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You could have knocked me over with a candy cane. I think I have sung and recorded more Christmas songs than just about anybody, at least five albums to date, and I thought all the good songs about Christmas had surely been written. But I was wrong. I first realized it when I met a diminutive 85 year-old creative genius named Paul Alter and his lovely wife Lolly – after I’d listened to the demos of the songs he’d written.
A mutual friend introduced us, because he had learned from Lolly that Paul had a drawer full of terrific songs about Christmas, and he’d never done anything with them. He had accomplished a lot of other amazing things, though; he’s the creator and often director and producer of some of the biggest game shows in the history of television. I’ll name just a couple; The Price is Right, What’s My Line?, I’ve Got A Secret, Family Feud and many more.
Paul was obviously bursting with creativity (he just can’t help it). It surprised me that he’d written so many songs about Christmas. He explained to me that he had always been enchanted by the notion of Christmas and that someone had once dared him to write a song about the holiday. In almost no time he’d written a dozen really good songs, with more to come. But what was he to do with them?
Well-after I listened, I told him I wanted to record them, that I’d supervise the production and appoint two gifted arrangers/producers to create all the music I would sing to. And with every song, as I told Paul a number of times, my admiration for his songwriting grew.
For me, two of the most moving are “In Harms Way,” a stark and emotional tribute to America’s fighting men and women who are on a distant front defending our Christmases at home – and there’s the remarkable Rosebud, which anybody who ever saw Orson Welles’ movie, Citizen Kane, will recognize immediately.
We know it’s an audacious and daring thing to introduce twenty-one new and original songs about something as familiar and hallowed as Christmas. I wouldn’t have undertaken this but for the firm belief that you and your family will enjoy each song as much as I have, now and for Christmases to come.
PAT BOONE
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