Sad Christmas Memory Turns To Joy in Brooklyn Music Studio

David Gonzalez/The New York Times Mitchell Kezin, maker of a documentary about offbeat Christmas songs, at a studio in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, last month as the Calypso star Mighty Sparrow recorded “The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot.”

Mitchell Kezin was the little boy that Santa Claus forgot - and he never forgot that.

It was the Christmas season in 1968 when that realization first hit. His parents' marriage was crumbling. Dad was out carousing at office parties. Mom was home, trying to keep it all together.

To spark the spirit, she would play holiday records by Bing Crosby, Andy Williams and Harry Belafonte. But the B-side of one album was a weepy tune that made him feel as if the singer - Nat King Cole - were speaking directly to him. The song, “The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot,” told of a fatherless child who played with old, broken toys.

“The middle part is a spoken-word thing from Nat,” Mr. Kezin, a filmmaker who grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, said recently. “I was just this little kid and really didn't know it was just a record. I felt like Santa had some omniscient point of view on my life. It was terrifying. I asked my mother to play the song over and over again, hoping each time the story would change a little.”

The story did not change. But he did.

Mr. Kezin, 49, grew up to become an avid collector of Christmas music who has bestowed on his friends custom-made recordings for the last 25 years. But he took that devotion one step further, producing a documentary called “Jingle Bell Rocks!” that tells the stories behind 12 offbeat holiday classics. Set for release late this year, the documentary includes songs like Miles Davis and Bob Dorough's “Blue Xmas (To Whom it May Concern),” and Clarence Carter's “Back Door Santa.”

Mr. Kezin started his Christmas music tradition while in art school, when he found himself one winter break with no money for gifts, but with access to a recording studio. Starting with a kitschy Hawaiian song, he added some of the usual suspects and cranked out 50 tapes for friends. He got more into it, ultimately getting in touch with a loose-knit fraternity of like-minded collectors. An article about those collectors in a newsletter made him realize they would be good subjects for a documentary.

One of those collectors was Bill Adler, the former record company executive who gave Run-DMC the idea for “Christmas in Hollis.” Mr. Adler took him to meet Joseph Simmons, who was the Run in Run-DMC. While in town last December, Mr. Kezin asked Mr. Adler where would be a good place for some different holiday music. Next thing you know, they were at Charlie's Calypso City, an outpost of West Indian culture in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where Rawlston Charles, the sharp-dressed proprietor, and some friends were hanging out.

Mr. Kezin mentioned the old Nat King Cole tune. One of Charlie's friends started singing the song.

“Mitchell's head just about exploded!” Mr. Adler said. “He couldn't believe they knew the song. He had the idea to record a version of that song for the film. Then Charlie said, ‘I know Sparrow.'”

That would be the Calypso King of the World, Slinger Francisco, a k a Birdie, a k a the Mighty Sparrow.

Around the same time, Sparrow was driving with a friend in Brooklyn, where he was talking about an old Nat King Cole holiday song about a little boy. He started singing it in the car. Not long afterward, Sparrow got a call from Charlie.

“He knew I liked that song, and he was calling to see if I wanted to sing it for this movie,” Sparrow recalled with a smile. “This was written in the stars!”

On a rainy day last month, inside a windowless recording studio above Calypso City, Sparrow cut his part. Dapper in a brown suit and red turtleneck, he joked with friends while Mr. Kezin and his camera crew prepared to film him. Mr. Kezin had draped Christmas lights in the studio, and placed a Santa doll in the control room.

“Birdie, you ready?” asked the sound engineer.

“One, two, tree,” Sparrow replied, pulling his stool closer to the microphone.

He started to sing, his voice deep, rich and resonant, even at 77 years of age. Mr. Kezin, wedged into a corner of the studio, looked pensive. During the spoken part, Sparrow improvised.

“He's the little boy that Santa Claus completely forgot,” Sparrow recited.

In the control room, Mr. Adler slapped his hand over his heart and dramatically staggered back against the wall. Mr. Kezin smiled.

“I'm so sorry for that laddie,” Sparrow resumed singing. “He hasn't got a daddy. The little boy that Santa Claus forgot.”

Despite the lyrics, the sound was joyous - a calypso swirl of steel drums, horns and jangling triangles. It would become the upbeat finale of Mr. Kezin's documentary, and his own holiday story.

“It was a redemptive moment for me,” he said a few days after the session with Sparrow. “I took a song I was haunted by and turned it around. I made my own happier version. And it came out of the blue.”

A version of this article appeared in print on 05/18/2013, on page A15 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Sad Christmas Memory Turns To Joy in Brooklyn Music Studio .