K.C. Jones and Daniel Coolik: A Very Melancholy Christmas
K.C. Jones and Daniel Coolik: A Very Melancholy Christmas
2021
It started with a postcard K.C. received. It was a simple “Season Greetings” postcard and scribbled on the back , “Christmas Album?”, signed, Clarence and Clarice. No address, no phone number, nothing. As bizarrely as they had come into our life they had vanished after we recorded the “Spirited Melancholy” EP in August and September of 2020. Journalists have asked us for their address or phone number but we never had it to give, I mean, we didn’t even have their last names. Even we had further questions for them that would have to remain unanswered. Not a word until this mysterious “Holiday” postcard, received in the non-holiday month of September.
In the wake of the pandemic, which has hit musicians very hard (as it has many others), we are offering the option – but not the obligation – for you to add a donation on top of your download purchase to further support production of this release.
For those of you late to the story of Clarence and Clarice, they were a much whispered about production/writing team that were supposedly ghost writers/producers for some well known labels in the 1960s and 70s such as Speciality, Tangerine, Starday, and Kama Sutra. In the end nobody knows how much of that is true since their names hadn’t been on any of the labels, it had just become musical lore really. Which made our chance meeting with them so bizarrely serendipitous.
Back to this album you are reading about, “A Very Melancholy Christmas”. Not long after K.C. showed me the postcard she received, their burgundy 1972 Buick Rivera spontaneously turned into K.C.’s driveway. They opened up that fastback trunk and got their only suitcase out, a well worn leather travel bar suitcase, and knocked on her door. The four of us got right to work, well we made cocktails first, but THEN we got to work finding songs and thinking about a new way to interpret the holidays. Right in front of you, you are seeing the digital treasure of the quest we went on. Our Christmas has joy, pathos, warmness, and the bittersweet memories of melodies we all know. And so, we present this collection of Holiday music for our times. Thanks again to our production heroes, who without their idea and work ethic I don’t think we would have gotten this off the ground. We hope you enjoy this album as much as we enjoyed making it and that it will serve as a soundtrack for your Christmas memories for years to come.
K.C. Jones and Daniel Coolik, both currently based in Lafayette, LA continue to play in various musical projects. Together, they play as a duo and perform songs from their Spirited Melancholy EP as well as songs in a similar vein in dark cocktail lounges with shag carpet from the Gulf Coast to the Gold Coast.
Sample Tracks
Tracks
Christmas Time Is Here
Lee Mendelson, Vince Guaraldi/Lee Mendelson Film Productions Inc. (BMI)Two Winters Long
Naomi Neville/EMI Unart Catalog Inc. (BMI)
Ole Santa
Clyde Lovern Otis/Third Side US Publishing OBO Clyde Otis Music Group (BMI)
Christmas Island & Mele Kalikimaka (medley)
Lyle L. Moraine/Universal Music Corporation (ASCAP) and Robert Alexander Anderson/Demi Music Corp. DBA Lic Lovely Hula Hands Music LLC (ASCAP)
This Christmas
Donny E. Hathaway, Nadine McKinnor/Crystal Raisin Music; Kuumba; Microhits Music Corp, Universal Music-MGB Songs (ASCAP)
River
Joni Mitchell/Joni Mitchell Publishing Corp. (SOCAN)
Credits
Daniel Coolik- Electric guitar and bass
K.C. Jones- vocals, percussion, rhythm guitar on “River”
Melancholy maker- melancholia
All songs recorded and engineered by Daniel Coolik
Mixed by Daniel Coolik and K.C. Jones
Mastered by Aaron Thomas
A Clarence and Clarice production
Cover photo Acadiana Mall Santa Team
Cover layout and design: K.C. Jones