Christmas In July With Lisa Layne

Lisa Layne:  Yes, I did. The first show I heard of was ‘A Closer Walk With Patsy Cline’ and that came from Canada. A friend of my husbands was the fictional disc jockey in the show. They already had a Patsy picked out and they had been working on it for a month when he said, “Hey, would you like to audition?” I thought, me and about another million women, but sure! He knew me from seeing me perform with different bands.

LL:  I sent in a cassette! Now that really dates myself. They flew me out to Rock Island, Illinois and told me they would audition me there. It took three days which is absurd but anyway they hired me. I just kind of jumped in the first national tour. About half way through the five-month tour I began to get calls from other producers from one theater or another and it snowballed from there. Different productions would wait for me to be finished doing one run and start another. This went on for over a year. I was going from one production to another.

LL:  Yes, it’s a scripted show.

LL:  Yes, my whole family is a bunch of musicians. My mother was a toe dancer. She really liked musicals whether they were on film or live on stage. She always took us to see musicals when we were kids and I always thought I would be doing that when I grew up. It always looked like so much fun to be talking one minute and then bust into a song the next minute. I was in lots of musicals when I was in High School.

LL:  I grew up on 70’s pop music and that’s what I love. My grandfather was a fiddle player and he kept telling me I was going to like Country Music when I grew up and I didn’t believe him, but I’ll be darned if that didn’t happen. High school came along and a fella that I liked listened to Country music and drove a pick up. That’s when I knew I had to start listening to Country music. Well, I started listening to Country music and he never asked me out. I thought forget him, but now I like Country music so I went that route. When I joined the Valiants I started singing 50’s and 60’s Rock n’ Roll. But growing up I was into 70’s pop and R&B like Gladys Knight.

LL:  Being from this part of the country means you’re going to sound country whether you want to or not.

LL:  Well it is. The writers who are doing the writing today grew up listening to 70’s Pop. Their songs are influenced by that sound. It will continue to evolve.

LL: Yes, I’m a conglomeration of all kinds of junk. I sing whatever I’m comfortable singing. If I sing a Gladys Knight song, it’s going to have a little bit of Country in it and that’s OK with me and everyone else seems to be OK with it.

LL:  I was with Vince Vance and the Valiants at the time. We were doing 250 to 300 one night dates a year on the road. The guitar player at the time, Troy Powers and Vince Vance decided they would write a holiday song just for us to sing at shows. They kind of put it together on a day off and the other two girls went shopping. I was still at the hotel and the guitar player asked me to come down and listen to this song and tell us what you think. They played me what they had and between the three of us, we created this song that emerged from there. A week later James Stroud told us to go to Nashville and record it right so we went and that’s how it evolved. I tell everyone all the time, it’s a fluke but we’ll take it.

LL:  Oh Lord no, not at all. It was my kind of song because it had that country bluesy quality. None of us thought anything like that. Not even close.

LL:  We recorded it in September 1989 and brought it back to Dallas and Ron Chapman played it on KVIL and the phones lit up. Immediately the year it was released in 1989 the people were singing it along with us. We performed at the Cotton Bowl parade that New Years and the people went crazy. That was a wow moment. The people already knew the song. Every year after that it went like wild fire. It finally hit Billboard magazine in 1992. It’s been a slow, smoldering burn and it has stayed that way since then.

LL:  It really is. It’s very humbling even after this many years to see how people react to that song. It’s a happy song for that happy time of year. It makes people feel good and they all want to sing along. I still get tickled anytime I hear it on the radio. I still turn up the volume and tell everyone that’s me! (Laughter)

LL:  Yes, we are in the planning stages now. My husband and I want to do a gospel record. I love singing in church. Then we want to do one with 70’s and 80’s style music that has been put into today’s Country music. We are picking and choosing and may even put in a couple of original tunes. The gospel one is pretty much set by now. For years people have been asking me to record a gospel album.