Singer/songwriter Richard Marx was inspired to record a Christmas EP this year (11) after spending eight successive annual festive singing sessions with his three sons.
After his wife asked for a recording of her boys singing Christmas songs, Marx made it a tradition to gift her with one-off demos of the kids belting out tunes like Silent Night and I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day.
And this year, he decided to record an EP, which he has released for fans too.
He says, "I realised I had an EP sitting there. If I just replaced them with my voice and kept their background vocals, not only do I have a Christmas record but I have my sons singing with me."
Marx recorded the album live with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra this past summer (Jun11), and asked pals Sara Watkins and The Tubes frontman Fee Waybill to join him.
The whole project went so well, Marx is now hoping to release a full Christmas album in 2012 - something he never thought he would do: "I would go, 'Oh, my God, I can't do a Christmas record. That's for old people.'"