Christmas at the Henry’s did not begin as a six-song soundtrack project. Most of this music had been developing for years through Christmas concerts, stage productions, writing sessions, and the work Chevon Corlew-Coleman and I had already done together.
Chevon had written several Christmas productions centered around Mama V and the family. Some of these songs became part of that world long before Christmas at the Henry’s was written. We had performed versions of the Christmas Medley, “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” “O Holy Night,” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” in earlier concerts and productions. The arrangements continued to develop each time we returned to them.
The Christmas Medley began during one of the creative sessions Chevon and I would have at the piano. I would play through ideas, she would start connecting songs and developing the vocal direction, and we would follow whatever began to take shape. That medley eventually became the opening rehearsal scene in several of her Christmas productions.
In Christmas at the Henry’s, the choir gathers at the Henry home because the church has lost power. They are preparing for a holiday concert and begin rehearsing the opening medley in the living room. The music is not placed there simply to open the show. It establishes the Henry home as a place where family, church, humor, and music all meet.
Music Built Over Years
The Christmas Medley is close to ten minutes long and moves through several musical settings. It has the scale of a full opening number, with key changes, orchestral percussion, brass, guitars, strings, and several shifts in dynamics.
Some sections are large and declarative. “Joy to the World” has the feel of a proclamation. Then the arrangement can pull back into something smoother and more orchestral for “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” with strings, bells, guitars, and softer musical colors.
That movement was important because the medley had to do more than combine Christmas songs. It had to hold the stage, support the vocals, and keep changing enough to carry a long opening scene.
“Go Tell It on the Mountain” came from one of our earlier Christmas arrangements. The basic musical foundation stayed close to the version we had already performed, but the ending developed into something new while I was working in the studio.
I had the drive section looping while I made adjustments. As the repeated background vocal kept cycling against the band, I heard another direction for the vamp. The background singers continue repeating “go tell it” while different vocalists move through their lead parts over the top.
It was one of those production moments that did not come from sitting down with a fully formed plan. The loop itself revealed the idea. I added gospel runs and musical responses around it, and the ending became one of my favorite moments on the soundtrack.
Within the play, “Go Tell It on the Mountain” also feels like part of the family’s history. The Henry women are asked to sing it for the Christmas pageant, and the song emerges naturally from a kitchen conversation rather than appearing as a separate performance number.
“O Holy Night” was another arrangement we had carried through previous concerts and productions. For this recording, I spent more time developing the string writing and giving the arrangement a fuller shape.
The song appears after the neighborhood carolers arrive at the Henry home and ask Papa Ben to sing one of their favorites. What begins as another warm family moment carries more meaning because the audience has already begun to see that something is wrong with him.
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” also has history in the production. Early in the play, Papa Ben sings it to Maxine in a playful, jazzy way while holding mistletoe over their heads. The moment is affectionate and funny, but it is interrupted when Maxine experiences pain and the two begin questioning each other about their health.
By the end of the play, the song means something different. Papa Ben’s final message asks Maxine to sing his favorite Christmas song for him. The opening medley then returns for the bows, bringing the production back to the music that first welcomed the audience into the Henry home.
Turning the Production Into a Soundtrack
The stage production was presented at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center in 2023. By that point, much of the music had already been produced because we needed performance stems for the live show. We returned to the production in 2024 at Praise, Power & Compassion Ministries, and that was when we decided to finish the recordings properly and bring the music together as an EP.
That meant revisiting older arrangements rather than simply exporting the same tracks we had used onstage.
“I’ll Love You Forever” is the ballad between Maxine and Benjamin Henry. The song gives them space to profess their love for one another and supports the emotional center of their story. I added strings around the ballad to give it warmth without crowding the relationship at the center of it.
“Psalm 23” reaches even further back. Chevon first recorded it on our earlier Jeremiah 29:11 project as a simple piano-and-vocal performance. When we decided to use it again, I did not want to repeat the original arrangement.
I rebuilt it with a more detailed string orchestration, writing separate parts for first and second violins, viola, cello, and bass. The music remains restrained through much of the song, but the band enters during the “surely goodness and mercy” section to drive that declaration before pulling back into piano, vocals, and strings.
Chevon had not heard the complete revised direction while it was being developed. Hearing the new arrangement during pre-production became one of the surprises of the project. The strings and vocal performance gave the song a depth that was very different from the first recording.
The soundtrack was created across several locations. Chevon recorded her lead vocals in Ohio and sent the sessions to us. We recorded the background vocals at Vivid Tempo Studio. Bravo Buggs recorded the live drums from his studio, and Ryan Class recorded guitars from his setup in South Florida. I brought those performances together with the programmed orchestration, additional instrumentation, arrangements, editing, mixing, and mastering.
That is what this project represents to me. It is not simply a collection of Christmas songs written for one production. It carries pieces of years of collaboration, earlier concerts, older stage plays, studio sessions, and ideas that continued to grow each time we returned to them.
Some of the songs changed significantly. Others only needed to be refined and finally recorded in the form we had performed for years. Together, they became the musical history of the Henry family and the world Chevon had been building across several productions.