Lead singer and original member of The Beach Boys Mike Love and his whole family have gotten together to release a brand new Christmas album, which they are currently touring with. Along with the freshly released 12-track album Reason for the Season, the tour will also feature tunes from the 1964 Beach Boys Christmas Album.
The new album dropped at the end of October and quickly took the #4 spot on on Billboard’s Holiday Album Chart and #6 on its Independent Albums Chart. Along with a new version of “Little St. Nick,” the title track featured above, “Reason for the Season,” has found critical success.
On the album, the current members of The Beach Boys are joined by Love’s children — Ambha, Brian, Christian and Hayleigh Love — who provide choral voices on five tracks: “Do You Hear What I Hear,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “O Holy Night,” “Away in a Manger” and “Bring a Torch.” Mike’s sister Maureen is also the featured harpist on “O Holy Night.”
“Not many people know that my sister is an accomplished professional harpist,” Love said. “She also played harp on the Beach Boys’ recordings of ‘Catch a Wave’ and ‘In My Room.’ ”
With so many members of his family working on the record — his son Brian was also responsible for the cover art — Love told Trib Live he is reminded of Christmas when he was a kid:
“My mom was one of eight children, so I had lots of first cousins,” Love told Trib Live. “At Christmas time, all the cousins got together and practiced songs, and then we’d go caroling around our neighborhood,” he recalled. “We’d come back to a wonderful feast prepared by my mom and her mom.”
The Southern California native was recently nominated for induction in the 2019 Songwriters Hall of Fame. Love was one of the driving creative minds behind The Beach Boys’ lyrics, including “California Girls,” “I Get Around,” “Fun Fun Fun,” “Good Vibrations” and “Kokomo.” The ceremony will take place in June, but right now, Love is all about Christmas.
“It’s such a joy to create this music with my actual family and my family of collaborators.” He added, “There’s so much commercialization around the Christmas holiday, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It’s a great time of year for celebrating, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that it’s about the birth of Jesus —and with all that’s going on in the world today, only love can conquer hate.”
And today we celebrate...