in 1964 Darlene Love recorded “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” for the album “A Christmas Gift For You,” commonly referred to as “The Phil Spector Christmas Album.”
The song’s authorship is credited to Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry, and Spector. To what degree Spector...a twisted, exploitative, and abusive man...actually participated to the songwriting I can only speculate.
What can’t be argued is that he brought his “Wall of Sound” production to the record, with musicians that included Leon Russell on piano, Sono Bono on percussion, Cher on backup vocals, and a raft of “Wrecking Crew” musicians. I have the CD and it’s great, featuring other amazing artists such as Ronnie Spector. But the absolute stand-out of the record is “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home.)”
There are a few Rock & Roll Christmas records I love. I was so excited to see Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” reach #1 on the Billboard charts this year, 65 years after she recorded it as a 13 year old. Also happy for the estate of Johnny Marks, who not only wrote that song but also “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer,” “Run, Run, Rudolph,” “Holly Jolly Christmas,” and the entire soundtrack to the Rankin/Bass Rudolph special.
But there’s nothing I love as much as “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home.)”
In the mid-eighties Paul Shaffer and his band began performing the song as an instrumental bumper during commercial breaks on David Letterman’s TV show. This prompted Letterman to ask about the song, and in 1986 Darlene Love made her first appearance on the show, performing it with the regular band.
Love would go on to perform the song 28 times, missing only 2007 when the show was on hiatus due to a writer’s strike.
Each year the production became more and more elaborate, culminating in her final appearance on Letterman’s show in 2014. I think there may have been more musicians on that tiny stage as in the audience. A wall of sound, indeed. And Love was 73 years old at the time and sounded better than ever.
Since 2015 Darlene Love has performed the song annually on The View, missing 2021 due to COVID exposure.
But I have dearly missed seeing her perform this song on Letterman’s show since it went off the air.
And then this year, I got a very special Christmas surprise. Love reunited with Paul and Dave and performed the song in its most stripped down version yet. While there’s a drum kit at the rear of the set it goes unused, with only Shaffer’s rollicking piano playing and three back-up singers accompanying Love. At 82 years of age, she still brings tears to my eyes with her performance, which begins around the 5:58 mark.