Eric Clapton Announces Christmas Album With Avicii Tribute Song

Dave Kaplan

Eric Clapton Announces Christmas Album With Avicii Tribute Song

Dave Kaplan

Eric Clapton has announced that he’ll release his first-ever holiday album, Happy Xmas, in October. It’s the musician’s 24th album overall and his first since 2016’s I Still Do. It’s primarily made up of covers of holiday classics, though there’s also a brand-new original on there called “For Love On Christmas Day.”

One of the songs, a cover of “Jingle Bells,” is labeled as “(In Memory Of Avicii),” in tribute to the Swedish producer, who died by suicide earlier this year and struggled with substance abuse.

“I had in my head that these holiday songs could be done with a slight blues tinge, and I started to figure out how to play the blues lines in between the vocals,” Clapton said of the album in a press release. “I got it down and one of the most identifiable songs on the album, the one that became the foundational style, is ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’.”

Here’s the Happy Xmas tracklist:

TRACKLIST:
01 “White Christmas”
02 “Away In A Manger (Once In Royal David’s City)”
03 “For Love On Christmas Day”
04 “Everyday Will Be Like A Holiday”
05 “Christmas Tears”
06 “Home For The Holidays”
07 “Jingle Bells (In Memory Of Avicii)”
08 “Christmas In My Hometown”
09 “It’s Christmas”
10 “Sentimental Moments”
11 “Lonesome Christmas”
12 “Silent Night”
13 “Merry Christmas Baby”
14 “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”

Happy Xmas will be out 10/12 via Bushbranch/Surfdog. Pre-order it here.

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