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PODCAST

Twelve Songs of Christmas

”The Twelve Songs of Christmas” tries to sort out the place of Christmas music in our culture by talking to the people who make it.

arts performing arts

All Episodes

76:26

"Asalto Navideño" with Miguel Zenón, and the Ray...

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/12/18

This week’s episode features two interviews—one with Grammy-winning jazz saxophone player Miguel Zenón helping us appreciate the salsa Christmas classic Asalto Navideño by Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe. Asalto Navideño was reissued on vinyl this holiday season by Craft Recordings. The other is with music industry veterans Jonathan McHugh and Tamara Conniff, who worked together to produce A Life in Rhythm: The Ray Conniff Story about her father. The episode also includes new Christmas music from

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96:38

Roland Gift, Old Crow Medicine Show, and The Klezmatics

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/12/11

We're in the last weeks before Christmas and I have more interviews than I can handle. This week starts with a version of "Wonderful Christmas Time" by Twanguero before we get to my interview with Roland Gift, ex of Fine Young Cannibals. He talks about the way a new Chanel ad campaign with Dua Lipa and Blackpink's Jennie has introduced a new generation to the Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy," and about FYC40, an compilation of the band's hits with a second disc of dance remixes. Gift

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51:13

William Shatner, Jane Monheit, and Kelly Finnigan

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/12/05

We're in December now, and this week we have three conversations. William Shatner's face is on the pop culture Mt. Rushmore, and when I had a chance to interview him for The New Orleans Advocate in advance at his appearance at Pop Expo in town, I couldn't pass up the chance to ask him about 2018's Shatner Claus. It's a short interview, but I have it so you get to hear it. The interview begins with us talking about You Can Call Me Bill, a documentary from 2023 about his life and career. The story I

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62:33

AI for Christmas

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/11/26

Artificial Intelligence (AI) made itself part of this year's music story with AI acts The Velvet Sundown, TaTa Taktumi and Breaking Rust making news one way or another. This week, Ken Kessler of the podcast The Sounds of Christmas and Gerry D from the Totally Rad Christmas podcast join me to talk about the way AI Christmas music foreshadowed some of this. We talk about an early effort created by University of Toronto researchers, "Rudolph the All-Gracious King" and it's companion how-it's-done

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51:21

Remembering Brian Wilson Pt. 2: "What I Really Want...

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/11/20

Multi-instrumentalist Probyn Gregory remembers playing and recording with Brian Wilson from 1999 until he retired from live performances in 2022. We talk about the recently reissued Brian Wilson: Live at the Roxy, Brian Wilson presents SMiLE, and his 2005 solo Christmas album, What I Really Want for Christmas. In the process, Gregory provides insight into the later stages of Brian's life and musical career, including perhaps why What I Really Want for Christmas received a lukewarm response (other

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34:42

Remembering Brian Wilson Pt. 1: "The Beach Boys'...

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/11/13

I started thinking about how to address Brian Wilson’s death on the podcast since we learned of his passing. “Little Saint Nick” and The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album are Christmas classics that needed to be addressed, but how or with who? The answer came when Oglio Records announced that it planned to reissue a 25th anniversary edition of Brian Wilson: Live at the Roxy. The promotional efforts behind that release put a number of possible interviews at my disposal. This week, writer David Leaf talks

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67:28

A Ping Pong Kung Fu Christmas with Shawn Lee

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/11/06

Producer and multi-instrumentalist Shawn Lee has a history of making recordings that hover uncertainly in time. Sounds from different eras and genres come together in his music to sound like lost, regional 45s. We talk about his influences--library music and hip-hop--as well as his two Christmas albums: A Very Ping Pong Christmas from Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra (2007) and Kung Fu Christmas by Shawn Lee (2021).

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52:36

Kristian Noel Pedersen

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/10/23

Toronto's Kristian Noel Pedersen has released 27 EPs or albums of Christmas music, 26 of which are on his Bandcamp page. What started as a goof became a project that stretched him as an artist. We hear music from all phases of his Christmas career including (in order):1. "Home Alone Pt. 1" 2. "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" 3. "All I Want for Christmas is You" 4. "A Step-Mother's First (and Worst) Christmas Ever" 5. "Merry Christmas Baby" 6. "Christmas Without You" 7. "Hard Candy

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43:05

Steve Lukather's "Santamental" (an encore presentation)

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/10/16

I've been out of town this week, and when I thought of an episode from the archives to revisit, this one from 2021 with guitar hero Steve Lukather came immediately to mind. It's useful to remember that this was the second year of COVID--not full lockdown, but a lot of precautions and a lot of staying home. I gather Lukather is or has been a social animal, and in a time when it was hard to be social, I was the fortunate beneficiary of his willingness to talk and share.Since we talked, Lukather has

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42:31

Doing All-Christmas Radio Right with Kevin Robinson

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/10/09

Since streamed playlists and all-Christmas radio are the way most people hear Christmas music, they're fascinations of mine. This week I'm back on the radio beat with long-time radio guy Kevin Robinson. I wanted to talk to Kevin when I saw a post he wrote for the industry site Barrett Media on best practices for the all-Christmas format shift. Since we talked, he interviewed me along with station programmers about programming Christmas stations and playlists. In the episode, we hear music from

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45:44

Sloan

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/10/02

Chris Murphy of the Canadian indie rock band Sloan describes them as "a cult band," but they're a cult band with legs. They started in 1991 and recently released their 14th album, Based on the Best Seller.This week Murphy talks about how a band with kids and members in their 50s works, and what democracy looks like in a band. Murphy talks about the fake B-movie trailers the band shot to draw attention to songs from the new album, and they're well worth seeing. We also hear part of three songs from

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45:38

Christmas at K-Mart with Mark Davis

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/09/25

Mark Davis has turned the in-store music cassettes he pocketed while working at a K-Mart in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s into “Attention K-Mart Shoppers,” a digitized collection of that background music at the Internet Archive (archive.org, not archive.com as I announced on the show). Others have since contributed parts of the K-Mart and Kresge’s lore, augmenting his collection with tapes and vinyl records distributed 10 to 15 years earlier than Davis’ time with the one-time retail giant. Oddly,

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45:07

Solo Piano for Christmas with Nick Bhalla

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/09/18

Last year, Minneapolis-based jazz pianist Nick Bhalla released Saint Nick, a lovely album of solo jazz piano treatments of Christmas classics. His approach is interest in his laser-like focus on harmony, at the expense of the improvisation that dominates much of his musical practice. Rather than explore the melodic possibilities the best loved Christmas songs offer, he hones in on harmony, creating a tight, lovely half-hour of beautiful Christmas music. You can find Bhalla's music at his Bandcamp

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24:09

The "All I Want for Christmas is You" Lawsuit

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/09/05

The headlines tell a version of the story:“MARIAH CAREY SUED AGAIN OVER ‘ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU’ — BY THE SAME GUY,” according to Billboard. “Mariah Carey is SUED AGAIN over All I Want For Christmas Is You... as two writers claim her 1994 classic is a ripoff of their song of the same name” according to The Daily Mail. “Mariah Carey Sued By Random Man For Allegedly Stealing ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ From Him,” according to Pedestrian.tv. The story of Andy Stone from New

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01:13:13

Dub Reggae for Holidays with Black Market Dub

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/08/28

This week's guests are Black Market and Wise Owl (or Nate Bridges and Brandon Niznik) of the Los Angeles-based duo Black Market Dub. On their Bandcamp page, they introduce themselves with a series of questions: "What would happen if The Beach Boys had The Wailers as their backing band instead of The Wrecking Crew? What if David Bowie spent the summer of 1975 in Kingston, Jamaica with King Tubby instead of Philidelphia? Michael Jackson meets Scratch Perry?"Many of their releases give us the answers

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36:35

The Birth of All-Christmas Radio with Jerry Ryan

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/08/21

These days, we take the all-Christmas radio format for granted. Every year, countless adult contemporary--AC--stations temporarily change their format and go wall to wall with Christmas music somewhere between Halloween and Black Friday. Jerry Ryan gets the credit for pioneering the switch when he was vice president and general manager of KESZ-FM in Phoenix in 1990. Once he did it in a market the size of Phoenix, others followed in his footsteps. This week, Jerry Ryan tells radio stories,

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51:44

Blind Boys of Alabama on Christmas Music (Remixed)

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/08/15

I think of this episode of Twelve Songs as a remix, a second pass at the same material with very different results. In 2003, The Blind Boys of Alabama recorded Go Tell it on the Mountain, an album of gospel and gospel-inflected Christmas music that Omnivore Recordings reissued in 2016. Last season, I talked to the Blind Boys' guitarist and musical director Joey Williams about the project and how the gospel legends interacted with the musical guests brought in for the album, including Mavis Staples,

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01:01:39

"Cumbia Navideñas" with É Arenas

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/08/08

Eduardo Arenas surprised me in the first moments of this week's interview when he revealed that Chicano Batman had played its last gig for now and might be done. He played bass in the band since its start in 2008, and he reflects not on his band specifically but how musicians grow apart. As É Arenas, he has recorded at least one Christmas song a year since 2017, and what started as a challenge turned into a tradition. We talk about traditions and he helps me get a better handle on Mexican Christmas

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49:43

Donna Summer for Disco and Christmas

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/07/31

Donna Summer has been a fascination of mine because she was on the cutting edge of electronic dance music, but since "I Feel Love" and other forays into early electronic music were produced by the legendary Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, it isn't clear what role she played in her sound. Last season I talked to songwriter Bruce Sudano about that among other things. Sudano also wrote songs for Summer and became her husband and manager. This week, I'm running that conversation in its entirety,

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01:09:12

Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson on AI And Christmas

Twelve Songs of Christmas ·

2025/07/24

A new season of Twelve Songs begins with a conversation that is, frankly, more about AI—artificial intelligence—than it is Christmas music, but since we’re six months from the holiday, it seems like a good time for this conversation.Last year, I interviewed Steven Wilson of the British prog rock band Porcupine Tree about “December Skies,” a song he recorded on his own with lyrics written in part by Chat GPT, an AI program. We talked about the whys and hows and considered some of the issues

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