If Faith Came With a Soundtrack

John Tesh talks about his new Christmas album, his faith, and living in the modern-day Sodom

BY: Interview by Paul O'Donnell

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The first John Tesh music most of us heard--mostly without knowing it--was his background score for NBC's broadcast of the Barcelona Olympics, which he was covering as a reporter. A few years later, Tesh left his job as co-anchor of "Entertainment Tonight" to become a musician fulltime, and quickly had a success with the bombastic "Live at Red Rocks." His new Christmas collection, "Christmas Worship," is his third explicitly Christian album. As befits the season, it's quieter, but no less passionate than his earlier material.

In conversation, John Tesh is nothing like his outsized music, except the booming laugh that comes easily and often. Tesh tells Beliefnet in this interview that he's been called as a Christian to be honest and self-deprecating. He appears to live out his calling every second. Paul O'Donnell talked to him about his faith, his new album and living as a Christian in Los Angeles.

Do you have a favorite Christmas album-one you grew up with?
The one I grew up with, no one seems to remember: the Bert Kaempfert Orchestra. Back in those days, it was a lot of Nat King Cole and Big Band and orchestral stuff. No pop groups that I remember were doing Christmas albums. Now everyone's selling one. It was right around the time that Herb Alpert was real popular, so people were just more accepting of a rock sound behind an orchestra. Bert Kaempfert, I realize when I listen to him now, was the roots of the Mannheim Steamroller.

What was Christmas like as a child?
If you went to my house on Long Island (N.Y.), in the backyard there are 12 trees that represent the first 12 Christmases I can remember, when my dad would buy a live tree and keep it alive for the holidays and then plant it out back. They are still out there, by the pool that he built for me. My memories of Christmas are of it being very, very real. Being very Christian. I remember going to services on Christmas Eve and falling asleep on my mom's lap.

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