A-LISTS rage rhythms by tim parks
Let It Swing, Let It Swing,
Let It Swing: A Puppini Sisters Christmas
The holiday season is a time of tradition and always seems to
unite families in a way that is sometimes magical. That’s why it’s a perfect time of year for The Puppini Sisters to bring their own twist of stamping luscious three-part harmonies to the songs that make up Christmas with The Puppini Sisters. Although Marcella Puppini, Kate Mullins and Stephanie O’Brien
are not bound together by DNA, they are locked in 1940s-inspired perfect harmony on such staples as Wham’s “Last Christmas” and Bing Crosby’s “Mele Kalikimaka.” The Rage Monthly spoke with the group’s namesake, Marcella
Puppini, and she shared her thoughts on why Christmas don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
The Rage Monthly: I love the new CD, and I’m glad it’s a Christmas one… Marcella Puppini: Yes, isn’t it fabulous? Of course, we recorded it in July. But, even so, we were able to muster the complete spirit of Christmas in July!
Rage: That you did. And, how did the group decide upon doing a holiday-themed CD? MP: When we started it was 2004, and we were doing gigs in the summer. But, we
got into the full swing of things at Christmas, and one of our first gigs was at Vivienne Westwood’s Christmas party. We had started doing quite a lot of Christmas songs back then, and they’re so wonderful. And of course, every Christmas, we do them again and again and really enjoy putting them into our sets. Then suddenly we realized that we had this abundance of amazing music, we’ve got
to record it.
Rage: Of the 10 songs featured on the CD — is there a particular favorite of yours? MP: I’ve always really loved, and I know that a lot of people don’t agree with me,
Mariah Carey’s song “All I Want For Christmas.” For some reason, it just gets me every time.
Rage: How difficult was it to pare down the tracklisting? MP: Yes, we did have to have a lot of thinking for that, discussions and it got a little bit
heated at times. But not in a bad way! It was like, “No! I love that one!” There were a few that were obvious, because they were loved by all of us, like “Santa Baby.” Some of them were not even discussed; we knew we were going to do them. It was difficult to cut some of the ones that some of us really wanted to do. But, in the end we were really happy with the ones that we chose to record.
Rage: And seeing as there are three of you—how does the collaborative process work in selecting songs to perform? MP: Most of the songs we had to rearrange a little bit. So, we decided to arrange three
songs each; from the strings to the brass to the vocals, everything. Whoever said they wanted to do the song first; then got to do it. And then we each got down to the work. It was very…efficient might be the word. It worked out that nobody got disappointed or was left with a song they didn’t want.
Rage: So, nobody got the musical equivalent of coal in their stocking for Christmas? MP: Exactly! (laughs) We all got lovely presents.
Rage: On your last CD, The Rise and Fall of Ruby Woo, you ladies had written some original songs— was there discussion of penning a new holiday song? MP: Yes, we talked about it, and then because we had to keep it to a short ten songs;
there just wasn’t any space this time. Actually, that was a little bit of a heartbreaking one, because we really wanted to.
Rage: I’d be interested though to see, or to hear as it were, what you would have come up with… MP: I think that we probably will do another Christmas CD, because there is so much
more. We did get to do a semi-original Christmas song in 2004, which was called “The Little Match Seller,” and was based on the melody of “Silent Night” with entirely differ- ent lyrics and an original section added to it. I think now that we’ve done all of the big ones, I’m pretty sure that we will do another one, which will contain originals.
Rage: If you had just one wish for Christmas…what would it be? MP: Actually this year, my wish is coming true, which is me and my husband and his family and my family are all coming together. Really for Christmas I have no other wish than to be with my family.
To keep up with Marcella and her other extended family, the Puppini Sisters, log onto
puppinisisters.com
22
RAGE monthly | DECEMBER 2010
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