Tonight is the second-most wonderful night of the Christmas season. Tonight is when David Letterman asks Darlene Love to come to his " Late Show" and sing "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)."
Sniff, sniff. I always get a tear in my eye, ya know?
The song is one that Love sang in 1963 for the album "A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records." "Philles Records" was the great producer Phil Spector, famous for his "wall of sound" recording techniques. He is currently in prison, 19 years to life, and his lawyers are appealing to the Supreme Court. He was convicted of murdering actress Lana Clarkson in 2003.
That has to be mentioned, but before whatever it was that happened to him that put him where he is now, Spector was a great record producer.
And he was smart enough to realize that Love had the best voice for "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." So he yanked the woman who would later become his own wife (for a few years anyway), Ronnie Spector, out of the studio, and gave the song to Love.
Fast-forward to 1984, when "Late Night" band leader Paul Shaffer was performing with Love in the musical "Leader of the Pack." Letterman saw the show, they all talked, Love went on "Late Night" and sang the great song with Shaffer's four-piece band.
The performance has evolved: These days, "Late Night" springs to bring in a strings section and a chorus, and fake snow falling from the catwalks.
It's fabulous, and absolutely one of my favorite things, ever, on television. Watch the show! It's at 11:30 p.m. tonight on CBS. The Love performances probably can't go on forever, ya know. She is 73 years old. The last time I heard her sing, she still sounded great, though. Comedian Jay Thomas is also to be on hand, to throw a football at a meatball on a Christmas tree -- another "Late Show" Christmas tradition -- and the actor David Hyde Pierce, who is doing the show "Close Up Space" in New York these days with Rosie Perez. GOOD NEWS DEPT.: I am a little late reporting this -- Hey! I've been busy! Get off my back! -- but TheatreWorks has been awarded a $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Sweet! "This is the single largest grant we've ever received from the NEA and twice as much as we were granted last year," said TheatreWorks' Director of New Works Meredith McDonough, in a press release. "As you might expect, we are absolutely thrilled. It is especially meaningful in a time when arts funding is being scrutinized and slashed left and right. A grant of this size and distinction totally validates our efforts and confirms that we are on the right track with the New Works Initiative -- sustaining and celebrating new voices and stories in the American Theatre." Well, the TheatreWorks New Works Initiative is the goods. It has produced a number of excellent plays and musicals, many of which have gone on to some major honors nationwide. Theater does not pay for itself through ticket sales, as we all know. So, it's great to see a grant come to so deserving a troupe. NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman announced that the agency will award 863 grants to organizations and individual writers across the country, totaling $22.543 million. Source : http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_19604961
