Brian Setzer keeps Christmas rocking with holiday show at Gallo Thursday

Brian Setzer knows a thing or two about Christmas.

The guitarist, songwriter, vocalist and three-time Grammy Award-winner will be performing at Gallo Center for the Arts on Thursday, Dec. 22, with his 19-piece big band, aka the Brian Setzer Orchestra, for its 13th annual “Christmas Rocks!” tour.

The show will feature music from the Brian Setzer Orchestra’s latest Christmas album, “Rockin’ Rudolph,” as well as from the group’s three other best-selling holiday albums. It will also include some of Setzer’s own hits, especially from his days as frontman for the Stray Cats.

“I mix it all up. I kinda do whatever I want with the music lineup,” Setzer, 57, said in a phone interview. “We have the big band, but in the middle of the show, we break it down to a quartet. And you’ll definitely be hearing some Stray Cats songs.”

Setzer has released four Christmas CDs. His work has appeared on numerous holiday compilation albums and in holiday movies such as “Elf” and “Christmas With the Kranks.”

“Christmas music is like American standard music written by truly talented songwriters,” Setzer said. “It’s a great challenge to take those songs and make them your own. Personally, I like to scuff ’em up a little bit.”

Growing up, Setzer’s family played lots of Christmas music during the holidays.

“The big one at our house was ‘Elvis’ Christmas Album,’ ” he said. “You can’t beat ‘Blue Christmas.’ When you do your own album, you try to find ways to make the music yours.”

Arranging classic tunes to suit Setzer’s rockabilly or swing genres is a big task. So sometimes he turns to other experts for help. It was a collaboration like that that led to one of Setzer’s most popular Christmas songs, “The Nutcracker Suite,” which was featured in the holiday movies mentioned earlier.

“That version of the song goes back to 1957,” Setzer said. “It’s a very complex song. I found out Frank Comstock arranged it, so I looked him up and he was still alive (then) and in his 80s.”

Setzer and Comstock developed a rapport and ended up working together on Setzer’s 2009 album “Songs From Lonely Avenue.”

“These old arrangers – they’re a trip unto themselves. They arranged the songs you hear when you see Fred Astaire dancing around in a movie with Ginger Rogers. It’s old school,” Setzer said.

Comstock died in 2013. “I learned so much from him,” Setzer said. “That ‘Nutcracker Suite’ song always brings the house down.”

The group performs works from its 12-track “Rockin’ Rudolph” album, which features songs such as “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “Yabba-Dabba Yuletide” and “Rockabilly Rudolph.” The songs combine the orchestra’s big-band horn arrangements and Setzer’s famous guitar work.

That guitar work is partly responsible for the sale of more than 13 million records. Setzer said he had an interest in the guitar starting at a young age.

“I was 8 years old when I got my first guitar,” he said. “We were a blue-collar family, so we didn’t exactly have instruments lying around.”

His parents didn’t want to waste money on something that might be a passing fancy for a young boy.

“By the time I was 8, my parents could see I was really serious about it, so they bought me my first guitar,” Setzer said. “And they went to the Yellow Pages and randomly picked out a guitar teacher for me. Fortunately, it was the best teacher I could have asked for.”

The lessons were “five bucks,” Setzer said. “So my parents made it very clear that if they got me signed up, I was going to go and take it seriously.”

That $5 investment resulted in a lifelong career for Setzer.

The Gallo Center is on Setzer’s 32-city “Christmas Rocks!” tour, which is presented by SiriusXM and will wind up Thursday, Dec. 29, in Santa Rosa.

“I haven’t been home for Christmas since I started the big band,” Setzer said. “But I do have a Christmas tradition with the tour – and that’s Chinese food in San Francisco. I take the band out and we all eat together. In the end, that’s what it’s all about: being around family.”

This story was originally published December 14, 2016 at 3:18 PM with the headline "Brian Setzer keeps Christmas rocking with holiday show at Gallo Thursday."