WCLK Program Director and Serenade To The City Host Aaron Cohen has dropped in a couple of Christmas songs into overnight rotation from New Orleans' own Kermit Ruffins, whose Have A Crazy Cool Christmas covers everyone from Sammy Cahn to Donny Hathaway. If you're digging the gumbo Christmas vibe of this record, you can purchase it from Amazon and support WCLK by clicking below:
From Basin Street Records:
Whether listening to a track on his newest CD, engaging him in conversation or hearing his voice on an answering machine message, one word springs immediately to mind to describe Kermit Ruffins.
Passion.
The 44-year-old New Orleans native lives it, plays it and sings about it, and nowhere is it more evident than when he discusses his craft the swinging, good-time jazz that lured him in as a teenager and continues to whet his appetite even three decades and 10 solo recordings later.
To cap off a busy year, the perpetually swinging Ruffins expects an early November release for his first holiday recording, which also features a blend of traditional staples and new songs all delivered via Ruffins playful lyrics and powerful rhythms.
"I always wanted to do a Christmas record. Its my favorite time of the whole year," he said. "Every year around the holidays we do a party at the House of Blues and, as soon as one ends, Im always looking forward to the next one."