i tracked down the son of the sax soloist from patti labelle’s ‘background singers’ disaster
While the whereabouts of the background singers themselves remain unknown, Ricky Parrell had some fresh intel on what went down that day.
Well, the candy canes and silver lanes are aglow and the Happy Honda Days are nigh, which can only mean one thing: It’s time for Patti LaBelle’s performance of the Donny Hathaway classic “This Christmas” at the 1996 National Tree Lightning Ceremony to go viral once again.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, do yourself the hugest of favors, stop reading this piece and watch this immediately before proceeding:
As I previously explored in an essay published by Grindr’s Into two years ago, this blessed clip has reliably recirculated every year in the lead up to the holidays, and this year has continued the trend. Specifically, everyone can’t stop thinking about what happened to the background singers that were so internet-famously shamed in front of the live C-SPAN2 audience, plus millions more in the decades that have followed:
Now, I kid you not when I say I think about this video at least once a week, if not more. It lives more than rent-free in my brain — I feel like I owe some people money for allowing me to enjoy it anew week after week, year after year. Everything about it is perfect in its imperfection, and LaBelle handles whatever snafus that layered themselves like a cursed holiday trifle that day impeccably.
So, as part of my ongoing campaign to be known as a leading scholar of this historic moment in pop culture history, I did some more digging. This year, I had to find the background singers.
To cut to the chase, despite many hours of googling and scrolling through YouTube comments, I still am not any closer to locating these singers. But I did stumble upon a fascinating individual who was able to shine some light on that December day.
Meet Ricky Parrell. Parrell is a saxophonist and member of a military band in D.C. He’s also, yes, the son of none other than Rick Parrell Sr., the soprano sax player whom LaBelle was tasked with introducing ahead of his “This Christmas” solo. Shooting my shot, I emailed Parrell and asked if he would answer a few questions about his family’s role in this iconic clip. He very graciously responded and agreed to an interview. Below is our conversation:
Your father played a key role in what’s turned out to be a video that goes viral every holiday season. What does or did he think of it? Was he aware of his piece in this phenomenon?
The D.C.-based military bands rotate paying that job every year and the band my dad was in at the time got a particularly cold year during the Clinton administration. He remembers it being so cold that all the background singers were in a warming tent away from the stage and didn’t get the call from the production team that they had to go on. … I know the dress rehearsal went well and all was well and good prior to the actual live show.
Was this incident something that was ever talked about in your family prior to its internet resurgence? What about the event or the day more generally?
I never heard about it until it went viral! Like most gigs in our town, you play and then get on the bus without much interaction with the actual guest artists. After freezing for hours, my dad says his initial thought at the time was “That was weird, can we get on the bus now?”
What was your reaction to this video spreading around? Do you recall how you first saw it?
I actually first heard it when I was on tour myself and another bandmate of mine showed me! It spread like wildfire after that and has been a household favorite of ours ever since. My dad does not even really understand how internet famous he is!
Is there anything about that day/this event that you think is taken out of context or missing from the discourse on the viral video itself?
The one thing I would like the world to know is that the band had been sitting there for hours in the cold (like most military bands do) and they still sounded fantastic! These bands are full of consummate professionals that always sound great, no matter what. It was not the band’s fault. There was a lack of communication between the production and the guest artist (who also kills, given the circumstances).
Anything else you think folks should know about this?
We do these gigs all the time and it is rare something goes sideways. Ms. LaBelle improvises and sings! It just happened to be caught on C-SPAN, in front of a sitting U.S. president!
So, there you have it — we can possibly blame the weather for the background singers’ late arrival. If you are interested in listening to Parrell’s music, you can stream his first album, Keys to My Life, here.
To wrap this up, let’s be clear: Patti LaBelle is an icon, through and through. LaBelle was also featured this week by the New York Times alongside Dolly Parton and Barbra Streisand in celebration of “three of America’s most beloved divas.” She also recently sold an incredible 1,500 sweet potato pies per hour in the lead up to the Thanksgiving holiday. She’s a survivor, a multi-hyphenate and an institution. All “let me see that card, let me see that cardigan” jokes aside, let’s all show some respect to America’s No. 1 auntie this holiday season, and always.
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Read: Juno and The Umbrella Academy actor Elliot Page announced this week that he is transgender and I’ve been very struck by the overwhelmingly positive response to his coming out. Maybe it’s just due to my personal social media bubble being what it is, but I’ve been happy to see things like correct usage of pronouns and a lack of deadnaming becoming the norm. It’s too early to know the real impact of Page’s announcement, but this essay from Kasey LeBlanc for WBUR I think really speaks to what is most meaningful about this news:
“No, after the initial shock of delight, what stood out to me most was that the celebration wasn’t contained solely within the trans community. Scores of people, some celebrities, others ordinary cisgender allies on my social media feeds, were sharing words of congratulation and delight. Elliot’s joy was no longer just Elliot’s, and perhaps in becoming collective, that joy became just a little less fragile.”
Watch: Mariah Carey just came out with a brand new Christmas special for AppleTV+, and I have to admit I’m a sucker for these sorts of things. The glitz, the pomp, the cheesy humor — these star-studded specials always hit just right during the holidays. Carey’s festive offering to the holiday special canon checks all those expected boxes, to be sure, but its standout moment is a VH1 Divas-esque performance of her song “Oh Santa!” featuring Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson.
Listen: A song I keep coming back to this year is one that surfaced from my dear friend Britt’s How We Felt Spotify playlist, a mix she put together in October after querying her IG following to describe how they were feeling at that time. The song is Arthur Russell’s “This Is How We Walk on the Moon.” Put it on, it’ll change your day — and maybe even your year.