Nearly three decades as a recording artist, Kenny Lattimore has added a smooth, soulful touch to Christmas with the release of his debut holiday album, “ A Kenny Lattimore Christmas.”
Five months in the making, the 11-track Motown Gospel project finds Lattimore reimagining beloved classic holiday standards including “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” and “The Christmas Song.” The Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter also provides listeners with new original compositions such as “Real Love This Christmas” and “Everybody Love Somebody.”
According to the seasoned R&B crooner, recording the holiday project was among his most liberating experiences to date.
“One of the things that I immediately thought was, Christmas gives me the fun, confined, place to do whatever I wanted,” he said during an interview with HuffPost. “It’s something about a Christmas album where everything doesn’t have to have the same kind of continuity that if I’m doing an R&B album one song has to flow into the next. Of course, it all gotta work together as one package, but I didn’t feel as confounded.”
While Lattimore went on to credit notable Christmas tunes from the likes of The Jackson 5, Mariah Carey, Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby as sources of inspiration, he also cites a non-holiday standard from Diana Ross’ 1972 motion picture soundtrack, “Lady Sings The Blues” as an unique element that helped shaped the project.
“I was listening to Diana Ross’ ‘My Man’ from ‘Lady Sings The Blues,’ and I said ‘I want the end of one of my songs to have this kind of feel, because the emotion of when she hits ‘Where ever my man is, I’m his forever,’ and I love how that makes me feel when I’m listening to it and I’m seeing her sing it,” he said. “So we took that and put it into one of the songs. And we just had fun by blending together all these different elements of things that we loved. And I think it gave it a different approach.”
For the 46-year-old Washington, D.C.-native, the timeliness of his Christmas release couldn’t have arrived at a better time, given the current state of political and racial tensions in America.
“Christmas music ― generally, if it’s based on the true meaning of Christmas ― it should give people hope,” he said. “And that’s what I loved about the opportunity to do this with Motown Gospel. I was able to do a song that we wrote called, ‘Everybody Loves Somebody,’ which really does touch on what has been exposed of our society is that it’s pretty much the same as it was back in the ‘50s and the ‘40s, and ‘20s. Our attitudes as a country have not changed.”
In an effort to alleviate the country’s preconceived notions, Lattimore encourages his fellow musicians to use their musical platform to help restore “hope.”
“I think much of our country is blind…we all try to make sense of things that we don’t control. But the one thing that we can control is our thoughts towards one another. And if we teach our generation to love one another and respect each other as human beings, no matter what our race is or economic status…I think it can circle all the way back to this music thing.”
“If we can use this musical platform to continually give people hope and uplift, then even during tough seasons we can push through and have a different perspective. Music helps us gain a different perspective,” Lattimore added.
Kenny Lattimore’s “A Kenny Lattimore Christmas” is now available in stores and digital retailers. Check out the video for “Real Love This Christmas” below.
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