Spendin’ Christmas in Steve Wariner’s arms
Certified guitar technician Steve Wariner accrued 33 Top Ten singles in the ’80s and ‘90s, accentuated by such chart-topping mid-tempo ballads as “All Roads Lead to You,” “Some Fools Never Learn,” and the Academy of Country Music’s Song of the Year “Holes in the Floor of Heaven.” AllMusic aptly correlates how the Kentucky transplant’s “low-tuned guitars and wide range of his singles brought frequent comparisons to Glen Campbell’s early hits.” The spirit of six-string wiz Chet Atkins permeates Feels Like Christmas Time, his apprentice’s 23rd studio album and third holiday record out now. Shift into fourth gear as the “Life’s Highway” troubadour engagingly covers the bases of his evolving 50-year career in an exclusive yuletide summit.
The Steve Wariner Interview, Part One
Besides being a multi-dimensional singer, guitarist, producer, and songwriter, is it true that you are illustratively gifted?
I’ve designed a few of my album covers [Guitar Christmas (2003), Guitar Laboratory (2011), All Over the Map (2016) and Feels Like Christmas Time (2021)]. The latter has an exclusive pen and ink cross-hatching style drawing if you buy the vinyl. I haven’t issued music in that format in years. Pull the insert out with the recording credits. Turn it over and you’ll discover my sketch of Santa Claus playing a Gretsch guitar and rocking out as some little elves work on an amp in the background.
Any other treats contained in the limited edition white vinyl?
There’s an autographed poster. We’re actually giving away a guitar. There’s gonna be one golden ticket that we hid in the vinyl, and some lucky person’s gonna pull that out and win a double cutaway G5622 Gretsch guitar plus a signed merchandise bundle [congrats to Thomas P. of Delaware]. It’s a really beautiful, black and gold electric guitar. I thought we came up with some pretty cool ideas for Feels Like Christmas Time.
In 2020 I contacted “Whisperin’” Bill Anderson about an overlooked western called Stranger on the Run. He co-wrote and performed the theme song for the Henry Fonda-starring, Don Siegel-directed NBC movie of the week in 1967. I was flabbergasted that Mr. Anderson replied himself, generously agreeing to an interview. Coincidentally, track four on Feels Like Christmas Time is “Christmas in Your Arms,” which you wrote in tandem with Mr. Anderson. What’s the story there?
I always brag on Bill. He’s the best I’ve ever seen as far as composing the second verse of a song. He was driving the car for sure on those lyrics. “It was only last December, I had no Christmas spirit in my heart, my world lay cold and shattered in the ashes of a dream that fell apart.”
That lyric cuts to the bone.
Bill is a real poet, and an ain’t-no-joke songwriter. I remember the first time I ever wrote with him. I was so intimidated. I was going, ‘Oh my God!,’ because I was aware of his body of work and history. Bill is a big deal and one of my favorite writers in the whole world. We have a really good rapport and have never left a writing session without coming up with something of value, even if it’s done remotely on a rainy day while braving the remnants of Hurricane Laura [late August 2020]. The chemistry is just there when we collaborate.
[Author’s Note: Five years after Wariner drove his soul-tugging take of Anderson’s career-starting “The Tips of My Fingers” (I Am Ready, 1991) to the Billboard C&W Top Three, Anderson inducted the 41-year-old Gretsch troubadour into the Grand Ole Opry. Before 1996 was over, the duo had become occasional songwriting partners. So far the almost-chart-topper “Two Teardrops” and 13 additional compositions are confirmed — “Christmas in Your Arms,” “One Small Miracle” (Bryan White’s The Right Place, No. 16 C&W, 1997), “Forgiveness” (Anderson’s Fine Wine LP, which Wariner and wife Caryn produced in 1998), “Before” (Anderson/Wariner/Sharon Rice, Fine Wine), “Make Sure You’ve Got It All” (Collin Raye’s The Walls Came Down, 1998), “I Don’t Know How to Fix It” (Wariner’s Burnin’ the Roadhouse Down, 1998), “Two Teardrops” (No. 30 POP, No. 2 C&W title cut of Wariner’s gold-certified 1999 album), “Talk to Her Heart” (Wariner/Anderson/Jim Weatherly, Two Teardrops), “I’ll Always Have Denver” (Two Teardrops), “Faith in You” (No. 28 C&W title cut of Wariner’s 2000 album), “Make It Look Easy” (Faith in You), “Blinded” (Wariner/Anderson/Sharon Vaughn, Faith in You), “Love Is a Fragile Thing” (Anderson’s A Lot of Things Different, 2001), and “Amnesia” (The Del McCoury Band’s The Streets of Baltimore, 2013)].
Who originally recorded “Christmas in Your Arms?”
I flipped over “Christmas in Your Arms” and knew it had the potential to become a holiday perennial. One day out of the blue, we got a message that Alabama had recorded it on their second Christmas collection [Christmas Vol. II, 1996].
Four years later I cut a solo version and Capitol [Wariner’s record label from 1998–2001] distributed it to radio [Wariner’s final A-side on a major label]. Not many people heard it although critics gave it nice reviews [a brief chart residency stalled at No. 65 C&W]. Capitol eventually prepared two Christmas compilations that included it [Shimmy Down The Chimney: A Country Christmas, 2004, and Country Christmas, 2007]. It was so cool when Bill put his interpretation on his Christmas record [No Place Like Home on Christmas, 2002].
I would see Bill at the Grand Ole Opry around Christmas time. He’d tease me by saying, “Are you gonna do ‘Christmas in Your Arms’ tonight? Or am I gonna do it?” I’d retort, “Bill, we can both do our versions. It don’t even matter” [laughs].
In 2009 Bill called me and asked, “Are you sitting down? I need to tell you something. Ruben Studdard [winner of American Idol’s second season in 2003] has cut ‘Christmas in Your Arms’ as a single!”
I was born on Christmas Day, and the holiday is obviously my favorite time of the year. I write a couple of Christmas-themed songs annually. During quarantine I started the song selection process for my third Christmas LP and realized that “Christmas in Your Arms” had been kinda lost in the shuffle. It had never found a home on one of my albums, and if folks had heard it at all, they were probably sitting in the audience at the Opry. I could have slotted my original version from 2000 on Feels Like Christmas Time, but I wanted to reimagine it a little.
How did COVID-19 impact the sessions for Feels Like Christmas Time?
Coronavirus protocols made me do this album very differently. I love being face-to-face with fellow players in the studio. I don’t like layering tracks. Since it wasn’t feasible to have a lot of musicians come out to my Twangra-La studio near Nashville, I played 90% of everything on the record except a couple of instruments. Drums, upright bass, mandolin, even all the background vocals and string arrangements were done by me. A caveat — I don’t play well enough to play strings, so I brought out a string quartet to handle my arrangements. Matt Rollings emailed me some keyboard stems. Jimmy Mattingly was able to visit Twangra-La and play violin on “Our Savior Is Born.”
Besides “Christmas in Your Arms,” I revisited other songs from my catalogue such as the title track [originally dropped as an iTunes A-side in 2009]. “Feels Like Christmas Time” was more of a demo-y version all those years ago. You might say it sounds more holistic now. I wrote “On Christmas Morning” [alongside Lisa Silver, a Music City background vocalist and also Wariner’s lyrical partner on “L-O-V-E, Love” from 1990’s Laredo] and “Our Savior Is Born” for my first Christmas album [Christmas Memories, MCA Records, 1990]. The original versions are still out there if you wanna try and spot the differences.
A nerdy question — what kinda keyboard takes the initial break on the song “Feels Like Christmas Time?”
That is a Fender Rhodes courtesy of Randy Hart. He plays at the Opry and has worked with me for years. You can hear me plunking away on secondary piano occasionally during the album, but anytime you hear a piano lick and think, ‘Ooh, that’s cool, I love that’ — it’s not me [laughs].
Jim Hoke’s flute solo follows the Fender Rhodes on “Feels Like Christmas Time.” Jim is a brilliant musician also adept at woodwinds and steel guitar. Jim gave me about five different options for the song. He played harmonica in addition to saxophone and clarinet. I kept going back and forth, but I wound up loving his flute contribution so much. And the flute sounded the most fun and Christmasey.
I oscillate between the title cut and “Christmas in Your Arms” as my favorite pick from the album. Is it a safe bet that you’re drumming on both?
You are correct. I played drums as a kid. I don’t look at myself as being a great drummer, but that was more out of necessity due to COVID. I finally relented and reckoned, ‘Crap, I’m gonna just do it myself. I gotta keep moving forward here.’ I’m on bass, too. It turned into a challenge. It’s weird to explain for people that aren’t in the music world. Basically, you start from somewhere. It’s establishing the rhythm foundation for me. I’ll get behind my drum kit to get something on tape and build upon later [i.e. overdub].
It’s a process of layering instruments. You must have the ability to foreshadow in your brain — ‘What’s gonna be here?’ There’s a lot of going back and redoing parts. If you have a room full of musicians, reacting and bouncing ideas off each other spontaneously occurs. You naturally know when to stay out of each other’s way. That’s why I prefer musicians record live in a room. Overdubbing alone forces you to try and make it sound spontaneous when it’s not. I’ll circle back and realize, ‘Oh, I did this electric lick here. Maybe I won’t do this acoustic lick there.’ It’s super tricky and time-consuming, which is why I spent four months completing the album.
The mix for the Feels Like Christmas Time album is warm and satisfying to my ears in spite of all those instruments you layered without other musicians surrounding you. There’s no shrill, recorded-on-a-laptop-in-your-bedroom vibe.
I’m glad to hear that. My entire concept on this record was to make it feel warm. I know that’s a cliché word for Christmas, but I wanted an even-keeled record that could be put on the turntable and played in the background while you’re trimming the tree or wrapping gifts.
I actually wrote a couple of songs for Feels Like Christmas Time that didn’t make the final tracklist. They were rockin’, up-tempo, with kinda goofy lyrics. But you know what? I didn’t want a song to stick out like a sore thumb and jump out at the listener. Ethereal, understated, soothing — those are the qualities I sought. This album is not really that country at all, except for “Christmas in Your Arms.” I did that by design. I wanted the record to lean more towards smooth jazz [best exemplified by “On Christmas Morning”].
You penned 6 of the 11 songs on Feels Like Christmas Time and have been a composer since your premiere A-side — 1978’s “I’m Already Taken.”
Thank you for mentioning that. My guitar playing and voice are known, but my songwriting tends to get buried. That’s okay. It’s the way it is.
Speaking of songwriting, I neglected to mention the last song on the album — “It Won’t Be Christmas.” Jim “Moose” Brown [a keyboardist in Bob Seger’s latter-day Silver Bullet Band who also co-authored Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett’s drinking anthem “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”] and I collaborated on it a long time ago, but we didn’t record it until now. It really sets a mood.
Come Christmas I’ll be playing “Our Savior Is Born” and “The First Noel” on my iPhone for my church congregation. You can separate the wheat from the chaff on “The First Noel” and determine whether a singer can cut the mustard. And you can.
It’s funny you say that. “The First Noel” is tricky. It’s deceiving because it gets real range-y. It’s similar to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It starts down here and winds up way up there [laughs].
When you hear the acoustic guitar solo on “The First Noel,” that’s Chet Atkins’ little Del Vecchio guitar he gave to me years ago [in 1977 Atkins signed his future certified guitar player to RCA Victor; Atkins, who joined Elvis Presley on acoustic guitar for the trailblazing “Heartbreak Hotel,” mentored Wariner until his 2001 passing from cancer]. It’s a Brazilian-made resonator guitar. I get it out and record with it every once in awhile. So Chet lives on.
DON’T GO ANYWHERE YET! Part Two of the interview, “Off Script Watercolors,” ignites next.
“Feels Like Christmas Time” Tracklist
- “Feels Like Christmas Time” [written by Rick Carnes and Steve Wariner, previously a 2009 digital A-side]
- “Silent Night” [traditional arranged by Steve Wariner; formerly an electric guitar instrumental on 2003’s Guitar Christmas]
- “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” [Instrumental; traditional arranged by Steve Wariner; this same acoustic guitar take also emerged on 2003’s Guitar Christmas]
- “Christmas in Your Arms” [written by Bill Anderson and Steve Wariner, originally a 2000 Capitol single]
- Medley: “Away in a Manger” / “O Little Town of Bethlehem” / “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” [Instrumental; traditional arranged by Steve Wariner; this same acoustic guitar take can be found on 2003’s Guitar Christmas]
- “On Christmas Morning” [written by Lisa Silver and Steve Wariner; originally on 1990’s Christmas Memories]
- “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” [Instrumental; traditional arranged by Steve Wariner; this acoustic guitar-powered edition is the identical performance lifted from 2003’s Guitar Christmas; a vocal rendition appears on 1990’s Christmas Memories]
- “The First Noel” [traditional arranged by Steve Wariner; cut in 1990 as a segment of a vocal medley on Christmas Memories, then as an instrumental medley with “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” on Guitar Christmas, and ultimately as a complete vocal performance in 2021]
- “Our Savior Is Born” [written by Steve Wariner; version one is on 1990’s Christmas Memories]
- “Tennessee Snowfall” [Instrumental; written by Steve Wariner]
- “It Won’t Be Christmas” [written by Jim “Moose” Brown and Steve Wariner]
© Jeremy Roberts, 2021. All rights reserved. The Steve Wariner interview was edited for clarity, brevity, and sequenced cohesively. To touch base, email [email protected] and mention which story led you my way. I appreciate it sincerely.
