by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2012 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved
Charles and I had a decent evening together watching a TV
show on NBC called Michael
Bublé: Home for the Holidays. It was
apparently a sequel to a similar Michael Bublé Christmas special that aired
last year and featured him with Justin Bieber; this time around he was paired
with country singers Carly Rae Jepsen and Blake Shelton (who was introduced by
the announcer as a “superstar” — you know you’re old when someone you’ve never heard of before is introduced as
a “superstar”!). Michael Bublé is the sort of performer whom I like, even
though I’m not likely to rush out and buy their CD anytime soon; he’s a nice
crooner and his presence on the music scene is welcome if only because Tony
Bennett isn’t going to live forever and it’s reassuring that that style of
singing will survive even after Bennett croaks. He sang nice versions of pieces
like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “Christmas (Baby Please Come
Home)” — though on the latter his voice hardly seared the way Darlene Love’s
did on the Phil Spector hit version — and he did a medley of “Rockin’ Around
the Christmas Tree” and “Jingle Bell Rock” with Jepsen. Bublé also did an O.K.
original called “Cold December Nights” which reminded me of a song I’ve heard
before but couldn’t place, and he did a comedy routine with Elmo from Sesame
Street (still voiced by Kevin Clash, the
African-American Gay man who created the character and became a
multi-millionaire from the licensing deals, only to lose it when he was accused
of molestation by four teenage boys, and in one case he’s being charged with
violating the Mann Act, that loathsome piece of legislation passed in the early
19-teens ostensibly to fight human trafficking, or “white slavery” as it was
called then, but has since been used much more as a “gotcha!” for uppity Blacks
like Clash and Chuck Berry, as well as some uppity whites, who’ve got on the
wrong side of America’s moral police) and a “ghost duet” with Bing Crosby on
“White Christmas.” Crosby’s part was taken from a 1971 NBC special (his face
looked like old leather and his voice had seen better days, but as the start of
the line of crooners that includes Sinatra, Bennett and Bublé, he’s still
superbly musical) and the “ghost duet” could have been genuinely moving (the
way Natalie Cole’s “Unforgettable” duet with her dad was) if Bublé hadn’t
gagged his way through it and answered Crosby’s straight lines from the original
telecast with rather lame jokes.
The low point of the show was Rod Stewart’s
appearance to promote his
Christmas album with the Mel Tormé-Bob Wells “The Christmas Song,” which was a
hit for Nat “King” Cole in 1946; I joked that Stewart sang it just like Nat
“King” Cole would now (just so
you know, Cole has been dead for 47 years), and whereas I used to joke that
Stewart sang like his throat has been used to strop straight razors to sharpen
them, now he looks like his face has been used to strop straight razors to sharpen
them. I’ve generally detested Rod Stewart — yes, “Maggie May” is a great song
(though his voice sounded old, hoarse and worn even that early!), and his cover
of Paul McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed” with Faces sounded stronger, ballsier
and more soulful than Paul’s original, but for the most part I can’t stand the
sound of his voice, and he’s even worse singing standards than he is singing
rock: every time the old North Park Rite Aid’s Muzak system played his version
of “These Foolish Things” in the last months before it was torn down to make
room for the La Bohème condo complex (a rich people’s building named after a
novel and opera about the struggles of poor people!) I would feel compelled,
once I got home, to play Billie Holiday’s record of the same song just to get
the foul memories of Stewart’s God-awful version out of my ears … and Stewart’s
“The Christmas Song” compares to Cole’s (or to the two versions I have of Tormé
singing it himself) about the way his “These Foolish Things” compares to
Billie’s. And it does seem rather
odd that in a Christmas special called Home for the Holidays, the song of that title wasn’t sung at all.
