OUT NOV 28TH
A VERY
CARPER CHRISMAS
OUT NOV 28TH
Melissa Carper’s new album, A Very Carper Christmas, releases on November 28th. Listen to the single “Made With Love” now!
With three critically acclaimed solo albums under her belt, and hot on the heels of her duets with Theo Lawrence recently released by Warner, what to our wondering eyes should appear this holiday season from the timeless sound of Melissa Carper, but A Very Carper Christmas—a fresh collection of future classic holiday songs brimming with equal parts nostalgia, sly humor, and goodwill for all.
Carper credits the spark for a Christmas album to her friend Ben Kitterman, whose family has a tradition of putting her Daddy's Country Gold album on repeat each Christmas season. Detecting her natural affinity for the genre, he challenged her to pen an album of original holiday compositions. What first felt daunting soon became a passion project. Carper reached out to her long-time friend and old Camptown Ladies bandmate, Gina Gallina, to see if she would be interested in co-writing the album. Barely an hour later, she received an email from Gina with five witty ideas sketched out. Immediately inspired, Melissa began adding melodies and chords to Gina's lyrics. It was on. In a weekend of creative alchemy at an Airbnb in Arkansas in the Spring of 2024, they crafted a song cycle that captures all the heartfelt, heartbreaking, and joyous notes of the holiday as many of us experience it today. As Gina Gallina reflects, “Melissa’s songs all come from the heart. She don’t blow smoke.”
“A fresh collection of future classic holiday songs brimming with equal parts nostalgia, sly humor, and goodwill for all.”
Strictly speaking, this could be considered Carper’s second experience with a Christmas recording: connoisseurs might track down a rare, circa-1980 cassette of The Carper Family Band’s Violet in the Snow, featuring a 7-year-old Melissa on vocals and electric bass. Christmas carols, both secular and sacred, filled the family’s home in North Platte every December and were a seasonal staple of the family ensemble’s performances at nursing homes and American Legion halls across rural Nebraska. “I have good memories from all of my childhood Christmases,” Carper notes of that formative time. There’s an effervescent nostalgia built into these new songs, with their call-outs to rotary phones and to playing Trivial Pursuit by the tree, sung in Carper’s signature croon that harkens back to an even earlier era of holiday classics by Frank Sinatra, Loretta Lynn, and Nat King Cole. But, as Carper incisively diagnoses, “Christmas is a tradition, but it’s also a transition,” a lens through which we view how life changes from year to year. A Very Carper Christmas has songs that speak to children’s breathless anticipation, to the sorrow of being alone or estranged at the holiday, and to the celebration of connection (or reconnection) with family and friends. “I could say I have experienced all of those things, so it wasn’t that hard to write about,” Carper summarizes. On this album, she gives us all a voice and a new reason to celebrate the meaning of the holidays.
With 15 tracks consisting of the Carper-Gallina collaborations, three Carper solo originals, co-writes with Katie Shore and Brennen Leigh, plus two classic covers, Carper headed to Nashville’s analog wonderland, The Bomb Shelter, to record. Producers Andrija Tokic and Dennis Couch, Carper, Gallina, and a top-notch troupe of musicians assembled in January 2025 to bring the songs to life. Carper’s Austin-based crew (Emily Gimble, Katie Shore, Greg Harkins) joined her Nashville regulars (Dennis Crouch, Chris Scruggs, Jeff Taylor, Chris Gelb, and Doug Corcoran, along with Tim Crouch for twin fiddle duties with Shore), gathering around a Christmas tree borrowed from friend Susan Hamilton to resurrect the holiday spirit. There was even a cheeseball, in homage to Carper’s mother’s tradition of bringing this classic offering to every yuletide affair.
Fans can expect Carper's signature stylings, from Country and Western Swing, R&B, to Folk, Cajun, and even some Latin vibes on A Very Carper Christmas, due right around Thanksgiving - just in time for Christmas shoppin'! Carper will also support the great JD McPherson on his annual holiday tour in December 2025. It's going to be a holly jolly Christmas this year!