Singing holiday favorites with cheer

Those nostalgic for '50s-era black-and-white Christmas television specials can see a full-color version Monday evening at the Burnsville Performing Arts Center.

The Girl Singers of the Hit Parade will wear their signature sparkling floor-length red ball gowns and sing holiday favorites of the era like "Christmas Alphabet" and "Boogie Woogie Santa Claus."

"People come for the dresses," Jennifer Grimm of Lauderdale says. "They stay for the music."

The group consists of Grimm, her mother Colleen Raye (the woman "at the helm," says Grimm), and Raye's sister, Debbie O'Keefe. The three toured 39 cities last year as the Girl Singers, a salute to vocalists like Rosemary Clooney, Patti Page, Connie Francis, Peggy Lee and Doris Day.

Norton Lawellin of Burnsville, their music director, says that as they toured, several theaters asked them to work up Christmas numbers, and soon they had a show. Lawellin says the show balances songs with "jokes, trivia facts and narration, skits and bits."

It's a "glorified lounge act," jokes Raye.

"A lounge act on steroids," adds Grimm.

Raye spent 18 years performing with "The Steve Grimm and Colleen Raye Show," a nightclub show band. O'Keefe joined them when she was 13. Raye was touring through all four of her pregnancies, and the kids often came along and sang in Christmas shows, so Grimm was on stage by age 3.

"I was born on the road," she says. "I belong on the road."

Grimm brought her own kids -- a baby and a 3-year-old -- along on last year's tour. "It was hectic," she says. "But it was fun."

"Oftentimes people who have sung together for a long time tend to sing similarly, so their voices blend well," says Lawellin. "No one is in the group because they're trying to fill a slot. They all are musically successful, and they have their own bands and their own careers, and we come together. It's a lot of fun working with a group of people with that much talent."

Grimm writes music for NBC's "Sing Off," does voice-overs for commercials, and sings in a corporate band. O'Keefe, of Hudson, Wis., has been singing big band tunes with the Minnesota Jazz Orchestra for 10 years. Other family members join in, too. Raye's daughter, Sophia Grimm, is a senior this year at the Chicago College of Performing Arts and just had a lead role in "Sweeney Todd;" she sometimes steps in and takes over Jennifer's spot, and Raye's son Reed often plays drums.

The shows, Raye says, tend to be heavy on audience participation. They like to pull unsuspecting audience members onstage for numbers like "Santa Baby." The audience tends to be of the baby boomer set and older. "They know every word," says Grimm.

Lawellin says this means they generally don't have to prod audiences to join them on sing-alongs for "White Christmas" and "Silver Bells."

"Those are the songs that people always look forward to," he says. "People just start singing along if you ask them to or not.

"We want people to feel joyful," he says. "I think everyone feels good when they leave."