Jay Landers, Kristin Chenoweth, and Calum Scott on "A Sentimental Christmas with Nat "King" Cole and Friends

For this Christmas season, producer Jay Landers put together "A Sentimental Christmas with Nat "King" Cole," an album that refreshes some of Cole's holiday classics with new arrangements and a handful of new duets with new singing partners Johnny Mathis, John Legend, Gloria Estefan and more. 

Today on the show, Landers talks about the hows of whys of putting together this kind of project, and why Cole continues to sing these duets well after his death. Kristin Chenoweth and Calum Scott are two of Cole's singing partners this time around, and they talk about the experience, Cole, and what they learned about him in the process.

Singer Alexandra Scott returns this week to talk about Icelandic pop artist Dadi Freyr and the Christmas songs he released in 2020 and 2021. 

This episode ends with a lovely cover of Low's "Just Like Christmas" by Gabrielle Aplin. Last year, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker appeared on Twelve Songs in an episode that felt surprisingly intimate and, perhaps for that reason, became more personal than I expected. 

This episode of Twelve Songs is sponsored by Car-Floats.com, which makes reusable fabric stickers for your car. 

If you haven't already done so, please do what you have to do to get Twelve Songs in your podcast feed. You can find us at Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayStitcherPandora, and Spotify.