Matthew Nelson of Nelson
[Updated] For many, Nelson is the answer to a trivia question: What twin blonde guitar-playing brothers had a hit in 1990 with “Love and Affection”? Matthew Nelson acknowledges that his profile isn’t what it once was this week on “The 12 Songs of Christmas,” where he talks about This Christmas and This Christmas Too, companion albums that were released in 2015 and 2016. Each features the songs with a mix of vocal and instrumental tracks; songs that feature vocals on one album are instrumentals on the other, and vice versa.
Matthew Nelson and his brother Gunnar are third generation in their family in the public limelight after their father, singer Ricky Nelson, and their grandparents Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, who had their own sitcom Ozzie and Harriet from 1952 to 1966. Matthew remembers Christmases with his family and talks about how he and Gunnar came to make not one but two Christmas albums, and why he considers “Blue Christmas” the hardest Christmas song to cover.
The albums became part of a plan to do Christmas shows each year, and this year their Christmas tour starts on November 23 and runs through December 21. Go to their website for tour dates and tickets.
After that conversation, host Alex Rawls talks about the holiday music of Chris Mastheim, a series of EPs that match live samples of modern rock, pop and hip-hop with Christmas music. Chris Mastheim is a pseudonym for Nicholas Krgovich, who makes just enough of an effort to match the sound of his recordings to those he referenced to give his tracks layers. They’re available on Bandcamp.
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Updated Tuesday, November 26 at 9:06 a.m.
The coverage of The Molly Burch Christmas Album appears in the next episode of “12 Songs.” The text has been changed to reflect the actual contents of this episode.