Christmas, 1975

By December of 1975 I had already been touring with Doc for about nine months, and enjoyed flying out most Friday nights or Saturday mornings to do concerts somewhere to the east. (There isn’t much west of L.A.) We could do concerts on Saturday and Sunday nights, and fly back Monday in time for the band to make The Tonight Show. If Johnny was taking a day off and a “Best of Carson” was airing, we could also do a Monday night show. Usually three nights, three cities. Good thing I liked flying, and could snooze on airplanes, often with Nancy on one shoulder and Christine on the other.

Then word came down that we were going to be playing at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas for 2 weeks, starting December 16. If you do the math, you’ll realize that this brackets the Christmas holiday. Maybe the showroom would be dark? Surely there wouldn’t be shows on Christmas day…

Yeah, right. It turns out that Christmas is very popular in Vegas, so lots of junkets show up just in time for the holidays. This was going to be unsettling for me, as I am a big fan of Christmas from way back, and had never been away from my (entire) family during the holidays before. But if you ignored the fact that it was Christmas, it might have been any other two weeks in Las Vegas, winter or summer. If there were any seasonal decorations up, you couldn’t see them for all the neon on the Strip.

So it was business as usual, two shows a night at 8 and midnight. And the showroom was always packed. Doc was a very big draw, no matter whom we opened for. As Christmas approached, I began morphing into Peggy Lee (“Is that all there is to Christmas? Is that all there is?)

Then, on Christmas Eve day I was moping around the casino when Rick, the road manager spotted me. “I’m going out to find a Christmas tree for Doc – want to come along?”

This was fabulous news, and I eagerly accepted. By the time we set out, it was already dark, and there weren’t many tree lots visible, if there had been any to begin with. We drove north on the Strip, into downtown, and kept going. Bupkis. Finally, in a parking lot next to a bowling alley in North Las Vegas we found a lone Douglas fir, free for the taking. It wasn’t a Charlie Brown tree, though it was close. But it was real and green and smelled like Christmas! We tied it to the roof of the car and made our way back to the hotel, whereupon Rick took the tree up to Doc’s suite. I didn’t see it after that. Never saw Doc’s suite, either.

And so we did the shows. The early crowd was enthusiastic and festive (and likely inebriated), which made the show fun to do. Then again, it was always fun. After the first show was over, Doc’s manger Bud came to the dressing room with an armload of packages. “Presents from Doc!” he announced repeatedly. “Merry Christmas!” This was very nice, and unexpected. We all opened them at the same time, as they appeared to be identical. Which they were, mostly. We each received a yellow T-shirt with Doc’s picture and “Today’s Children and The Now Generation Brass” on the front, plus our own first names in block letters on the upper left breast. (Just a little bit like the “Mickey Mouse Club.”) We also each received a blue sweatshirt, similarly decorated. Bud was beaming; I think perhaps the shirts were his idea…

Realistically, there weren’t a lot of places you could wear either of these without seeming like a self-promoting doof, but we singers thought it would be fun to wear them for the finale (“Ease On Down The Road”) of the midnight show. We changed into them while Doc was playing “Malagueña,” and surprised him when we took the stage afterward. The shirts were snug, and my partner Nancy T. was delightfully proportioned, which was kind of distracting, even to Doc. As we kept time to the music, the eyes in the picture of Doc’s face on Nancy’s shirt seemed to roll around. Doc leaned over to me and said “How come yours doesn’t do that?”

I don’t recall what we all did after the show, and I think that was probably okay. Besides, we had two shows to do on Christmas Day, and the day after, and… Christmas with my family would have to wait. I flew home to my Dad’s house on the 30th and we had a gift exchange there, then I went to my Mom’s house in Gig Harbor for more celebrating.

My brother was a senior at Central Washington State College in 1975-76, majoring in music (trumpet.) Around about Thanksgiving I got the idea that it would be nice if he had a new trumpet for his senior recital, and talked to Doc about it. Doc was playing a Getzen Eterna trumpet at that time (the “Doc Severinsen” model), so I thought that would be an ideal Christmas gift for my brother. Doc called the Southern California distributor, asked them to pick out a horn as if they were selecting it for him, and had it sent to my Mom’s house. At cost, a fantastic deal. My Mom and I split the bill.

The look on my brother’s face when he opened the box was priceless and unforgettable, and for the only time in his life he was at a loss for words. I explained how it had been selected for him by Doc’s people, but he could exchange it if he wanted to. Yuk yuk. (He still has it.) And although I have no idea what I received that year, it will always be my favorite Christmas.