CHRISTMAS IS A TIME for warmth, love, family and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.
And entertainer Ian Webster has captured these sentiments in his 2015 Christmas release entitled The Christmas Hymn.
“I had the song written since last year and I really and truly wanted to record it for Christmas 2014 but the elements didn’t come together as well as I would have hoped. I always had it on my checklist to do for 2015 and everything just came together nicely this time around and that’s how the song came to be,” he told WEEKEND BUZZ about the Darien Bailey-produced song.
When he was writing it he thought about things that are Caribbean: “Christmas is about Christ and secondly we don’t have snow, we don’t have mistletoe and all those kinds of things so I thought to incorporate Caribbean elements that we have: sparrows, blackbirds, nice sunsets and those kinds of visual elements that Caribbean people can relate to . . . .
“I wanted to make the song relatable to people who are of Caribbean origin so I fitted in those elements and tried to capture that warm home atmosphere, that love that exudes in the family circle especially around Christmas time because Christmas usually brings family together but at the end of the day, the reason for the season is Christ so I tried to make sure I kept it as Christmas-centred as possible,” Webster said.
He added, with a laugh, that although he had written the three verses “in no time”, it needed a change section and he tweaked a few lines while working with Bailey.
The Christmas Hymn was released earlier this festive season and is being played on the radio stations. It features the Springer Memorial School choir, as well as musicians Victor Linton (guitar), Romaro Greaves (saxophone) and Sherry Ann Maughan (background vocals).
The entertainer told WEEKEND BUZZ that while he has no immediate plans to produce another song for the season, next year he will make a video for The Christmas Hymn and explore the possibility of getting it on an international label or with a distributor.
“I think it has that kind of potential. That’s where my mind is at in terms of this particular song. I will probably do another Christmas song but not in a year or two. I want to build this. Christmas only comes once a year so next year I will probably do a music video and look at having it distributed.
“While I was in Trinidad doing PR with Alison Hinds, it was on rotation on Ebony [FM],” Webster said.
He noted that it was not at all hard to write a Christmas song as they were several themes that could be used, different perspectives and angles compared with writing songs for Crop Over. (Green Bananas Media)
