Darlene Love to End Annual Holiday Performance Tradition When LETTERMAN Signs Off

In a new interview with Billboard.com, Darlene Love reveals that she will end her 30-year holiday tradition of performing her 1963 classic "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" on CBS's LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN when THE TALK show host signs off next year. The singer has performed the number each year since 1986.

"This would be my 28th year in a row," Love explains to the site. "They never told me not to, but it was an unspoken thing. They couldn't ask me not to sing 'Christmas (Baby)' on another show, but after 10 years, then 15 years, of doing this one song on this one show, I felt I had an obligation to be true to them."

Love credits the Letterman performances with jump-starting her career. "Before that, I wasn't doing TV shows every year. Once I started doing that, others starting adding me in their Christmas shows, but I wouldn't sing 'Christmas (Baby).' Although I have five or six other Christmas songs I recorded with Phil Spector."

Asked if she will retire the holiday tune permanently, the singer offers, "I called Paul [Shaffer] not too long ago and said, 'Well, what are we gonna do now?'" She goes on to say, "I said, 'I think we should get together once a year and do a huge Christmas show. A Paul Shaffer-Darlene Love Christmas show somewhere in New York.' I'm sure it would sell out."

Read the story in full here

Broadway veteran Darlene Love recently appeared in the Academy Award winning Documentary Feature 20 FEET FROM STARDOM. She has appeared in Broadway's LEADER OF THE PACK, CARRIE, GREASE, and HAIRSPRAY.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos

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