The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
John Gracie swings into Christmas
East Coast crooner John Gracie has been telling his audiences tales about Christmas time growing up in Glace Bay for decades, and the sharing of those stories has become as much of a tradition as the family rituals they portray.
Some are universal memories nearly everyone can relate to, with the radio in the kitchen tuned to CJCB’s stream of holiday songs while his mom made holiday treats and sang along.
Others are more like something out of the classic comedy A Christmas Story, although an adolescent Gracie didn’t shoot his eye out, he just did some damage to Fred Flintstone.
“When I was a kid, I always wanted one of those punching bags, the kind you inflate and when you knock them over they bounce back up again,” recalls the singer. “So when I got one for Christmas, I punched it and it went sailing across the linoleum floor into tomorrow morning and it hit the old pot-bellied stove and melted.
“I’ve still got an old picture of my dad sitting in his chair and I’m sitting on the arm of the chair with my Fred Flintstone punching bag that’s got a big piece of tape across his forehead. And the punchline is, every time I smell burning plastic, I think of Christmas.”
Gracie laughs when he admits he’s been telling that story for years, and will probably tell it again when he plays his upcoming Christmas concert at the Merigomish Schoolhouse Community Centre on Saturday at 7 p.m. (tickets at eventbrite.ca, or from LBR Gas Bar in Barney’s River and H&R Music in New Glasgow) and his free family show at Sydney’s Wentworth Park Bandshell on Sunday, Dec. 22 at 7:30 p.m. “I only had one childhood, these are the only stories I’ve got!”
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
He’s already packed many of those memories into his heartfelt song Cape Breton Christmas Morn, from his first holiday album I’ll Be Home for Christmas, recorded with acoustic guitarist Ken
Enman in the mid-1990s.
Since then, the song has become something of a Nova Scotia standard as it describes the sights, sounds and even smells — a pie in the oven, not plastic on the pot-bellied stove — of the season, inspired by family gatherings in their home by the ocean in Glace Bay.
“It’s the only Christmas song I’ve written, and probably the only one I ever will write,” says Gracie, currently touring with his new album Christmas Time Is Here — Let It Swing. “I’m kind of allergic to maudlin, whenever you see people that are a little too happy or a little too sad. Like the talk show host character Sammy Maudlin on SCTV, anything anyone ever said was either the funniest thing ever said in the entire world or something that just made him super sad.
“So when I’ve tried to write Christmas songs, they either seem like a bunch of cliches strung together, or just overly maudlin. Unless I truly get inspired by something else, I doubt I’ll write another. ... That song is sentimental, but I don’t think it’s maudlin.”
With the new album, Gracie wanted to get as far away from sappy sentiment as he could, keeping in line with recent concerts and recordings inspired by the free and easy vocal stylings of classic jazzpop vocalists like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett.
FAMILY EFFORT
Recorded partly in his own home studio, with final touches added at Ross Billard’s R&B Productions, Christmas Time Is Here — Let It Swing has a late night jazz combo feel that suits his silky baritone, with added bonus of a special guest vocalist: Gracie’s daughter Samantha, currently pursuing an acting career in Toronto.
About to appear in the upcoming comedy series The Influencers, the younger Gracie was able to record two tracks while on visits back home, the sultry proposition What Are You Doing, New Year’s Eve? and a duet with dad on a song not normally considered a Christmas song, Some Other Time from the Broadway musical On the Town.
Much like the way My Favourite Things from The Sound of Music has evolved into a Christmas standard because of references to sleigh bells, warm woolen mittens and “brown paper packages tied up with string,” Some Other Time’s lines “There’s so much more embracing still to be done, but time is racing” captures the hectic feel around Christmas as people try to catch up with visiting friends and family before the holiday ends.
“It has a reminiscent value to it,” says father John, who fell in love with Bennett’s version while picking songs to add to his classic crooners shows. “You could