WEBVTT

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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
The Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Hear

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weekday afternoons on the Drive Love It. Raymond Arorero is a Fox News contributor

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appears regularly on The Ingram Angle.
He is also a New York Times bestselling

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author and acclaimed vocalist. He unveils
the hidden backstories of some of the most

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beloved Christmas songs in his upcoming three
hour radio special, which we will air

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Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas weekend right here, and his debut album, Christmas Mary

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and Bright, is already topping Amazon's
Music Jazz charts. Welcome Raymond Arroyo.

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Hey Lee, I'm so delighted to
be on the program and so excited to

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bring people this special Christmas Marry and
Bright playback Stories, because it's sort of

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the backstories, the origin stories of
all these Christmas songs that we so love

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and that are part of our lives. We've been singing them for years.

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But I bet a lot of people
don't realize the significance of bells on bobtail

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ring. Well, now you're going
to get me into all kinds of trouble.

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Lad you know? My wife after
I recorded the album. You know,

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when I was building the album Christmas, Mary and Bright, I went

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back and pulled all these lyrics and
then I said, I'm going to do

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a deep dive and find out who
wrote them, what was the context,

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what was their intention? And I
have to say I was shocked by what

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I found lee No less when I
looked at jingle bells. Now, this

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is a song we've heard like a
thousand times. You've heard a million children's

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choir sing it. We've heard it
for years. It is not at all

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what you think. First of all, the song was originally called one Horse,

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Open Sleigh. Okay. It was
written by a guy named James Lord

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Pierpont. JP Morgan was his nephew. It was written in Medford, Massachusetts,

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in a tavern, which is an
indication of what the song is really

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about. Medford. Medford was known
for rum production. That's what they did.

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They made rum and they drank a
lot of it in the wintertime and

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apparently when it snowed down the main
street of Salem, they would have drag

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races in the snow. Now,
James Lord Pierpont was a skirt chaser.

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He left his wife. He ran
after women he married the Mayor of Savannah's

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daughter. So the song is really
about drinking, girl chasing and drag racing.

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That's what the song is about.
Now people say, oh no,

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no, don't run it for me. I'm not running anything. That's the

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history. And when you go to
the third verse and listen to it,

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the lyric is now the ground is
white, go it while you're young.

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Take the Laurel tonight and sing this
slaying song. I mean, it's all

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about getting a girl alone in a
sleigh in the dark. And the jingle

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bells, by the way, we're
needed because you had no headlights in the

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dark when you were alone with the
girl racing, so they had to jingle

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the bells so you knew the oncoming
sleigh was on its way and to avoid

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any other calamities. So that's what
that song's about. So when we were

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to do the album, Kevin Cosca, who did arrange The Greatest Showman and

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Lion King and The Dark Knight,
he was our arranger on this and we

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decided to set all these songs in
their original context. So jingle Bells has

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a decidedly randy arrange. I love
it, I love it, and hark

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the Herald Angels thing is appropriately you
know, of a high octane and dynamic,

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because that's another one that's been sort
of leeched of its drama, leached

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of its dynamism. And when you
dig into what that is about and what

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it was intended to be, it
changes, It just changes your whole approach.

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Certainly my performance as well. Well. The performance is on the album

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Mary and Bright by Raymond Arroyo,
and that is that out yet, it's

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already topping Amazon's Yeah, okay,
so that's out. And then the three

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hour radio special will be heard on
this station Thanksgiving weekend and also Christmas weekend

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at various times. I'll be posting
those a little bit later on what brought

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you to music? You've been singing
all your life? Well, in my

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early life, I I sang in
musicals. I was trained as an actor,

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and you know this, the old
album really came about. Every year

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on my Christmas show, I would
feature what I call great voices of Christmas,

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Jose Feliciano and Andy Williams and Aaron
Neville Keeley Smith. So I sang

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with these people over many years,
and a record producer approached me and said,

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have you thought about doing your Christmas
album and I said, no,

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I haven't so, but I went
back dug into these songs and realized,

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yeah, there's something here that I
could contribute to the Christmas canon. And

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I love what we've done. It's
you know what it is more than anything

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else. Ly, it's an explosion
and an infusion of joy at a moment

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when the world needs it most.
I think. So it pays respect to

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our great Christmas carols, it gives
new life to some contemporary Christmas songs,

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and it's continuing the threat, continuing
the tradition, and that's what I love

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about it. And I think that's
why it's on the top of Amazon's Jazz

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release and it hit Billboard's charts because
it's resonating with people. There's something that

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once traditional about it, but new
and fresh, and that's what we wanted

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and I'm thrilled we could do it. That's what people are looking for too.

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I think, Yeah, we love
the old favorites and the songs that

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we grew up with, but then
every now and then you need to freshen

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things up a bit, you bet, no, no, And look,

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we crave traditions at Christmas time.
It's a time for families and friends to

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come together. And these songs they're
eternally you know. When I started looking

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at them, I thought, more
than any other genre ever made, this

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is the only genre that your great
grandparents sang, you'll sing, and your

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children's children will sing. There's no
other genre like that. So there's a

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certain reverence you have to come to
some of these songs with and we did.

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And then there's others that you know, you can play with and bend

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around the edges. And I love
that we were able to have fun,

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dive into both the sacred and the
secular here and revive them a little bit,

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bring them to a new audience,
and you do it in a fun

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way that's accessible, I think cross
generations. And Raymond Arroyo does it with

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Christmas, Mary and Bright, available
now on Amazon and everywhere you get music.

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Be listening for the three hour radio
special where he talks about the behind

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the scenes, hidden backstories of some
of these beloved Christmas songs. As a

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trained singer and actor, did you
ever get into sight reading or do you

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just kind of wing it by ear? Lee? It's all by ear But

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I'm in good company, you know. Sinatra Judy Garland. They didn't read

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music emails. I figure they can
do it. I can do it,

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but yeah, I mean I can
kind of read in between now and then,

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but no, they have to play
it out for me and I have

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to do it by ear. And
look, we're going on the road.

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I'm Josea Lusiano and I are going
on the road doing a five city Christmas

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tour. People can go to Raymond
Arroyo Christmas dot com. We start in

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Phoenix Thanksgiving weekend when the special airs, and then we're in Dallas and Tampa

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and Cleveland and then Nashville at the
Ryman Auditorium on the twenty first. So

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it's going to be a fun tour
and I hope people will get the album

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and listen to the special Christmas.
Mary and Bright play backstories, all the

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backstories, belove Christmas songs, and
Amy Grant's on the special with me,

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jose and others. So it's a
lot of fun and I think it will

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change. It's not only going to
lift your spirits, it will change the

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way you understand and appreciate these songs. And you can do so by getting

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your copy of the album. Raymond
Arroyo Christmas Mary and Bright. The special

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will be aired Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas
weekend. And Merry Christmas to you,

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Raymond Arroyo, thanks for joining us
Harry Christmas, Thank you for having me

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late. Ry Christmas you and all
your listeners. Thanks for listening to Later

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with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews
Podcast, and remember to listen to The

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Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to
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