The Birds are singing again: Jason Kelce, Jordan Mailata, and Lane Johnson have a new Eagles’ Christmas album

How could there not be another Eagles Christmas album?

“The creativeness of it, the joy of everyone doing it together, getting to know all the musicians,” said Jason Kelce, when making a list of all the things that made last year’s A Philly Special Christmas such a satisfying experience.

The 2022 holiday collection that teamed Kelce with his offensive line pals Jordan Mailata and Lane Johnson was a runaway success, selling 25,000 green vinyl copies and raising $1.25 million for Philadelphia charities.

“It was the best time I’ve ever had with anything to do with music,” said the All-Pro center and subject of the documentary Kelce, which premieres on Prime Video on Sept. 12.

Along with Mailata and Johnson, the core Special team is producer Charlie Hall, engineer Nick Krill, and Kelce’s pal Connor Barwin, the former Eagle who executive produced the project.

And what do you do when your first endeavor exceeds all expectations and hits the top 10 on four Billboard charts while your team is on the way to the Super Bowl?

You run it back.

Get ready for A Philly Special Christmas Special, the bigger and more expansive second Eagles Christmas album, which will be released this fall on Vera Y Records. Like last year, all funds raised will be donated to Philadelphia charities.

The new 11-song set is four tracks longer than last year’s debut. “A fully cooked goose,” Hall called it. It gets the band back together, with significant roster upgrades.

In addition to Kelce, Mailata, and Johnson, the A Philly Special Christmas Special singers include Philly queen diva Patti LaBelle, singer-songwriter Amos Lee, and indie-Americana artist Waxahatchee. With Luke Carlos O’Reilly on piano, Eagles defensive tackle Jordan Davis will join his O-line teammates on the tender “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

Additional surprise contributors will be revealed in coming weeks.

And along with its Kelly Green spin on traditional holiday classics and more eccentric choices, the new collection also boasts A Philly Special first. “Santa’s Night,” a song about the Christmas Eve travails of Kriss Kringle, is written and sung by Kelce, who grew up playing jazz saxophone and still plays the guitar.

The first single will come out shortly after Halloween, with album preorders starting then at phillyspecialchristmas.com. They will ship after Thanksgiving. A Philly Special Christmas Special will be released on streaming services and in two physical configurations. A single LP on red vinyl goes for $75. A double in gold, which will package both albums, is $125.

There’s an internal debate, Barwin said, over which song will be the first single. It could be all three o-linemen’s musical act of derring-do, tackling Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.” Or Mailata and LaBelle pairing off on a vivacious version of Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas.”

The album was recorded at Rob Hyman of the Hooters’ Elm Street Studios in Conshohocken. Its Peanuts-inspired album cover is by Philly artist Hannah Westerman, with the blessing of the estate of Charlie Brown creator Charles Schulz.

Hyman and his bandmate Eric Bazilian are among the Philly musicians back for round two, along with pianist Zach Miller of Dr. Dog, guitarist Brandon Beaver, sax player Nasir Dickerson, pedal steel guitarist Mike “Slo-Mo” Brenner, Hall’s the War on Drugs’ bandmates Eliza Hardy Jones and Robbie Bennett, and the Hall-led indie rock chorus the Silver Ages.

But this year, the pool of topflight Philly players has grown.

“There was so much excitement after last year,” said Hall. “All of this energy was there. So my impulse was to bring in more folks. Expand the band. Try out all of these different flavors. By the first day I could tell this was going to be great. I think we made something that’s going to endure.”

Along with O’Reilly, the new players include bassist Anthony Tidd, guitarist Kevin Hanson, and drummer Justin Faulkner. Waxahatchee — Katie Crutchfield, who now lives in Kansas City but spent years in Philly — duets with Johnson on Willie Nelson’s “Pretty Paper.” And Eagles general manager Howie Roseman contributes vocals to an ingenious “The Dreidel Song” with a blues-rock Bo Diddley beat.

Hall, whose Vein Melter band will interpret Herbie Hancock’s 1973 Head Hunters album at Solar Myth as part of the Philly Music Festival on Oct. 15, says A Philly Special Christmas Special is “like a cross between Live Aid and The Muppet Show.”

“The spirit of the thing is that it’s blossomed into this family, this array of musicians, and everybody’s flying by the seat of their pants and everything could fall apart while Kermit’s trying to pull the whole production together.”

The album was recorded between May and July, entirely in the offseason, before the start of training camp, Barwin points out.

With one exception: LaBelle came to the Eagles practice facility in South Philly in July to record her vocal. “She looked at me and said, ‘Mr. Producer Man, what do you want me to do?’” Hall recalled. “And I was like, ‘You’re asking me?’ Like, how much direction am I entitled to give Patti LaBelle? What a day. What a day!”

A Philly Special Christmas Special doesn’t stint on standards. It opens with the three Birds singing “The Christmas Song,” the Mel Torme-penned Nat King Cole classic, and includes Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time is Here,” with a chorus that includes many Eagles and Eagles staffers’ children, including Barwin’s daughter, Vera, and son, West.

It also loosens up with a ribald take of the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” retooled as “Fairytale of Philadelphia.” (Sample lyric: “You’re a lush, you’re a crumb bum, you smell like some old scum, washed up from the Schuylkill and rotting away.”)

Lou Monte’s “Dominick the Donkey,” a South Philly holiday favorite,is transformed into “a lysergic fever dream,” said Hall. “The song is so bizarre anyway, why not lean into it and make the most fun, wild, and strange version of it imaginable?”

The Eagles players went into the studio this year with an eagerness to build on what they learned last year. “These guys aren’t professional musicians,” said Barwin. “But they are professional athletes. And professional athletes get coached every single day. And Charlie’s a great coach, because he knows how to give them feedback while building their confidence. It’s really cool to watch.”

Now that second Philly Special is completed, does that mean that there will be more on the way?

If so, Hall has some ideas for Philly-connected artists he’d like to invite to the studio. On his short list: Boyz II Men, Daryl Hall, Dean Ween, Taylor Swift, Laraaji, Pink, and the Roots.

“Maybe we’re all just high on our own supply,” Hall said. “But I think everyone would want to do at least one more, and take last year’s and this year’s and round it out into a trilogy. It’s so fun. It’s hard to imagine not doing more.”