In honor of the inveterate Chris Dunn, we finish off our Holiday Music Fest this year with two hours of Darlene Love singing the bejeepers out of “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)”. No, really, two hours of it. Two hours. And it’s still a joy (though, yes, it’s fine to fast-forward occasionally. Or stop whenever you wish…) In 1986, Darlene Love was appearing in a show, Leader of the Pack, that Paul Shaffer was performing with. David Letterman came to a performance, because of his friend being in the production, loved her singing of this song and invited her on to her show to sing it – and kept inviting her back every year for 28 years through to his last season in 2014. And this is a compilation of all those soaring appearances. The first year, it was done for Letterman's Late Night show on NBC when they had no budget, but after they moved over to CBS for The Late Show, the show always went out for a big, fun production, generally building a bit each year – including how they’d introduce the saxophone solo in some different, often odd way. (They really begin ratcheting it up to a new level the year that begins around the 59-minute mark, and then have what is possibly their classic the next year.) Indeed, watching it change from year-to-year is much of the fun of this video. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, though – which is pretty likely – at least jump to the 1:40 mark when, for the last show, Letterman invites her back over to his desk as a guest, for the first time before her performance and for a full interview. And then right after, at the very end of the video, is a fun, sort of “Making of…” segment on how they put the song together each year. Which ends with a montage of about half a dozen versions of her singing the song. And each are seamless and joyous. Just know that there are five minutes at the beginning with a variety of clips sort of setting up the moment, talking about Leader of the Pack, for instance, and Dave talking about going to see it, which then finally gets us to...well, this --
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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