This year, Gavin DeGraw released A Classic Christmas, his first holiday EP, and through December 16 he's doing a mini-residency inside Cafe Carlyle at New York City's famed Carlyle Hotel. He tells ABC Audio why he liked the idea of doing a run of shows in a small venue in the Big Apple.
"It felt romantic for a Christmas holiday type thing, the holiday season type thing. And the Carlyle is nostalgic and legit, particularly when I think about the disappearance of so much great live music from the city of New York," Gavin says. "It's nice that there's still a beautiful haunt to go to and see music ... be around the types of people who appreciate live music and want to hear it at its best. So to be included in that scene is a huge honor."
During his shows, Gavin is playing A Classic Christmas straight through to "get people in the Christmas spirit and give them that hot cocoa moment." Then he likes to "mix it up with the other thing that I do."
Gavin is a huge fan of Christmas music and says he listens to it year-round. So why did he wait 20 years to make a holiday album?
"Having interviews with people and them asking me things like, 'Hey man, what are your favorite records?'" he laughs. "And I kept mentioning a Christmas record in the mix. It was like, 'Hey, I love Bing Crosby's White Christmas.' ... So you realize, 'Why aren't I singing any Christmas songs ever, if there's an opportunity to do it?'"
You can see Gavin December 20 on ABC's Good Morning America and on December 22 on CBS' A Home for the Holidays.