Not Your Average Jingle 🎄🔔

My Obsession with Non-Traditional Holiday Music

My father, Chuck King, in 1946. This photo was in the paper in his hometown!

Before I dive into this week’s post of holiday music frenzy, I want to say benevenuto or WELCOME to my new followers—there are a lot of you! Each week, I share all sorts of things that I find interesting, whether it’s historical factoids, recipes, Italy travel and history, and whatever is catching my fancy. And books! Lots of talk about not just my books, but books in general. But if you are wanting to hear more about my latest novel, In The Garden of Monsters, you can check me out at some of these places:

• On Mic podcast with WBZ Radio host, Jordan Rich

• A Mighty Blaze - Interview with Thoughtful Bro, Mark Cecil

• Advice to Writers with Jon Winokur

A quick note: BOOKS make an amazing holiday gift 🎁 for someone you ❤️! And I have three of them to consider. If you want to gift yourself, In The Garden of Monsters (An Amazon Editors’ Choice and BookBub Critics’ Choice) is currently a $5.99 ebook deal! And if you want to give me a gift, a review of one of my novels on your favorite book site would mean the world to me. 🙏

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Let’s Talk Holiday Music —Non-Trad Style

As I mentioned in my last post, I love the Christmas season. All the trappings, the rituals. And I especially love the music. And sure, I love the traditional carols and would be perfectly happy spinning up Dean Martin or a Charlie Brown Christmas. But I particularly love discovering new carols in the indie and new wave vein. I’ve got a playlist that is 3.2 days long with over 1400 songs (and it’s always growing). These are non-traditional…no White Christmas on this list!

I also love when indie musicians cover the classics. Years ago (eek 12 of them!), when I was still doing PR, somehow the musician Vanessa Peters found me and asked if I was interested in doing some freelance publicity work for her holiday album The Christmas We Had Hoped For. Of course I had to say yes! It started a friendship that has crossed the Atlantic, rooted in a shared love of Italia. Vanessa croons both new and old holiday tunes on this fantastic release. The album is still one of my holiday favorites.

Vanessa also has a new album out (her 11th I think?), Flying On Instruments, which I adore and highly recommend you check out!

My favorite band is Editors (go figure)…and I rather like them a lot as my Unwrapped this year demonstrates (top .1% of listeners worldwide!).

And I especially adore this song by lead singer Tom Smith, who has a side project with a friend, Andy Burrows.

One of the most well-known Italian Christmas carols outside of the US is Caro Gesu Bambino which means "Dear Baby Jesus." It's a newer carol, dating to about 1960 and one of the earliest American-known singers to cover it was Frankie Avalon. The lyrics are here if you are interested, and below, Italian treasure Andrea Bocelli does a beautiful version of the song.

And if you are a masochist, I give you the ultimate Last Christmas playlist.

Also, the video for it is really gold.

Buon Natale my friends!🎄🎁⛄And Buone Feste to those of you who are celebrating other holidays. I wish the best for you and yours this season.

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Thanks for Joining Me

If you love food and love Italy, and haven’t read THE CHEF’S SECRET or FEAST OF SORROW, click the links to learn where to buy your copy! And now you can order IN THE GARDEN OF MONSTERS!

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