Matthew Hawk Wishes You A Merry Little Christmas
If you’re a regular visitor to Christian Women Living Magazine, you may already be familiar with the talented Matthew Hawk. From the stage to the screen and everything in-between, Hawk has used his talents to the glory of God. Recently he has turned his attention to a new project — a new Christmas album.
Stephanie Kelley: Please tell us about your new Christmas album.
Matthew Hawk: My Christmas EP album, Merry Christmas, released November 29th and will be available on all streaming and digital platforms, with two of the songs releasing to radio that same day. It’s a little more intimate and soulful than what I usually do, but I’m moving more in that direction as an artist. The EP contains four songs—three are classics done in a soulful way, with the first song—an original—done in my usual 90’s flair. The original, The Greatest Gift, is an upbeat song about how the greatest gift we’ve ever received is really the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. As the chorus goes, “The gift of salvation is the greatest gift Christmas brings / better than anything underneath the Christmas tree / Love redefined by the king who gave his life for us / Oh risen king, you remind us why we celebrate Christmas day.”
The second song on the album is actually my remake of the song, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, titled, Merry Little Christmas. It seems to be everyone’s favorite, but the story of how I came up with that version comes from a very dark place—filled with hope. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas has always been my favorite Christmas song. I used to play it the way many others played it; upbeat, fun, cheerful.
But then, Christmas of 2019 came along, and my life was forever changed. My son, Dawson, was born just after Thanksgiving, and his mother developed a rare condition and almost died giving birth to him. Had we not been at one of the best hospitals for women in the US, she wouldn’t have survived. The room looked like a war zone, and I sent out a prayer request on social media, with hundreds of people praying. I really believe that’s what saved her life. My son had a rare heart condition and had several heart malformations. He needed three open-heart surgeries just to survive. Again, it was many prayer warriors that made his surgeries so successful.
My wife and I rented a six hundred square foot apartment for the three of us during all of this, as close to the children’s hospital as we could be. But the apartment would be nothing but boxes through the holidays. No Christmas decorations. No extended family Christmas. Just us, celebrating the best gift—the gift of life. Blessed that our Dawson was still alive, and that’s all that mattered to us. No tree or gifts needed.
I came up with this version of Merry Little Christmas to express the somber, scared, melancholic version of me, watching my wife in ICU and my son in CICU. It was probably the scariest time of my life, and this version reflects that. And yet, there’s hope. There’s hope in Jesus. He is hope.
We had planned on recording my regular album, but in a rush, at the last minute, we decided to do the Christmas album instead, with the intent on recording one Christmas song for radio. That turned into four songs. It seemed everything that could come against us did – from the piano pedal breaking in the studio while we were recording, and the repair guy not being available for a couple of weeks, to the disc duplicators having issues with the files, etc. We literally finished just in time to send it off and have it available this week. One really cool story is that I’ve always been a huge fan of artists from the 60’s and 70’s like Johnny Cash, Elvis, Dolly Parton, and the like. The man who mastered my Christmas album, Benny Quinn, mastered all of those artists in his early years. Just knowing that the albums from these greats have his fingerprint on them, and that his same fingerprint is on mine, truly felt like a Christmas gift to me.
The promo photos from the album were actually a professional vintage-style photo shoot my wife and I were hired to do for another project, but they didn’t use all the photos and gave us the rights to these. I felt the candy red 1958 Corvette and our attire reflected the feel and sound of the style we wanted to portray. And here’s an interesting fact, the car belonged to the late Truett Cathy, the founder and owner of Chick-Fila.
SK: Can you update us on your other projects and and share your goals for 2022 – personal and professional?
MH: I signed a one-year distribution deal with the label, so our goal is to record as much as possible in early 2022 and get the songs to radio and the public, with finishing the year out by putting on some shows again after we complete an album. Then, hopefully, 2023 will be a year of playing shows and connecting with audiences again, hoping covid will be a thing of the past. The new album is a little different than what I’ve done before. I’m getting older and my tastes are maturing. It’s like all the great stuff from the turn of the century with modern class. It’s very late 1990’s driven, mainly led by guitar or piano. It’s Norah Jones meets Counting Crows, Matchbox 20, Coldplay, Dave Matthews, and Keith Urban, with the deep, melodic vocal signatures of Johnny Cash or Elvis. A lot of the songs are about brokenness. I was a broken person for a long time. Jesus changed me. Jesus healed me. I want to reach people where they are. There’s definitely a melancholic tone to the album, but there’s the hope of healing in Jesus.
You can download or listen to Matthew Hawk’s new album on all streaming platforms. https://orcd.co/vbev0bv
