saw the connection as to why I included him in this blog.
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas.