WHY?
My Mother tells me I cried over music before I learned to speak. This isn’t hard for me to believe seeing as how I, when exposed to the right musical material, am still prone to dissolve into a big blubbering emotional slob. Hence my chosen career path as a musician, songwriter and singer. And beyond my response from music in general, I’ve always felt a tug from the repertoire of the Christmas season. It packs a powerful sentimental punch. It’s got some kinda voodoo.
Who listens to these corny tunes all year? The holiday comes around in its twelfth of a year cycle, carrying potent personal connotations for each listener, many buried in childhood, when the deepest impressions are made. I’ve always liked the effect of Christmas music, it’s sweet, special, beautiful, varied and it turns most Americans into squishy goofballs.
INSPIRATIONS AND PREDECESSORS
Now, if you were to ask Patti Maloney about where the seed was first planted (which you can actually read about in the "Notes from Artists" section), she tells a story about her, a 1970 high school assembly and myself. But I have my own theories as well...
When I was a little boy, I would spend many nights in bed acting out an imaginary television show named "The Glenn Burtnick Show". It was a variety show with a number of guest performers and I was the emcee.
I was raised a Jehovah's Witness. Among the holidays we didn't participate in, was Christmas. As an adult with my own family, I dive into Christmas traditions, embracing all the hokey, commercialized 20th century Americana about this holiday the way I never did as a kid. You know, it's very American...Bing, Jimmy Stewart, Sinatra, Irving Berlin and Dr. Seuss. How could all the sweet sentimentality NOT seduce a sensitive suburban kid? There are tons of non-Christians all over who adore the vibe as much as I.
HOMESICK CHRISTMAS GREETINGS CASSETTES
Fast-forward ahead 20 years. In December 1978, I was portraying Paul McCartney in the touring company of the show BEATLEMANIA and living in an apartment in San Francisco. I had shipped my Teac/Tascam 80-8 tape recorder out so as to record my music (it was on this that I recorded the legendary I HATE DISCO MUSIC with my Beatlemania partner Marshall Crenshaw). I was pretty much away from family & friends back home in New Jersey for the first time. On account of homesickness I decided to send out an Xmas tune. I guess if the song had to have a title it'd be CHRISTMAS EVERYDAY IN SAN FRANCISCO but I think I sent out the cassettes with "MERRY XMAS FROM GLENN BURTNICK" scribbled across the labels.
One of the things about embarking on an ambitious Christmas project is the unforgiving deadline. As any holiday party host will attest, the inspiration usually comes late, the plans turn grandiose too easily and completing the task on time can turn you into a driven, harried, sleep depraved lunatic. In between Beatlemania performances, I was frantically recording overdub after overdub alone in my apartment, trying to beat the clock so as to get the tape finished, mixed, copied, mailed and delivered in time for Christmas. Thus, was my first experience with a self-inflicted stressfest for the sake of my over zealous enthusiasm for Christmas & holiday music.
As I recall, I missed the deadline, and most of the tapes found their way into the recipients' hands after Dec 25, 1978.
The next year, I had joined the Jan Hammer Group. We had released an album (Hammer) and toured behind it, and by the end of the year I had new friends I wanted to add to the 'Audio Xmas Card' list. I wrote and recorded another tune, this time in my bedroom at my parent's house in New Jersey (although I recorded my drumming at a guy named Ziggy's place). Kind of an answer to the previous year's track, this one included a rearranged theme or two from the '78 tune along with new elements including a staged phone call with my then girlfriend, now wife, Rosie (ever the reluctant and uncooperative collaborator). I distinctly remember staying up for over 24 hours working on the finishing touches in order to get that one off to the cassette-duplicating guy in time...
Tapes of these two quirky experiments are all but disintegrated off the face of the earth by now, if not downright impossible to find. Maybe I sent out 20 each year...50 TOPS. I have a friend or two who still recall and maybe even have their original awful sounding cassettes...
THE CAROLING CAROLERS
When I was rehearsing in BEATLEMANIA my fellow fake Beatle Chris Gavin (a fake George) told me about this show. For years there was a group of cool NYC singers who would perform this annual holiday gig at the Bottom Line. The group included The Roches and Barbara Illana (who had been in a group I adored in the 60s called THE CAKE). I never got to see this legendary show, but something about the idea left an impression on me.
GREETINGS FROM ASBURY PARK
During the mid 1980's I played with a band named LaBamba and The Hubcaps, comprising of great players from the Asbury Jukes, Little Steven's Disciples of Soul and other New Jersey shore acts. One year Richie "LaBamba" Rosenberg started planning a Christmas show for the Hubcaps to be involved in. As soon as Miami Steve Van Zandt got involved, it turned into a major production, including performances by Brian Setzer, Darlene Love, Southside Johnny and Joe Piscopo all broadcasting live over WNEW FM. As one of the performers, I was very turned on by the entire show. In retrospect, I suspect this gig influenced the future Xtravaganza.
Throughout the late 1980's I played a slew of shows at the Stone Pony, and since one was booked in December '89 I decided to turn the 2nd half of my usual Glen Burtnik-80's-Rock-Show-Band-Thing into a Christmas show.
1989 was relatively the era of the WE ARE THE WORLD and other Band Aid type 'rock acts for a good cause' trendiness that mighta affected the spirit of my idea a bit, but it was really only appropriate that any profit made from such music (much of which is spiritual in message) go toward giving to people in need of help. Sadly, it doesn't raise as much money as I'd like (can there ever be enough?), but slowly and surely money turns into food for people who need it... people who live close by...people who are poor.
When it began, I sang most of the songs and the guest artists weren't necessarily well known outside the New Jersey Shore area at the time, but the performances were spirited and always special. As the show progressed through the years, it has attracted all kinds of performers, some big-shot multi-platinum types, some unknowns with great talent, and some very entertaining goofball knuckleheads. The list is very long.
Personally, I've been thrilled by the group of performers who've appeared, but no more so than when my kids have become involved. My daughter Darla was first; having joined the choir I had worked up in the show when she was 7 or 8 maybe. Then little Sally jumped in when she was about at 4 or 5. These two have been singing, among other things, the Chipmunk Song for a number of years. Darla, now a teen, graduated to co-fronting the band with her Aunt Brijitte on the Waitresses' Xmas Wrapping in 1999. Oddly enough Beau, the oldest, came last. At first, he was playing bass on one or two songs, but for the past few years he has been all over the stage, bass on this, melodica on that, percussion and solo numbers accompanying his singing on guitar.
I take the overall show as a great compliment. That all these amazing artists, assistants and technicians donate time for no pay so I can raise some money for local charities. This is a blessing I do not take lightly. That the audience brings so many giant Hefty bags full of canned food, warm clothes and toys so my family and I can distribute them to soup kitchens and family shelters - simply because I ASK, is a gesture which causes me to tear up as I type. You might consider me gooey Glen but I kinda think of myself as Andy Williams on acid.
EFFORT
I once heard a comic observe that it ain't really Christmas until Mom has a nervous breakdown. You know the way some people expend massive energy rigging up the exterior of their homes with gaudy Christmas light overkill? You know the way some will kill themselves preparing to host their perfect holiday soiree?
Well, my Xmas Xtravaganza is most likely my annual nervous breakdown, my tasteless display, my over ambitious party planning and my compensation for missed childhood joy all rolled into one. It's not an organization and we don't get tons of help coordinating. Maybe I suck at delegating, maybe it ain't easy to ask people to work for nothing. Whatever the reasons, it's quite an effort. When the musicians need to learn a song...when cassettes need to be made...when an artist needs a suggestion as to what to sing...when anyone needs the lyrics or charts...it's just a lot. I get stressed out, even angry at times because there are all kinds of unseen problematic details. I don't wanna go on too much about this like I'm some kinda martyr or something (after all, I could always just stop doing the damn show). But I think giving is the blessing and I guess giving ain't much unless it hurts.
THE SELFISH PAYOFF
Finally, I LOVE observing the stretch each artist has to do to find the appropriate song to perform (without feeling like a complete jackass). I LOVE bringing canned goods to Elijah's Promise soup kitchen with my family. I LOVE the exhaustion of having of done a good job in the aftermath of each Xmas Xtravaganza as I make the final preparations for my own family's Christmas.
Break out eggnog baby...
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