CONCERT PREVIEW
Trace Adkins, “The Christmas Show”
8 p.m. Dec. 17. $39.50-$99.50. Atlanta Symphony Hall, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 1-800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com.
Trace Adkins slouches in a chair inside a sparse, yellow-walled dressing room in the bowels of the Fox Theatre.
Ever the gentleman, he quickly removes his cowboy hat once conversation begins and fixes his piercing, pale blue eyes on his interrogator.
Adkins is in town on this November afternoon to perform during the Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute concert being held that night at the historic venue.
But a few hours before showtime, he’s content to discuss his Christmas tour, based on his album “The King’s Gift” released last year, which will drop its Celtic roots at Atlanta Symphony Hall on Dec. 17.
As he talks in that bottomless, knee-weakening drawl that has coated nearly two decades of songs from “Every Light in the House” to “Just Fishin’,” Adkins absentmindedly twirls his flaxen hair into a knot.
This is the second year he’s brought “The King’s Gift” to the road, and it’s evident that the combination of traditional carols and narration is inspiring to him in a manner different than his country offerings.
Here are his thoughts on the live Christmas event.
Q: This sounds like a show that isn’t what we’ve come to expect from Christmas concerts.
A: It is a one-man play. There's narration between songs and we do the album "The King's Gift" in its entirety. I relate some anecdotes that we came across and some of the history behind the songs, which I've found fascinating and I think that the audiences have found it to be fascinating as well.
I wanted to do a Christmas album 15 years ago, and the record label people said, we want you to do “this” kind of record; we want you to do “Frosty the Snowman” and “Jingle Bells” with a country band, and I said I don’t want to do that. I knew then in 1998 that this was the kind of Christmas album I wanted to make, with a Celtic feel and traditional. And when I say traditional, when you heard these carols done 100 years ago, this would have been the instrumentation that you would have heard on these songs. That’s the record I wanted to make.
Q: Is there a specific reason you’re drawn to the Celtic influences?
A: There was some point in my life in my late teens when I was exposed to Celtic music. It touches me in some kind of primal place. I can't explain it. It takes me back to my spiritual roots, my core, musical roots. I'm drawn to it, I love it. I've never had an opportunity to perform it until I thought, I should do a Christmas record like that. So that afforded me the opportunity to jump into that pool.
Q: It must be a different kind of challenge for you on stage.
A: It makes me a nervous wreck. I'm out front with a scrim between me and the 12-piece ensemble. To stand in front of this incredible group of musicians night after night is just amazing. I've enjoyed every night. That's the reason I really wanted to do it again this year, because I enjoyed it so much.
Q: Have you seen other Christmas shows over the years that you looked to for inspiration?
A: I have done the narration for the Christmas Candlelight Processional at Disney World for the last five or six years. It gives you some history about the songs that the orchestra plays, and they have the Disney singers and a 300-member choir and you stand center stage. I love doing that. That's where I got the idea for this, because of the narration between those songs. I basically just stole it.
Q: Is there a special reason you chose “The King’s Gift” as the title of the album?
A: It came from "The Little Drummer Boy." He was going to see the newborn king and his friends were taking gifts and he didn't have anything to take and then he thought he had his talent to offer, that he could play his drum. We close with "Little Drummer Boy" and I say the title of the album and the show is what we want you to take from this — that the best gifts that we give one another don't have price tags on them. They are the gifts of ourselves, our talent, our time, our love. YOU are the king's gift. That's what it's all about.
