Last CaLL
JOhN BOhLINgER
Filming Larry the Cable Guy’s Hula-Palooza Christmas Luau
Last week, I lead the band in this year’s installment of the Larry the Cable Guy Christmas
Special for the CMT Network. Dubbed “
Hula-Palooza Christmas Luau,” the show embraced a
Hawaiian/Caribbean-ish theme with all of Larry’s
special touches (pole dancers, little people, fart
jokes and Tony Orlando). To “git ’er done,” the
band and I faced a few unique challenges.
First, the budget and stage size demanded
a five-piece band. Generally, I dig a lean and
mean band: there’s less sonic clutter and plenty
of room for guitar wankery. Television, however, can be a bit more demanding because
shows typically cover many genres. The “Luau”
theme meant I had to have a great steel player
well-versed in Hawaiian guitar to join the bass,
drums, keys and me on guitar.
John Bohlinger (far right) poses with the rest of the band he assembled for the taping of this year’s Larry the Cable Guy
Christmas special.
With the band in place, I began working on the
live bumper music that would take us in and out
of commercial breaks. Bumpers need energy,
but these also needed to incorporate both
the Christmas and Luau theme with a hint of
country flavor. The producers gave me a list of
public domain Christmas carols that I could use.
I chose “Jolly Old St. Nicholas,” arranging it as
a reggae ditty with our keyboard player dialing
up the steel drum melody. I ramped up “Silent
Night” into a country shuffle straight from the
dirty south. “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear”
became a Hawaiian hula dance. In all, I arranged
12 bumpers, leaving our producers plenty of
options in case a few didn’t feel right.
Band and break music ready, I turned my attention to our musical guest, Billy Currington,
who was slated to sing the absolute lamest of
Christmas carols, “White Christmas.” Billy and I
discussed picking up the tempo and swinging
it like SRV playing with Bob Wills, and I made a
board tape of our rehearsal with me flubbing my
way through the vocals so Billy could wrap his
head around the arrangement.
I arrived painfully early on Shoot day only to find
audio tangled in some serious spaghetti of black
XLR cables. We had no monitors for our first run
through. Our stage—shaped like a tropical hut
on stilts—bordered the pole dancer hut, which
added significantly to the confusion. Whenever
the producers cued me to play, I had to shout
and wave my hands wildly to get the attention
of our drummer, who could not take his eyes off
the lithe, young, nearly-naked dancers four feet
to his left. When these starlets weren’t dancing,
they were leaning over the railing, which gave us
a constantly titillating view of the back of their
grass skirts and long dancer legs, or their bikini
clad fronts—a happy dilemma indeed!
We ran our bumps to break, played some
funny parody Christmas carols, and ran Billy
Currington’s song. To our surprise, “White
Christmas” actually sounded great. The only
glitch was the key we’d agreed upon was a bit
low for Billy once the adrenalin started pumping, so we brought it up a half step. You’d think
playing in between the dots would be no big
deal, but because I’d been working like mad on
this kind of jazzy intro/turnaround guitar hook,
my fingers wanted to play it like I learned it. To
make matters worse, Billy’s guitar was tuned
down a half step so it looked like he was playing in the key of D. The entire time we played I
had to keep telling myself, “You’re in C Sharp.
C natural is dead to you. It never existed. Stay
focused. Don’t look at the dancers. Remain in C
Sharp.” The song went well, but I never felt confident. I haven’t seen the final edit yet, but I fear
my part may sound less than fearless.
Tony Orlando, a great singer, was closing the
show with the Bing-Crosby-Christmas-crooner-classic, “Mele Kalikimaka.” The idea was that
the entire cast would join in, but given that the
words to this song are nearly unpronounceable, everybody hung back. I specifically hired a
bassist who sang well so we would be covered
should this happen. When I told her it was up
to us to carry the load, she informed me that
she “had a cold and couldn’t [wouldn’t] sing. I
tried to convince her that it didn’t need to be a
stellar performance; that we just needed voices.
But she remained mute, downgrading our big,
all-sing closer to a meager duet of Tony and my
scratchy, blown-out voice. I was pissed, but what
ya gonna do? Just sing like you’re making up
for 20 people. Again ... I’m a tad nervous about
hearing the final.
Like snowflakes, no two gigs are identical.
Learning to hit the curves that live music throws
at you makes us not only better musicians, but
also helps us become better problem solvers
and keeps those synapses firing and dementia
at bay. Save the crosswords and Sudoku for the
button-down crowd. Let’s gig!
John Bohlinger
John Bohlinger is a Nashville guitar slinger who works primarily in television, and has recorded and toured with over
30 major label artists. His songs and playing can be heard
in major motion pictures, major label releases and literally
hundreds of television drops. Visit him at: youtube.com/
user/johnbohlinger or facebook.com/johnbohlinger
208 PREMIER GUITAR DECEMBER 2009
