CAROLINE PEYTON

Celtic Christmas Spirit by Caroline Peyton on Green Hill is unlike any Christmas album, or even Celtic Christmas recording, you have ever heard before. There are four songs sung in the ancient Irish Gaelic language, two in Latin, one in English and the rest in a "wordless ethereal scat" simply using vocal sounds. Often the voice is used as an instrument and overdubbed many times to form a rich texture. The songs are mostly very old compositions (some date back hundreds and hundreds of years) from the earliest days of Christianity in Ireland. The album captures a Christmas spirit, but because of the Gaelic, Latin and wordless vocals, the recording can be enjoyed year-round as simply an extraordinary musical excursion.

All the vocals are by Caroline Peyton, and although you may not recognize her name, you probably have heard her voice because she has become a regular singer in Disney animated movies. She has sung in the films (and on the soundtrack albums) of "Beauty and The Beast" (she was one of three ditsy blondes who flirts with Gaston, the town bully character, and she was featured on the song "Be Our Guest"), "Aladdin," "Pocahontas" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Peyton also has a prestigious history in the theater. She first alternated with and then replaced Pam Dawber in the lead role of Mabel in the Los Angeles production of "The Pirates of Penzance," and then toured the country for a year in Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival (NYSF) Production of the show with costars Peter Noone and Jim Belushi (as the Pirate King). Caroline also alternated with Linda Ronstadt in the role of Mimi in "La Boheme" in New York ("learning a Puccini opera one week before I went on was quite a challenge").

Caroline co-produced Celtic Christmas Spirit with her husband, renowned producer and guitarist Brendan Harkin, in Nashville using top session musicians there. The album was a special project for the couple because Brendan's paternal grandfather came from Ireland and Caroline's maternal greatgrandmother immigrated from the Emerald Isle. In addition, before opening his studio in Nashville Harkin was one of the top producers in the New York-New Jersey area recording Irish acts (h received an award from the American Irish Musicians Society). Caroline and Brendan also traveled to Ireland and know some of the best-selling musicians there.

In preparation for the album, Caroline began to search out old Irish Christmas music. "I thought I'd just get a book of Irish carols, but there wasn't too much easily available," explains Caroline. "The Celts were pagans long before Christ, and when Christianity became popular there, the Gaelic language started to be suppressed by England, and Gaelic Christian and Christmas music had to be sung and passed down covertly. So the tradition of carol singing did not immediately spring up in the Irish culture." Caroline, an American, had to learn to sing in Gaelic and was tutored by an Irishwoman, Elizabeth Reed, who learned from her parents and from nuns in a convent on the outskirts of Dublin. Reed and the nuns also helped locate some of the ancient music needed.

"I already sing in five languages -- English, German, French, Italian and Latin -- so learning Gaelic was not the hardest part about making the record," Caroline states. "The challenges were finding authentic music and singing multiple vocal pans, sometimes soprano, alto, transposed tenor and bass, often 16 tracks of my vocals on one song. In addition to the lyrics, I sing a lot of oohs and ahhs. However, I like to sing with myself because it's easy to harmonize and it's a lot of fun. We wanted the vocals to have an ethereal texture, much like Enya's albums. We didn't want to use a lot of synthesizers because we wanted the sound to have a real, organic warmth and presence."

In addition to Caroline's vocals, the album also features Harkin on mandolin and guitar, three top pianists (Pat Coil, David Huntsinger and Bob Patin), violinist David Davidson (who has recorded many albums including Celtic Fantasy), double-bassist Jack Jezzro (who also has many solo albums) and John Mock (whose albums include Celtic Portraits and Celtic Visions) on Irish pennywhistles and bodhran drum.

Some of the oldest tunes on the album are the Celtic pieces -- "That Night in Bethlehem," "The Babe of Bethlehem" and "The Christ Child's Lullaby" -- as well as the "Benedicam Dominum Chant" and the 14th Century "Angelus ad Virginem" carol. Mixed in are a traditional Scottish carol, an Irish folk song, and "Coventry Carol" from the 16th Century. But also covered in the old Irish style is the more modern "in The Bleak Midwinter" as well as an original jig and lilt written for the project by Brendan Harkin. Celtic Christmas Spirit can be purchased on-line at www.greenhillmusic.com and from other music etailers, or by calling 1-800-972-5900. To find a local retailer who carries the album, consumers can call 1-800-200-4656.

Caroline's career has always been a combination of music and theater. She was born in Brookhaven, Mississippi, and raised in Charleston, West Virginia, where there were strong community theater organizations. She performed in her first stage play at age eight, and as a teenager she was getting lead roles -- Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz," Luisa in "The Fantasticks" and Maria in "West Side Story." Caroline also took piano lessons throughout elementary school and voice lessons beginning in seventh grade. Her grandfather, whose mother had immigrated from Ireland, "is the person I can trace my musicality to. He sang on the radio, performed in clubs and taught me to play ukelele."

Caroline taught herself to play acoustic guitar when she was 12 inspired by the folk music and rock'n'roll of the Sixties. "My first influences were my parents' Broadway albums -- I memorized 'The King and I' and 'My Fair Lady' -- and their big band records, which later helped me when I began singing standards. But in my teens I turned to Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, The Doors, The Beatles, Cream and The Rolling Stones. Then in college I got into jazz like Coltrane and Monk. I love the complexity of Steely Dan. I've also always been interested in classical music, especially Bach and Mozart. I've sung a very broad spectrum of music from jazz scat to Monteverdi early classical music."

She attended Northwestern University near Chicago as a theater major, but spent her evenings performing music in clubs. She joined a commune and a rock'n'roll band, The Screaming Gypsy Bandits, and recorded two albums with them on Bar-B-Q Records. She also recorded two albums -Intuition and Mock-Up -- for the label under her own name. She began taking music classes at Indiana University and when she wasn't studying 20th Century atonal music, she performed in groups with future jazz masters Randy Brecker and Peter Erskine . Peyton was chosen to go to Europe to record three Bach cantatas under the direction of Helmuth Rilling for three albums. On her return, she moved to Los Angeles, began singing in clubs and got the opportunity to sing on the television programs "Dinah" and "The Merv Griffin Show." Actor Kevin Kline brought her to the attention of Joe Papp which led to her role in "The Pirates of Penzance." After moving to New York, she did more work for Papp and got her first role on Broadway in "The Human Comedy" (music by Galt MacDermot, who also wrote the music for "Hair"). She also starred in the Chicago production of "Pump Boys and Dinettes" and sang the theme song for the Fox TV show "Tribecca." Throughout her career, Peyton has been much in-demand in the advertising world to sing on ad jingles. Additionally, from an early age through today, she has regularly sung with church choirs, often as a soloist in major productions in large churches.

"it was Brendan's and my love of church music, Christmas music and Irish music that brought about the Celtic Christmas Spirit album. We tried to combine all the best elements, but also make it an album that might sound different than other recordings people would have in their collections. As we got into the recording of it, the album took on a spiritual nature because of the music and its history. As a tribute to our family's Irish heritage and the people of Ireland, our main goal was to make it as authentic as possible."