Carrie Underwood Talks To AOL On Holiday Special and Working W/ Dolly Parton

[JamesG]

It's been a busy fall for multi-platinum recording artist Carrie Underwood.

In early November, the American Idol winner released her third studio album, "Play On", and reprised her role as co-host of the CMA Awards, along side Brad Paisley. But she's also been in the Christmas spirit this season, as indicated by her two-hour variety special, Carrie Underwood: An All-Star Holiday Special, which airs tonight (Dec. 7th) at 9PM on Fox.

The show will feature musical performances as well as skits, pairing Underwood with Dolly Parton, Kristin Chinoweth, Idol season 7 winner David Cook and Christina Applegate.

Underwood recently spoke to reporters via a conference call about her special, plus her own thoughts on the holiday season. Here's what she had to say:



On the possibility of recording a Christmas album:

I was lucky enough to record a few songs last year. I was so busy last year, I didn't actually have time to do a full album. But I would love to. I love classic Christmas songs. They have been around forever, and everybody knows them and I like doing things very traditional as far as Christmas songs go, so I would love to do that some point. I'm going to finish the album, I guess. I just think there's so many things that are just perfect the way they are.

When you get some good classics, of course, you can put a little bit of yourself in there. If we all sang the same song the exact same way, that would be really boring and nobody would want to hear anybody else sing it. But I love to keep things as traditional as possible, and I love strings and I love to just keeping them traditional and very classy.




On working with Dolly Parton:

I got to sing with her and she did some stuff on her own, too. I'd never met her before this, so I was so excited to be able to get to talk to her and obviously get to sing with her.

It felt like such a special moment for me in the show to be able to perform with her. It was a dream come true. When Dolly's there, you just step out of the spotlight; let her do her thing because no matter how hard you try, she's going to steal the spotlight. It's great. It's the way it should be.




On her favorite Christmas song:

I love things like 'O Holy Night.' I think that's probably my favorite, but 'Little Drummer Boy,' and things like that.

I have those on my records. They're just the things that really puts you in a Christmas frame of mind.




On the best Christmas present she received growing up:

I remember when I was little, I wanted a TV so bad. There's wasn't a box underneath the tree big enough to have a TV in it. So I was kind of getting disappointed the closer it got to Christmas, because there was never another box that was under there that was big enough.

And my mom had wrapped up the remote and it was the smallest TV you could possibly get; it was my TV. I think I had that sucker until I was like -- they might even still have it at the house to be honest, it was probably like 15, 20 years old. But that was really awesome to a 7-year-old girl.




On working with Kristin Chenoweth and Christina Applegate:

They were great. I think it's a lot easier to do stuff like that when you have two people around you that actually know what they're doing. And they both have great comedic timing.

Like I said, they know what they're doing. So we ended up doing a medley of sorts of throwback songs, like the '50s, '60s vibe, with matching pink dresses and beehives. It was just a lot of fun being around them and they're great. They showed up and they were willing to do whatever we needed them to do. Three blondes, we had fun together.




On what's currently making the rounds on her iPod:

I know some of them and like Trevor is just amazing. I think they are people that deserve a lot more credit than they get. I don't know. I am an Idol fan, so I do have a lot of other 'Idol's on my iPod.

I love classic things. I love the Rolling Stones and things that my parents introduced me to. Creedence Clearwater Revival ... Ne-Yo; I don't know. It's just a big mess on my iPod.

You never know what you're going to get when you put on shuffle. I think that's good, though. I love music in general.

http://insidetv.aol.com/2009/12/07/c...liday-special/

[PlayOn]

I missed it. But I hope they'll show it again. Love the last picture, btw. Thanks for posting, JamesG.

[PlayOn]

I just looked at FOX's website and Carrie's Christmas special is to air again on the 22nd. I won't be able to see it, but hopefully somebody in my family can record/DVR it for me.

www.fox.com/carrieunderwood