Brett Young & Friends Sing the Christmas Classics will be available this Friday, 10/22, and it features Brett singing some of his favorite classic Christmas songs with some of his favorite fellow singers, like Darius Rucker, Colbie Caillat, Maddie & Tae and Chris Tomlinson. It turns out, Brett didn’t know it was going to be a collection of Christmas collaborations until he started asking people to sing with him. “It was very fluid,” explains Brett. “Last year we put out ‘Silver Bells,’ and we did that kind of low-fi, kinda different approach to ‘Silver Bells,’ and that was where the idea was born. So, the first thing I did, was with the ‘Silver Bells’ production, I went to Colbie and I said, ‘We need to do a song.’ So, we did that and then I totally just played that for everybody that I wanted on the record. And we didn’t know it was gonna be an ‘& Friends’ until everybody started signing on. And we got everybody we asked for, and I just tried to pick my favorite Christmas songs, the classics that I grew up listening to.”
While it’s usually hard to get an artist to pick a favorite song on one of their albums, Brett had no problem picking his favorite on his Christmas album. “For me, with the string section, ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,’” he says. “It’s always been one of my favorites but the way that that turned out and the way that Sam Fisher sang on that song … I love them all, love them to death, but something about that feels a little more timeless. I don’t generally like to listen to my own music, but that’s a song that I like to listen to often.’”
Besides a great collection of songs to share with his fans, Brett walked away from the experience of recording the Christmas album with some fun memories as well. When we asked if he had any fun memories of being in the studio, he said, “My favorite is the Darius story. He’s just so good at what he does that we did ‘Rockin Around the Christmas Tree,’ and he spent more time driving to and from the studio than he did in the studio. That’s how quick he sang the vocal on this record.”
While recording sessions can sometimes take hours, especially when people come into the studio unprepared, Brett says with Darius. “He came in and he was ready and he was excited and he had things to do, and he just slammed it and was out the door as soon as we had what we needed.”
As a fellow artist, Brett says, “It was one of those moments as an artist where I was like, I’m not just a fan of you as an artist, now I’m a fan of you as a professional and a singer, like through the roof. And he was in and out and crushed it, and it was almost like he was never in the room in the first place, but it’s on the record, so we have it.”
And you can have Brett Young & Friends Sing the Christmas Classics this Friday, on your favorite streaming or download service.
