Discography

I never dreamed I could get in the Christmas mood at the beginning of a very warm September, but when I recorded this album I managed to achieve just that. Tony Visconti decorated his studies with holly, crackers, tinsel and snow and as a result we kept London’s 1986 Indian Summer at bay at Good Earth for a month.

I called in a team of experts to help me with my Yuletide research. This basically consisted of Tim Rice lending me his Christmas Song Book. But, how else would I have found “Thirty-two Feet and Eight Little Tails”. It was recorded by Dale Evans, wife of “King of The Cowboys” Roy Rogers, in 1951, and also by another legendary singing cowboy, Gene Autry. Most of the other songs are much better known, with the exception (at the time of recording) of a new song from Don Black, Julia Downes and Johnny Warman called “Father Christmas Eyes” and a number from Jimmy Webb’s project ‘Animals’ Christmas’ entitled “The Coldest Night of the Year”.

Tommy Körberg also willingly laid down his chessboard at the Prince Edward Theatre and walked one whole block to the studio to take up his drum and sing with me.

At the end of the photo session, with the famous Terry O’Neill, I donned a fake fur hat & jacket along with some fake mistletoe to get in the Christmas spirit and had some fun and these ended up being our favourite shots and they became the album cover photos!

Note: ‘Christmas’ was a top 30 hit on the British album chart and attained a Gold certification by the BPI (The British Recorded Music Industry) for sales in the UK – this award marks sales of 100,000 units of an individual album title to UK retailers.