Posted on 12/18/2005 4:17:23 PM PST by paulat
Lutes + Synthesizers +Rock Beats = America's Most Popular Christmas Music?
By JODY ROSEN
Published: December 18, 2005
The Kansas Coliseum is a 12,200-seat hockey arena that rises above a wind-lashed plain 11 miles north of Wichita.
[snip]
The crowd had come to see the instrumental ensemble Mannheim Steamroller, but the music onstage was just part of what the band likes to call "the complete Mannheim Christmas experience," a full sensory immersion in holiday pomp. Carolers roamed the arena corridors. Santa-hat-wearing ushers distributed programs. Balconies were festooned with holly. The pièce de résistance, located at the rear of the arena floor, was the 2,000-square-foot "Christmas village" diorama: a snow-dusted Old World hamlet inhabited by glassy-eyed dolls and encircled by a chugging miniature train. About a half-hour before the show started, four men dressed as toy soldiers marched out in lock step to stand sentry around the diorama's perimeter, a well-timed bit of theater, since several kids looked ready to break free from their parents' grasp and stampede across the thing, crushing houses and villagers underfoot.
Just after 7:30 p.m., Mannheim Steamroller - a six-piece band backed by a 22-member orchestra - hit the stage. In the middle, sitting high atop a riser, was Chip Davis, the group's 58-year-old drummer, composer, producer and mastermind. For more than two decades, Davis has made his living trading on the American passion for Christmas songs. He looks the part. A stout, ruddy man with tousled reddish-brown hair and a close-cropped beard, he has an air of jolly St. Nick about him - Santa Claus as a Midwestern Regular Joe.
But Davis is not quite an Everyman. He is one of the most successful recording artists in the history of American music.
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
AACK!!! I made a horrible posting mistake...can you please change the link to "The New York Times Magazine" and the reporter to "Rosen." So sorry!!! Fumble fingers!!
If you haven't seen Mannheim Steamroller, you NEED TO GET TICKETS. They are AWESOME!
I wonder how much of this success can be traced to Rush constantly talking about them.
Go see them and make up your own mind. They don't need Rush.
Mannheim Steamroller = CW McCall, good buddy.
mega-dittoes - that's where I first heard of them.
they are in Philly Tuesday night for Philly Freepers
Not sure which mod is up tonight...
Oh, thank you! Thanks for making the changes!! I get the idiot prize tonight, fer sher!!
Led by C.W.McCall, probably best known for the 1975 hit(?) "Convoy."
I have seen them on TV, A&E, I think, and they are awesome, would love to see them in person. I'm going to check to see if they're coming to my area.
I won't hit the NYT, but thanks for the part of the article that you posted, it sounds so cool!
I saw that, I always check their schedule around Christmas. Philly is a bit far off (I'm in Norfolk). I missed them in Charlotte too, but hope to catch them next year (with some advance planning on my part)!
Sorry if I sound like a Planned Non-Parenthood flack.
Nope, those guys rock out a little too much to be MS
You have mail.
Music is an almost theological question! To each his own, but I just LOVE these guys. :-)
If it is, they play every Friday night at the Gables Tavern in Warren, Ohio.
Far out. One of the strangest pieces of trivia I've seen lately.
Hendrix: Little Drummer Boy......
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