NOTE: “Today” and “tonight” refer to Friday, Nov. 27.
PORT ANGELES — The pair of Port Angeles sweethearts know what they want this Christmas.
Dillon Witherow and Abby Mae Latson want to be home, together, making music.
For months now — “crazy” months, Latson says — they have prepared for this. First, in the attic of Witherow’s mother Susan’s Port Angeles home, they built their own recording studio.
It’s a rag-tag studio, Latson said, and it worked just fine to make “Witherow Christmas,” their CD to be released this evening at the Upper Room, upstairs at 112 N. Lincoln St., in an all-ages concert. Doors will open at 6 p.m. and David and the Psalms, David Rivers of Port Angeles’ new band, will open the show.
“We’ll be playing a wide range of Witherow songs, some full band songs, some acoustic songs,” Latson promised, “and new renditions of Christmas classics,” some of which are on the new disk.
Tonight’s Witherow lineup has Dillan on guitars, Latson on vocals and Jason Taylor on electric bass; guitarist Sean Burton, who is listed in the CD’s credits as “recording engineer and moral support,” will also be part of the ensemble.
The record is an EP, an “extended player” shorter than a typical album.
Producing a full-length CD would cost twice as much, Witherow said; Latson added that they wanted to finish the thing in time for a Thanksgiving-weekend release.
So the two narrowed it down to their favorites: “Joy to the World,” “Silent Night,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “O Come O Come Emmanuel” and Witherow’s original tune “Snowfall.”
They gave the tracks their own rock-flavored arrangements. Latson created the artwork for the CD sleeve, choosing a photograph of the woods above Lake Sutherland for the front.
On the back is another of her pictures, this one taken from her window at home, replete with a melting snowflake on the glass. Latson also handwrote the “Merry Christmas” on the front; her love for the holiday is visible in the script.
“Christmas for me is the anticipation of something beautiful,” Latson said in an interview at Easy Street, the downtown Port Angeles cafe, last Saturday.
“For weeks, you anticipate it.
“It’s just a beautiful, beautiful time, when people at least try to be kind.”
“No one loves Christmas as much as Abby,” added Witherow.
The CD’s liner notes are simple: “We hope that as you listen,” he and Latson write, “it reminds you of those you hold closest . . .”
And then a quotation from Dr. Seuss, via the Grinch: “Blast this Christmas music. It’s joyful AND triumphant!”
The past couple of years have been a time of growth and development for Latson. She became known across the Northwest as the lead singer in Abby Mae and the Homeschool Boys, a bluegrass quartet.
In gigs at festivals, bars and barns, the group used one microphone, so Latson had to belt out her lyrics.
“It was like a fight,” she recalled. “I was always fighting.”
With Witherow, she sings softly. Her voice is light, like her heart.
Latson, 26, and Witherow, 22, met about four years ago at a songwriters’ circle hosted by David Rivers. They later formed a band called Standing on Shoulders, then changed the name to Witherow, and began gigging around the North Olympic Peninsula and Puget Sound region.
This summer they went to NAMM, the National Association of Music Merchants guitar show in Nashville, Tenn., — because Latson, like Witherow, is a guitar player.
She took several months off in 2013 to study the instrument; then in January 2014 Witherow reappeared as a band, playing Port Angeles’ Snowgrass festival, a benefit for First Step Family Support Center.
Latson grew up playing classical violin, starting in fourth grade at Franklin Elementary School and continuing through Port Angeles High School, where she performed with Ron Jones’ Roughrider Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
The discipline of the violin “helped in a lot of ways,” she said. The instrument taught her to not only make music, but also to do a bunch of things all at once.
Witherow, meanwhile, is a busy guitar teacher, composer and arranger. Like Latson, he is fiercely proud of the homegrown nature of the “Witherow Christmas” project.
Jeremy Cays, whose Cays Productions studio is in Sequim, did the mixing and played drums and strings. And though the mastering was done by Rick Fisher of Seattle’s RFI, the artists see the CD — and tonight’s concert — as a showcase of local energy and talent.
Witherow and Latson chose the Upper Room, which is part of the Independent Bible Church, not because theirs is a Christian band, but because they wanted a family-friendly venue.
Sure, they could have held the concert at a bar, Witherow said, but then people wouldn’t be able to bring their kids.
“It’s about being together, and having a sense of community,” he said.
“The idea is to be really proud of where we’re at.”
