Today’s Holiday Tune: Cher & Darlene Love duet on “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” live at the Rockefeller Center]

This is all kinds of amazing and such a full circle situation. Darlene Love recorded Christmas (Please Come Home) SIXTY years ago to be included on the 1963 seasonal compilation album, A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector. One of the back ground singers during that 1962 recording session was an unknown teenager named Cher.

Upon release, the song was not a huge success but it has gone on to become a Christmas standard. Beginning in 1986 and continuing for 29 years, Love performed the song annually on the episode before Christmas of Late Night with David Letterman (NBC, 1986–92) and Late Show with David Letterman (CBS, 1993–2014), 28 times in all. Beginning in 2015, the tradition of Love’s annual performance of the song moved to The View (ABC, 2015–present), where it has continued during its last edition before Christmas in the years since.

Which brings us to the new version by Cher for her new (and first!) holiday album simply titled Christmas. The 77-yerar-old icon invited Love, now 82, to perform on the song with her. This is the ageless duo on last week’s television special Live at the Rockefeller Center 2023.