After much encouragement from her publisher and label to write and record a Christmas album, Donna Ulisse had been trying to focus on creating new music for a very old genre. She told her label she had written several things but none of it sounded like a cohesive project until this fall when, within a few days, she wrote two songs, one alone and one with long time co-writer Marc Rossi with a focus on the biblical story of the birth of the Christ child. Ulisse’s comments are below:
“Once these two songs were written I had an aha moment and knew this was the direction I wanted for a full project…songs about the biblical story of Christmas; many of them sung from the perspectives of the different characters of the story. “You Cannot Stay Here” is the innkeeper telling them there is no room in the inn which we are all familiar with. “You Will Be Delivered” is the angel telling Mary she is carrying the Son of God.”
When she played them for the label, they called her producer Keith Sewell to see if he had time to go in the studio with her to record them and make them available to radio for this 2011 Christmas season. Sewell on acoustic guitar and banjo, Andy Leftwich on mandolin and viola and Viktor Krauss on upright bass completed the sparse instrumentation on these tender songs. Ulisse’s husband Rick Stanley and Keith Sewell provided harmonies.
There will be a limited mailing to radio and the songs are available on Airplay Direct for radio to download and to listen to full completely. The public can download the songs on Donna’s website and by Thanksgiving they will be available on iTunes, Rhapsody and Amazon.com
A full Christmas album will be released by Ulisse in 2012 which will include these two songs also.
