The Abominable “O Holy Night”: Revealed

SM: In the summer of 1990, I was orchestra director at a world famous church here in Nashville (CC). The musical director asked me to produce a Christmas album for the choir. This recording was a fully orchestrated recording with a 200 voice choir and I produced and orchestrated the whole album. The recording was praised by critics and a newly formed record label picked the project up and released it on their label and sold a few copies, but most of the units were sold by the church.

It was a big, long process with hundreds of details. My good friend and engineer for the project (Kevin) and I had just completed all of the recording process. In other words everything was on tape. The tracks were done, the orchestra was done, we had recorded 200 voices and a smaller group of guide vocals, and the last thing we had completed were the individual solos. It was a Friday night and we had just finished recording Guy Penrod’s solo. It was about 11:00 pm and Guy was the final part of the puzzle before we started mixing We were in a “let off a little steam” mode and us two red-necks were cutting up.

Now, Guy was not yet famous, but later became very famous with one of the groups mentioned above. Guy is extremely tall and rugged and is the nicest human being you would ever want to meet. He has a great heart for God and he sings high B flats. But Guy has very long hair, down past his shoulders, and with the shorter cuts of the yuppies, it was not the norm for somebody to have hair that long. Guy also played with his hair during the session, pulling it back and shaking it from time to time while singing into the mic.

My hair was about a half inch on the sides and sweeps sideways to cover the bald spots. Guy had left the building when Kevin said, “Man that Guy can really sing, you reckon it’s the long hair that lets him sing that high?” To which I replied,”Nah, I don’t have long hair and I can sing that high.” Kevin laughed, “You can’t sing that high!” I asked, “Give me a track and I’ll show you.”

JG: Take us through the recording minute by minute.

SM: Kevin started the now famous intro of my orchestration, my production of CC choir. I began to sing. I knew I had a long way to go before the high notes, so as I started, I decided to demonstrate everything I had ever heard bad singers do in my career. If I hit the same pitch twice, it would not be the exact same pitch. If I held a long note I would go sharp for a while then flat for a while, never holding a true pitch just as most amateur singers do. I over-emphasized words, I emphasized the wrong syllables and I breathed in awkward places. (One of the Belmont University vocal teachers used this recording to demonstrate to her voice class what bad singers accidentally do, not knowing it was me singing.)

The basic tone quality of my own voice did not have to be tampered with too much, I do sound like crap! My brother is a great singer and has sung for major artists. I was a great child singer. I could carry a independent harmony part at 5 years old and made my first recording in 1964 when I was 9. But when my voice changed it changed for the worse.

Kevin was laughing, we were silly, and I was playing with my half inch hair mocking Guy, shaking my head and flipping my hair back. (Sorry Guy if you ever read this, I love you man, but I’m telling the truth here.)

And then we got to the high chorus.

Guy actually does not sing the melody at the high part in the original, the choir takes the high part with a lot of power and energy. We did this arrangement at CC many times and the house is on their feet at this point. Guy sings after beat fills but he does go up to A’s and eventually ends on a B flat. It is awesome, and we did this song every year from then on at CC, it was a real crowd pleaser.

Instead of backing the choir, I sang the melody at the big part. Well, I knew I could not reach those notes. I can’t reach an F on a normal day. But we were letting off steam, celebrating the end of months of hard work and I got the “superman” syndrome and just decided on the spot to go for it! So I went for it! To my surprise I actually had some kind of sound up there, but it was obviously not a pleasant sound. Kevin started laughing uncontrollably which just gave me more encouragement. The highest note was coming, I was already on a D above Guy’s B flat which is absolutely beyond anything most men can sing but I realized I could not reach the G on “divine” so I switched to a falsetto. The switch was not a smooth transition and as I came back down my voice was almost spent so I dropped down the octave preparing for the end, which is more subdued. I was really hurting to the point that at the end I gave up singing and recited, “You know it was Dee-vine that night.”

I had just enough voice to sing the last, “O night divine” to which I starting seeing just how flat I could go, and for one final added “bad singer” device, I took a big breath in the middle of a sustaining note on the worse possible syllable and came back in and held it to the end.