A few months ago I saw a call for contributions of recordings of original holiday songs for a CD to be called “A Charlottesville Songwriters Christmas” to benefit a local charity. Around here there seems to be a law that when you name a business you have to name it either Jefferson (whatever), Piedmont (whatever), or Blue Ridge (whatever), so I decided to write a song whose name is a variation on “Blue Christmas” called “Blue Ridge Christmas.” I thought about trying to put together a band to record it, but some friends who I’ve played jazz with are also in a local soul band with a really great singer (note his day job), so I offered it to them, and they made a great recording of it.

For the holiday season, the Charlottesville Downtown Business Association made a video to encourage people to shop on the downtown mall and they chose this recording as the music. It was fun for me to see it, and it’s nice to know that letting my friends hear the song won’t mean ripping it from a charity CD and putting it where people can download it. This doesn’t quite compare with my brother’s work for VW or Wendy’s, but it’s fun to know that it came out well and that lots of people can see the video—and that the song has had a bit of airplay on WNRN!