A Very Special Christmas – Super Boffo Bonus Episode!
In this Very Special Episode of Sick Burns, we look at one of the biggest charity records of the 1980s — a decade full of charity records. “A Very Special Christmas” has been a holiday juggernaut since the first album was released in 1987. The album was produced by Jimmy Iovine, and is a compilation of Christmas standards from the hottest artists of the 1980’s. Iovine was inspired to make something special to commemorate his beloved father, who passed just after the holidays in 1985.
Iovine called out the big guns, dusted off the Phil Spector playbook, and produced a classic. All proceeds benefited (and continue to benefit) Special Olympics, which now counts the Very Special Christmas albums as its largest source of funding.
About the Album
The cover art was by artist Keith Haring, whose distinctive style was highly sought after in the 1980s.
The Pointer Sisters contributed a version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town, reminiscent of Darlene Love’s version on legendary producer Phil Spector’s 1962 classic, “A Christmas Gift To You From Phil Spector.”
The band U2 contributed the classic track, Baby Please Come Home, recorded by Iovine at a soundcheck in Glasgow. Later they filmed this video in Baton Rouge. U2’s track is also patterned after the version on Spector’s ’62 album (which featured vocals by Darlene Love).
Run DMC wrote a track especially for the album called Christmas in Hollis. The song’s video was directed by two NYU film students and won Rolling Stone’s award for best video of the year, beating out Michael Jackson’s Bad, which was directed by Martin Scorsese. (Check out our episode on Al Yankovic’s parody of that one!)
How A Very Special Christmas Was Made
A fantastic 1987 piece in the L.A. Times on the album chronicled an awkward promotional photoshoot in NYC, during which the artists were pelted with critical questions about their participation in “another” charity album — this being on the heels of records like We Are the World and Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas.”
“At that point, I said, ‘OK, I’ve got to do something or else I’m going to associate Christmas with this terrible time in my life.’ I said to Vicki, ‘Let’s make a Christmas album. I’ve always wanted to do this and it will be great therapy for me. Let’s give the money away to some great people who could really use it and let’s have some fun.’ ”
Jimmy Iovine, on the inspiration for A Very Special Christmas, L.A. Times, 10/25/87
Iovine decided to donate the proceeds from the album to The Special Olympics as a way to take money completely out of the equation as a way to get artists to participate. Jimmy Iovine’s wife Vicki was a volunteer for the organization and suggested the relationship to her spouse.
Special Olympics, begun by Eunice Kennedy Shriver (sister of President John F. Kennedy), is the world’s largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual and physical disabilities. Shriver was inspired to create the organization after being frustrated by the lack of inclusive activity options for her intellectually disabled sister Rosemary. Special Olympics continues to do amazing work across the globe. Why not consider a gift to them?
Hello to Elizabeth and Margaret. I very much enjoyed your podcast about Red Red Wine. Thank you for helping a…