Following the release of King Crimson’s 1969 mega-box here’s something completely different from Michael Giles.

Full of seasonal cheer, Michael has released Happy Christmas featuring a collaboration with singer Catherine Howe.

In his own inimitable style, Michael explains how the piece came about. . .

I met Catherine some 650 full moons ago when she and my then wife Mary were working together as young actoresses in London’s West End theatreland. At that time I didn’t know that she was a brilliant singer/songwriter who was soon to release her album “What a Beautiful Place” in 1971.

However, in 1976 she invited me to play on her album “Silent Mother Nature” and I was very impressed by her beautiful, clear, English voice. So in 1978 I invited her to sing on my album “Progress” at my Dorset cottage studio.

It was in 1981 that the Happy Christmas melody was going round in my head, in between sessions with Greg Lake at his Old Mill Dorset studio for the 1981 album “Greg Lake”.

One evening after these sessions with Greg, I repaired to the nearby yet remote Horton Inn for a quiet but lively lager at the bar. After a few satisfying glugs of this sparkling libation, an unconventional looking man came in and ordered a drink in an American voice. He then turned to me and said “Are you Michael Giles?” to which I surprisedly replied “Yes”, with as much honesty as I could muster when approached by a stranger enquiring as to my identity. He introduced himself as Adrian Belew who happened to be rehearsing with Robert, Tony and Bill in a local church hall for the “Discipline” album.

During an enjoyable conversation with Adrian, he expressed his fun-loving approach to music by vocalising one of my funny drum phrases on the “McDonald and Giles” album. Anyway, I digress, although I’m still hoping to win the Nobel Prize for Digressmentalism in Literature.

Where was I in this chronicalisationary mode? Oh yes, writing the melody in 1981. Some years later after moving into a large ambient ballroom studio on the Crichel Estate, also in deepest Dorset, I recorded the backing tracks, then Catherine’s lovely voice followed by a young school choir.

But the song was again on hold due to yet another move to Bath in the early ‘90s, and it remained almost forgotten until the early 2000s when the overdubs and mixing were finished. So this Happy Christmas song has taken nearly 40 years to leave “its footprints in the snow”.

Neverthelessormore it’s good to share a musical Christmas card with people enjoying the presence (and presents?) of friends and family.