Aimee Mann Calls On Her Friends for Christmas Variety Show
12/09/2009
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Aimee Mann announces guests for her upcoming annual holiday extravaganza at the Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles on December 13th and 14th and a new date added on December 15th. Singer-songwriter, film composer, and Aimee's husband Michael Penn will join the show for all three dates while married singer-songwriting couple Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) and Zooey Deschanel (She & Him) will perform for the first two sold-out shows on Dec 13 & 14. As in years past there will be several surprise drop in guests who will not be announced prior.
With a full year of touring throughout the U.S, Japan, Argentina, Chile, Singapore and Australia, a recent speaking date at Yale, a new album in the works, writing a musical and co-illustrating a graphic novel, Aimee has been staring down at a full plate. Mann considered giving the Christmas show a year off until visions of scrooge began to surface. In response she decided to put together a two day run in Los Angeles to appease the Christmas ghosts. This year's line-up will bring back a host of old favorites along with some new faces to the Largo , Aimee's home away from home (recently immortalized in film.) See Largofilm.com for further information and screenings.
Mann's homage to the holiday variety show of yore has consistently played to sold-out crowds across the U.S, featuring a mixture of music from One More Drifter in the Snow, hosting comedians Paul F. Tompkins, Patton Oswalt and Fred Armisen along with special drop-in guests that have included Jackson Browne, John C. Reilly, Amos Lee, Chuck Prophet, Rachel Yamagata, Nellie McKay, Josh Ritter, Ben Lee, Ben Gibbard, comedienne Morgan Murphy and fellow singer-songwriter Grant Lee Phillips. The New York Times has described the holiday pageant as "Delightful
a Santa-stupefying balance of naughty and nice
with the giddy warmth of an eggnog buzz. Hangover included of course."
One More Drifter in the Snow, Aimee Mann's first Christmas CD released through her own SuperEgo Records, has continued to be a holiday standard with O magazine hailing it as an "intimate take on the season too brilliantly affecting for strangers." Aimee explains, "I wanted to do a Christmas record that reflected the whole range of emotions that people have around Christmas. I thought a lot about the feeling I had about Christmas as a kid, the almost spooky beauty and mystery that the holiday has, and wanted to do something that echoed that musically." Mann and her producer Paul Bryan used the Peanuts Christmas special as one jumping-off point, with both the jazz-inflected Vince Guaraldi Trio soundtrack and comic melancholy of Charlie Brown as influences.
Mann also cites the Johnny Mathis record she heard every year in her house as a kid as another major influence and archetypical Christmas record. "That's why I wanted to make sure at least half of the songs on the record were classic Christmas standards that everybody knows."
The album is also sprinkled with some lesser-known but no-less-classic songs: the Jimmy Webb song "Whatever Happened to Christmas," which opens the record; "Christmastime" written by Michael Penn; the brilliant "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" from the Dr. Seuss cartoon "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," featuring Grant Lee Phillips' inspired narration; and an original song, co-written with producer Paul Bryan, "Calling on Mary."
Track Listing:
1. Whatever Happened To Christmas
2. Christmas Song
3. Christmastime
4. I'll Be Home For Christmas
5. You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch
6. Winter Wonderland
7. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
8. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
9. White Christmas
10. Calling On Mary
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