This isn't only about old holiday songs, you know.

Here's a relatively new one--the Phil Spector-influenced "Underneath the Tree," by Kelly Clarkson and Greg Kurstin, sung by Kelly Clarkson:

Video from KellyClarksonVEVO

[I]n December, 2013, Clarkson told Jay Leno that she waited to do a Christmas album until [Kurstin] was available.

She added, "He's Jewish, so he didn't know any of the songs. We were in the studio and I was like 'Rudolph'? No. 'White Christmas'? No. But he's so talented."

"I say: 'Mr. Kurstin, aren't you ashamed to not know the songs of your landsmen?'"

(Source: Nate Bloom, Jewish World Review)

***

Kelly Clarkson is not Jewish, but songwriter/musician/record producer Greg Kurstin is. Kurstin started out as a jazz pianist, is a founding member of both Geggy Tah and The Bird and the Bee, and has worked in various capacities with, among others, Beck, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pink, Kylie Minogue, Lily Allen, Sia, and Adele. The list of his written and produced songs is frankly intimidating, and he's been nominated for Grammys as Producer of the Year (three times), Song of the Year (songwriter, twice), Record of the Year (producer, three times), Best Engineered Album (once), and Album of the Year (producer, twice)--and won one for Taylor Swift's 1989 (for producing the Album of the Year).

Ah, well, he's only 48--it's a good start, anyway!

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