The Christmas Song by Venetta Fields

'The Christmas Song' is another song featured on The Spirit of Christmas. Beautifully recorded with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra this track gently meanders along and offers a sublime vocal from the remarkable Venetta Fields. A voice known to many, Venetta’s vocals still retain flavours of her early training as a young gospel singer in her hometown of Buffalo, New York. 

Venetta’s body of work encompasses a who’s who of the recording scene, starting with her days as a Rockette for Ike and Tina Turner. Fields has sung on iconic records such as 'Wish You Were Here' by Pink Floyd and added her remarkable talent to works by artists including Diana Ross, Joe Cocker, The Rolling Stones, Steely Dan and Aretha Franklin.

While touring Australia with Boz Scaggs, Venetta jumped ship and has called Australia home since 1982 (she has dual citizenship). While continuing to work on the international stage Venetta has sung backing vocals for Australian artists such as Australian Crawl, Cold Chisel and James Morrison, and she is best known here for touring and recording with John Farnham.

'The Christmas Song' was written in 1945 by the prolific American songwriting team of Bob Wells and Mel Tormé; the pair wrote more than 150 songs together. Wells was a child prodigy who began studying singing, piano and drums at the age of 3; he also acted in 41 movies and television shows. Tormé’s music career saw him publish over 400 songs and he also produced and wrote Emmy-winning TV specials for artists such as Shirley Maclaine and Dinah Shore.