If you go
Todd Wright’s seventh annual Santa Claus Clausterf@%!
Where: Jammin Java, 227 Maple Ave., Vienna
When: 8 p.m. Dec. 22-23
Info: $15; 703-255-1566; [email protected]
Popular singer/songwriter Todd Wright returns to Jammin Java for his seventh annual Christmas show, a festive event that joins 50 or more of his close musician friends for two evenings of merriment — the first acoustic, the second plugged in. “The brothers who own the club and their wives who run the music school upstairs are family friends, so this has become a tradition,” Wright said. “Every single musician I’ve worked with is invited and about five o’clock the evening of the first show we all get together to rehearse the parts I’ve written for them. They all agree that it’s the most fun they’ve ever had.”
Just like Wright’s ongoing 40×40 project, all the proceeds from the two Christmas shows will help fight diabetes, which is fast becoming a major health problem in this country. The project, a gift to his fans, began Sept. 30, as a personal pledge to write a new song each week until his 40th birthday in July.
He begins each song on Thursday and must finish by Sunday night when he posts it to the mixer who places it on Wright’s Web site, orangepopsongs.com, for listening on Wednesday. Although the downloads are free to one and all, he hopes that visitors to the site will be inspired to donate to the American Diabetes Association. His goal is to raise public awareness of diabetes and $100,00 for the ADA.
“My original intention was simply to pave the way to my 40th birthday, but right after beginning the project I received an e-mail from Ally Queen, whose husband, Rob, used to play drums with me,” he said. “I remembered that both their kids are diabetic and it hit me that I should make that my cause. I went to their house and her friend from ADA came out to educate me further.
“While I was there, her son came running in to let her know that the insulin pump injected in his side had come out while he was playing. Ally put it back in and he returned to his play. Being a dad, I understand what those brave little children have to go through.”
After starting his professional career as a drummer, Wright soon became what he calls “a jack of all trades,” playing keyboard and guitar with the top artists along the East Coast and fronting his own band, Getaway Car. Before joining the Pat McGee Band as keyboardist, he toured the United States, Japan and New Zealand with vocalist Lucy Woodward.
As the responsibilities of parenthood multiplied, he decided to stay home in Virginia and devote his time to writing and producing. One of his most poignant roles was as producer of the Pat McGee Band’s “Those Days, the Virginia Session.”
“Pat wanted to do something to memorialize Chris Williams, the band’s late drummer, who was a dear friend,” Wright said. “They came to our row house on King Street in Leesburg where Pat and I co-wrote the whole record. We mixed the songs so that Chris plays on the record posthumously.”
Wright’s fans are downloading his songs as fast as they appear. Most are fresh off the top of his head, others are numbers he once started and never finished, while still others were instrumentals newly remade into vocals. Every eight to 10 weeks, he plans to release a record with a bonus track.
“My daughter Ryan, who is seven and a first-grader at Ashburn Elementary School, does all the art work,” he said. “I tell her what the song is about and she paints me a picture. When I’m 60 years old, I want to show her those pictures so she’ll remember what I did at 40.”
