This year, Gavin DeGraw released A Classic Christmas, his first holiday EP, and through December 16 he’s doing a mini-residency inside Cafe Carlyle at New York City’s famed Carlyle Hotel. He tells ABC Audio why he liked the idea of doing a run of shows in a small venue in the Big Apple.
“It felt romantic for a Christmas holiday type thing, the holiday season type thing. And the Carlyle is nostalgic and legit, particularly when I think about the disappearance of so much great live music from the city of New York,” Gavin says. “It’s nice that there’s still a beautiful haunt to go to and see music … be around the types of people who appreciate live music and want to hear it at its best. So to be included in that scene is a huge honor.”
During his shows, Gavin is playing A Classic Christmas straight through to “get people in the Christmas spirit and give them that hot cocoa moment.” Then he likes to “mix it up with the other thing that I do.”
Gavin is a huge fan of Christmas music and says he listens to it year-round. So why did he wait 20 years to make a holiday album?
“Having interviews with people and them asking me things like, ‘Hey man, what are your favorite records?"” he laughs. “And I kept mentioning a Christmas record in the mix. It was like, ‘Hey, I love Bing Crosby‘s White Christmas.’ … So you realize, ‘Why aren’t I singing any Christmas songs ever, if there’s an opportunity to do it?"”
You can see Gavin December 20 on ABC’s Good Morning America and on December 22 on CBS’ A Home for the Holidays.
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