 |
Joe Merkel: vocals,guitar
Mario Padovani: keyboards, guitar
Paul Janocha: bass
Gregg Hoffmann: drums
Produced by Mario Padovani
Recorded & mixed by Paul Janocha at Ken-Del Studios
from the EP "Father Christmas"
Released 2003
"With their rhythm, vocals, and power riffing, the Yes Virginia CDs are always impressive in their ability to convey the spirit of 70's anthem rock." - Christmasreviews.com
One of the things I love about Yes Virginia is dusting off some of the off-the-beaten path Christmas songs and breathing new life into them. This song certainly qualifies. As a matter of fact, Joe had never even heard the tune before the night he came into the studio to record the vocals. "Where do you come up with these songs?" I believe were his exact words. This particular one I remember from midnight mass every Christmas eve as a kid (it's actually a 15th century German carol).
This is one of those songs that really benefitted from the collaborative efforts of all the musicians involved. Once everyone got their hands on it, the song went in a very different direction than I originally planned, but turned out much better than I had ever hoped. Very cool intro on this one. The first verse has that Brian May guitar symphony thing going on, giving it a very huge, almost regal like feel. (I seem to be typing the words "Brian May" an aweful lot in these blogs, I really should add Queen to the list of our influences.) Joe absolutely nailed the vocal on this one in only two or three takes (not bad considering had had never heard the tune prior to that evening!). In fact, I believe the entire song was learned, arranged and recorded in one night (which I'm sure adds to the feel of it).
This is a pretty dynamic tune. There's that cool little breakdown between verses. Mario did the pretty piano stuff and came up with the guitar harmonies there. And Gregg? Well, I've always said I believe he is John Bonham's right foot reincarnated, but he also can have such a gentle touch when needed. The breakdown provides just the right amount of contrast before we kick back in to finish out the tune. Again, not exactly what one would call a "standard", but I'm proud of this one.
Peace,
Paul
6:15 AM
Powered by  | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|