Darlene Returns With Dave

I can’t believe I almost forgot! It wasn’t until a few minutes before I left work that I remembered it was the night of Darlene Love’s annual appearance with David Letterman.

Actually, Friday night on Letterman must have been really weird for Cate Blanchett. She was the middle guest, between Jay Thomas’ yearly retelling of the Lone Ranger story and his football toss (trying to knock a meatball off a Christmas tree) and Darlene Love’s singing Christmas (Baby, please come home).

There must have been a “what am I doing here moment” for poor Cate.

This was not the best I’ve ever seen Darlene. But, to paraphrase an old saying, even her worst would be amazing.

This is a big budget night with strings, extra horns, a standup bass and various percussionists. As ridiculous as it sounds, I enjoyed hearing Paul count down (1,2,1,2,3,4) under Dave’s intro.

I remember seeing a full gospel chorus backing Darlene a few years ago. This year it was nine singers. Hey, nine is a pretty big number.

Not everything was perfect. It looked like the timing for the ‘delivery’ of Bruce Kapler&#185 and his saxophone was off, but the effect was still nice. He came out in red, head-to-toe.

I so look forward to this performance every year. A minute or two before it aired, I switched on my homebuilt DVR. This afternoon, I edited a clean version which now sits on my computer desktop.

It isn’t Christmas without Darlene Love.

&#185 – I originally credited the sax playing to David Sandborn. I appreciate the correction.

4 thoughts on “Darlene Returns With Dave”

  1. Thanks to you this was my first brush with Darlene Love on Letterman and I’m still humming the tune and tapping my toes. This will now certainly become a Christmas tradition in my house. Thanks for the unexpected holiday gift.

  2. Geoff,

    Thanks for reminding me that I had Darlene’s appearance on my DVR.

    FYI: The sax player with Darlene wasn’t Dave Sanborn, it was the Late Show’s regular sax guy, Bruce Kapler.

    Merry Christmas,

    FV

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