Musician Rodney “The Soul Singer” Stith (Photo by Dave Parrish)
Santa Claus has 364 days to prep presents for those on his nice list. Richmond label Shockoe Records had substantially less time when taking its new holiday album from ideation to compilation. The recently released Christmas-themed record — “A Shockoe Sessions Live Christmas!” — brings together some of the city’s standout musicians.
“As we always do, we have a harebrained idea, we give ourselves never enough time to put it together, but we make it happen,” Shockoe Records’ chief communications officer and production coordinator, Reese Williams, says with a laugh.
Label co-owner Craig Martin pitched the idea for a holiday compilation album during a late-September meeting at Manchester’s Legend Brewing Co. Though Shockoe Records is still a fledgling company, founded in 2022, its foundations support exactly this type of challenge. The label’s leadership is steeped in production experience, and its performer roster is deep when it comes to genre diversity. Plus, its network expands weekly, thanks to the Shockoe Sessions Live Tuesday-night concerts showcasing local musicians both streamed from and in person at the label’s headquarters, In Your Ear Studios in Shockoe Bottom.
Image courtesy Shockoe Records
Due to their connections, finding talented area artists to contribute wasn’t the hard part; “A Shockoe Sessions Live Christmas!” features label signees Ant The Symbol, Weldon Hill, Høly River and Rodney “The Soul Singer” Stith, alongside a who’s who of stylistically varied acts inside the broader Shockoe orbit. Timing the recording was trickier.
A three-week turnaround meant quick studio work, including some marathon sessions at In Your Ear with a single set of sleigh bells being whooshed back and forth between the building’s studios A and C. “The sleigh bells were in constant demand,” Williams says. But the deadline also provided motivation to artists who’d dreamed of writing a Christmas song one day.
“That’s what so many of them told us,” Williams says, “that they’ve always wanted to, they just never really got around to it.” She notes that more than half of the tracks are original compositions. “Some of them are funny, some of them are very Disney-Hallmark-esque. You can tell they’re just going to grab everybody.”
Holiday shoppers can grab “A Shockoe Sessions Live Christmas!” locally at two record stores: Plan 9 Music in Carytown and Crossroads Records at Stony Point Fashion Park. A portion of proceeds from CD sales will benefit hunger-relief nonprofit Feed More.
If organizers get their wish, it won’t be the last time Shockoe Records assembles an all-star lineup for a holiday album. “We cannot wait to get an insane roster of bands together next year,” Williams says, adding, “with more time, of course.”
