Years ago Steve Lukather released a Christmas album. One of the special guests on the album was his good friend, Eddie Van Halen. Together, they recorded their version of “Joy To The World,” which you can listen to below.
Lukather in 2003: “Ed and I have been friends for 24 years or so. I got him out of seclusion to come rip on one of the Xmas tunes.” Van Halen joins Lukather on a rendition of the standard Joy to the world that Lukather tells will sound a bit different than what most people are used to: “I did a version of Joy to the world that sounds like it’s Hot for teacher or Space boogie. It’s that tempo, that groove, and we re-arranged the voicings around the melody. Me and him go back and forth on some solos.”
This track is from Lukather’s album Santamental, originally released in October 2003 by the new record label Bop City, started by Elliot Scheiner, Al Schmitt and Ed Cherney. In 2005 it was re-released on Steve Vai’s record label Favored Nations.