"A Christmas Gift For You" featuring Darlene Love & Ronnie Spector
Bottom Line
New York City, NY
December 23, 1988
(Two Of Us Master Series Volume 24)

Recording: Shure Mic > Sony WM-D6C

2020 Transfer: Master Tape > Nakamichi DR-01 (azimuth adjusted) > Sound Devices USBPre2 > Audacity > iZotope RX / ozone 5 (mastered) > Peak Pro 6 (post production) > xACT 2.39 > FLAC

01 Here Comes Santa Claus
02 Rudolph The Red-Nose Reindeer
03 The Bells Of St. Mary's
04 Dialogue
DARLENE LOVE
05 Marshmallow World
06 Winter Wonderland
07 White Christmas
09 Dialogue > Sonny Bono as Phil Spector
10 Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
RONNIE SPECTOR
11 Introduction
12 Frosty The Snowman
13 I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
14 Sleigh Ride
ALL CAST MEMBERS
15 Sonny Bono as himself Dialogue > Silent Night
16 Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

Known Faults:
-Introduction > Sonny Bono as Phil Spector: missing
-Santa Claus Is Coming To Town: missing
-Parade Of Wooden Soldiers: missing
-Here Come Santa Claus: joined in progress

CAST
Darlene Love
Ronnie Spector
Sonny Bono
Jimmy Vivino: Band Leader
Ula Hedwig
Pattie Darcy
Vivian Cherry
Bernard Fowler
Bobby Jay

Welcome to Volume Twenty-Four of the "Two Of Us" Master Series.

Between 1983 and 1999 there was likely not a taper or taping duo more active than the "Two Of Us". For the better part of a decade and a half they taped over 250 artists with an array being taped multiple times.

If you collect Springsteen then you are already familiar with some of their work, "fmcleanboots" has posted a half dozen or so of their "Tunnel Of Love" tour shows but has decided to pass the baton.

What you don't know is their passion was not just for Springsteen but for music and that passion runs deep. It is astonishing how many artists they taped.

They followed tours taping club shows, theater shows, arena shows, big artists, mid-level artists and local artists. If they were following a tour and the tour had an off night they'd see who else was playing that night to tape.

Always focused on enjoyment of the show as the priority, tickets were for the most part acquired outside of the venue as they worked to obtain the best possible seats, continually trading up until the correct seats were acquired.

The results of this were the captures are uniformly excellent but on occasion the start of the show was sacrificed as a trade-off for the seats. The heavy lifting was done by the Sony WM-D6C and an external Shure Mic before moving to DAT for the last couple of years.

None of their masters have ever been circulated and have been safely stored for the past three to four decades in a climate controlled environment. Tapes transferred so far are in pristine condition.

Though we may do some mini releases of a series of shows in order for one portion of a tour for the most part shows will not be released in order, there are just too many of them.

This will be a very exciting series and we hope along the way we upgrade existing circulating audio and offer up shows that do not have any circulating audio.

We hope you enjoy the ride, this is definitely not a dark ride.

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"A Christmas Gift For You" featuring Darlene Love & Ronnie Spector @ The Bottom Line (Night Two)

We are happy to spread more Holiday cheer with another "only in NYC" show.

Four decades before Phil Spector went totally off the rails, eventually being convicted of the murder of actress Lana Clarkson, Spector was the driving force behind one of the greatest holiday LP's ever released, "A Christmas Gift For You" featuring many R&B stars of the day.

With the unfortunate timing of being released the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the country was in no mood for Christmas cheer. The LP disappeared quickly only to be rediscovered in the 1970's as a cult classic steadily selling ever since. The highlight of the LP and focus of this show is undoubtedly two of era's biggest R&B stars Darlene Love & Ronnie Spector.

The show played two shows a night beginning December 22nd and running through at least January 1st.. The event was part concert, part theater production, part history lesson on the making of the LP with the production value of a Broadway play reminiscent of "Leader Of The Pack: The Songs Of Ellie Greenwich" which played the Bottom Line as a warm-up to a smash watered down run on Broadway (this will be a future Volume in our series as soon as we locate Part 2 of the show).

The master tape was not marked as early or late show. The quality is excellent, similar to Volumes 20 & 21 of our series that featured Ronnie Spector's 1989 holiday performances at the Bottom Line.

As we mentioned in the introduction to our series, in an effort to secure best available tickets or tickets to a sold out show the first few songs were on occassion sacrificed. One can assume that is what happened here as the first two songs are missing. The best parts of the show, Darlene Love & Ronnie Spector, are captured complete. In addition, "Sleigh Ride" is complete and uncut on this night (spliced due to a tape flip on night one).

So throw a second log on the fire, grab another drink and settle in for a special tribute to "A Christmas Gift For You".

Thanks to "Two Of Us" and their dedication to capturing all these great shows as well as trusting me to be the caretaker of their work. Also, a big thank you to my friend "fmcleanboots" for putting me in touch and laying the groundwork that has resulted in this release.

Artwork and samples provided...

mjk5510 & Two Of Us

Images for all shows as well as full size images for this show.

Images for this show: