Brandise Daneswich; Lera PenteluteJackson Browne lends backing vocals to young singer/songwriter Phoebe Bridgers‘ new rendition of “Christmas Song,” a 2008 tune by Nebraska-based indie-folk act McCartney Trenching.
The song is a melancholy ode to the depression some people deal with during the Christmas season. Browne’s harmony vocals are heard during the majority of the track.
According to a note posted on the Dead Oceans label’s website, Browne’s contribution to Bridgers’ recording came about after the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer attended one of her show’s last year in Los Angeles around the holidays, during which she covered [‘Christmas Song’] for the first time.”
“[H]e came up to me after the show to tell me how much he loved the song,” she explains. “A couple days later, [McCarthy Trenching frontman] Dan [McCarthy] got a Bandcamp notification on his desktop computer that someone paid 50 bucks for his record and wrote a nice note and signed it Jackson Browne. He thought someone was f****** with him. So when I decided to record a version of the song, I knew who I wanted to sing on it. Plus, I have wanted to make music with Jackson as long as I’ve wanted to make music.”
You can listen to Bridgers’ version of “Christmas Song” on Dead Oceans’ official YouTube channel.
Meanwhile, Jackson will play a pair of benefit concerts on December 3 and 4 at The Actors’ Gang theater in Culver, California. The shows will support The Actors’ Gang, a repertory company guided by actor/director Tim Robbins that provides arts education to Los Angeles-area students and rehabilitation programs to prisons and juvenile detention centers.
Browne will be joined at the concerts by his longtime backing singers Chavonne Stewart and Alethea Mills, and multi-instrumentalist Greg Liesz.
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