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Photo by Studio 30518
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Photo by Studio 30518
Energetic swing band Good Shot Judy specializes in revitalizing songs from the mid-20th century; its members put a holiday spin on that formula with the release of “A Crooner’s Christmas.” The group will celebrate its long-in-the-works first Christmas album with a performance at The Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen featuring the full 20-member ensemble on Dec. 6.
The popular retro band is the result of lead singer Brett Cahoon and his younger brother, Jeff, aging out of their hard-driving punk band Ten Years From Now. “I was always a fan of big band swing,” Cahoon says. “I thought it might be a fun hobby to sing a few standards and learn to accompany myself on piano. Maybe get coffee shop gigs or play at a cocktail bar.” He enlisted his brother and found him an upright bass. “Things just snowballed from there,” he says.
The band — named for Brett and Jeff’s mother’s love of golf — grew quickly in size and acclaim. Its songbook might be retirement age, but Cahoon never gave up the punk commitment to immediacy. “We wanted to see this midcentury pop music performed the way it should be, as something vital and entertaining rather than as a museum piece,” he says.
That approach comes through on “A Crooner’s Christmas.” The album was born out of their annual seasonal concert of the same name. It is a rich, familiar vein to mine. “There is so much great big band Christmas music,” Cahoon says. “When you think about the great holiday classics, you think about Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole.”
Good Shot Judy started recording tracks in 2020, at a time when COVID-19 lockdowns put a pause on live performances. Again, things snowballed. “Originally, it was going to be our 10-piece band plus strings,” Cahoon says. “It ended up being 20 musicians. Then, we started multitracking so that it sounded like an even bigger band. Why have six horns when you can have 13? Why have a quartet when we can have a whole string section?”
Scale became the enemy of speed. “Every year since 2020, I thought, ‘I have this. I will just knock it out in January or February.’ But it got to be too much for me to manage,” Cahoon explains. “It sounds like an orchestra because the songs had 60 or 70 [individually recorded] tracks.” The growing complexity brought significant delays. Finally, with the mixing expertise of Cahoon’s friend Cole Clark in Nashville plus the professional finish of a talented mastering team in New York, a polished holiday album came together. “The record sounds super great,” Cahoon says. “We’re really excited to release it.”
The 14-song album starts off with a blast, as a big, bluesy horn and piano call-and-response leads into the very-much-of-its-era alcohol-and-wheedling-seduction classic “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” There’s also a take on Elvis’ “Blue Christmas” dripping with Dixieland decoration. The Darlene Love 1963 hit “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” recalls the original’s Phil Spector “wall of sound”-style of production.
Cahoon adeptly handles the vocals, with variety added by the backup singers who often channel the WWII-era close harmonies of The Andrews Sisters. The arrangements fit the busy, overstuffed context of the holidays, chock-full of clever ideas sprinkled through the glossy sonic mix. Each classically crafted song after the next takes its place in the spotlight — all warmly familiar and shiny as a newly minted penny.
Good Shot Judy celebrates the release of its holiday album, “A Crooner’s Christmas,” at The Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen on Dec. 6. The performance starts at 8 p.m., and tickets are $44 to $52.
