Frank Sinatra’s iconic 1948 rendition of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” is any Christmas playlist staple, but Seal’s new, beautiful duet of the song with Ol' Blue Eyes himself gives the song a refreshingly modern twist just in time for the holidays. Seal stopped by the Billboard office to reveal how the recording came to be as part of the “How it Went Down” video series.
“The reason why this particular recording is unique is, of course, because I am doing a duet with Frank Sinatra,” Seal explains. After he released his album Standards last month, which included covers of jazz and swing classics including Sinatra’s “Luck Be A Lady,” the Sinatra estate got in touch with him.
“They had already had the Christmas duets record set,” says Seal. “And they heard me and they asked if I would do it. And then I got to meet them and they said that Sinatra would have liked what I did, which was very nice."