Sounds of the Season : 6

DARLENE LOVE

( on David Letterman )

This was the very first one of the annual holiday tradition, 1986.




David Letterman ends his show this spring, so tonight will be the last Christmas for the show.

The NYT's take this week :

Darlene Love would like it known that she is available at the holiday season to perform “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” under certain conditions.

“It’s still a Christmas song till Jan. 1,” said Ms. Love, the rock, soul and gospel singer, as she sat in a Midtown Manhattan bistro on Thursday afternoon.

But she has vowed not to sing it for any other TV talk-show hosts after David Letterman, the man who gave her an on-air platform to perform it for nearly 30 years.

“People say, ‘He can’t demand that,'” Ms. Love explained, sweeping back her curly platinum hair. “I say, ‘He’s not demanding.’ I made a point myself, and I want to do it just for David.”

Television is rich with year-end traditions, whether it’s Rudolph’s resplendent nose or Charlie Brown’s defeated Christmas tree. But now one of these enduring institutions is about to fade out like so many Yule logs.

A few hours after this interview, Ms. Love, 73, stepped onto the stage of the Ed Sullivan Theater and sang this signature song on Mr. Letterman’s “Late Show” for the final time.

Her prediction was that, when she concluded that show (which will be broadcast on Friday night), “it’s going to be a weepy moment, for me anyway.”

“I hope I don’t look like a clown by the time it’s all over,” she added.

Ms. Love’s annual presentation of this song, which she originally recordedfor the 1963 Phil Spector album “A Christmas Gift for You,” is one of several customs that will come to an end when Mr. Letterman departs his CBS program on May 20.

Her association with Mr. Letterman goes back to 1986, when she sang the song on his NBC show, “Late Night,” with the bandleader Paul Shaffer and what was then a four-piece rock group trying to replicate Mr. Spector’s echoing Wall of Sound style. THE REST