New special


I recall Paul O'Neill, the creator of TSO, speaking of how he was approached by Fox Family to do a TSO tv special. They were preparing for what I believe was their 2nd tour and only had a very short time to come up with the idea for what to do. (This was a conversation that myself and my brother had with him after one of the TSO shows.) He said how Crawford and Jewel both expressed early interest in being part of the Christmas special. You can certainly tell its a pretty rushed production, with the two guest vocalists doing songs off their own cds with not any backing music by TSO themselves, also the way the story is told, the incorporation of Christmas Eve's video.

I am very curious as to why none of the networks have approached them (they haven't as far as I've heard) about doing a new special with more production and effects, bells and whistles, that sort of thing. My thought was always to film one of their live performances, possibly one done on Christmas Eve in Times Square in NYC and make it free to the public.

It blows my mind that they have yet to release a live cd, or better yet, a live dvd, especially considering that TSO's popularity lies directly with their Christmas tour.

So my idea would be if they were to not film a live show, to film the story of Christmas Eve and Other stories. Have some known actors portraying the roles of the characters, possibly have them actors who can sing so that they can be involved in that aspect as well. Also, because TSO is about incorporating musicians and vocalists from every walk of life, try to get some popular artists to perform some of their songs. What comes to mind right away is Old City Bar being done by either Bruce Springsteen or Tom Waits. I think a lot of people would jump at the chance to be involved in a project like this and it could become whichever network backed it's yearly traditional broadcast special.

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