Mel Tormé

Donny Osborne, who lives in Oregon, grateful for opportunity to perform again. Donny Osborne has played his drums in the greatest settings in the world. “When you walk on the stage at the Hollywood Bowl, it’s the biggest rush you could possibly feel,” Osborne said. On Monday night,...

Possessing a smooth, sonorous croon – which earned him the rather unusual nickname “The Velvet Fog” – Mel Tormé was also an accomplished tunesmith who penned over 250 songs, including the holiday evergreen, “The Christmas Song.” If that wasn’t enough, Tormé was also a talented musician who could play drums and piano, starred in 22 movies, and was a ubiquitous presence on TV between the 1950s and 1990s. He could also pilot a plane and, to top it all, was a successful author; as well as penning a bestselling memoir called It Wasn’t All Velvet in 1988, he wrote well-received biographies of his friends, Hollywood star Judy Garland and virtuoso drummer Buddy Rich, and even published a novel.

In the late 1970s, I was living and working in Los Angeles, having recently finished attending college there. An acquaintance of mine, a member of a makeshift choir that sang Christmas carols at chari.

(Original airdate: 10/01/93) Mel Tormé explains how he and his songwriting partner wrote “The Christmas Song” in 40 minutes. Subscribe to watch more Team Coco videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi7GJNg51C3jgmYTUwqoUXA?sub_confirmation=1. Watch more Late Night clips https://classic.teamcoco.com/. FOLLOW TEAM COCO ON SOCIAL. Team Coco on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/teamcoco. Team Coco on Twitter...