It is the week that The Joyful Noise Tour 2012 begins.  It is fun to read the new promotion for the tour.  The following is a sampling of what was out there on Monday.  There is a great article written by Gerry Galipault of the Herald-Tribune.

Clay Aiken makes ‘Joyful Noise’ in Sarasota

By Gerry Galipault, Herald-Tribune

/ Monday, November 19, 2012

If you think the Christmas blitz comes earlier every year — heck, Target launched its first holiday ad before Halloween — that’s nothing to Clay Aiken.

He gets into the spirit in September.

There’s a reason for that: He has been preparing for his third Christmas-themed tour, “Joyful Noise,” which opens Friday in West Palm Beach and crosses the state to Sarasota’s Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall the next day.

“My neighbors must think I’m crazy,” he says over the phone. “I blast Christmas music really loud, I’m dancing around the house and singing all these songs. But it’s just me getting ready for this tour.

“At least this tour starts after Thanksgiving,” he says with a laugh.

The 33-year-old singer, who was the runner-up in the second season of “American Idol,” says he hasn’t done a Christmas tour since 2007, so he had to refamiliarize himself with the standards.

“Christmas can be tough,” he says, “because the songs don’t change that much over the years. Everyone’s heard them before. Many of the ones I’ve chosen come from my Christmas album (2004’s million-selling ‘Merry Christmas With Love’).

“But this time around, I decided to change it up and go back to the basics. This show will be a lot more simple, no more dancers, with an orchestra.”

Instead of bringing an orchestra with him from town to town, he uses local musicians at each tour stop. For Sarasota, he’ll have a 20-piece orchestra behind him.

“It’s a huge undertaking,” Aiken says. “For me, I stress out over all the details before we go on the road. The orchestras usually learn the show in one afternoon. Little things can go wrong, but I don’t notice them because that’s how good they are. These musicians are true professionals and they’re always prepared.

“By the time the first day comes around, I’m not worried anymore, but everyone else around me is stressed out. Funny how that works.”

Aiken’s parents divorced when he was just a year old, so Christmas was a two-day event in his native Raleigh, N.C.

“We would go to my father’s house on Christmas Eve,” he says, “and then my mother’s on Christmas. So it was two days of presents — that part was cool.”

Now that he’s a father — his son, Parker, is now 4 — the holiday is even more of family affair. But Parker won’t be joining him on this tour.

“Can you imagine a 4-year-old being cooped up on a tour bus?” he says, laughing. “It might be cool for him for about a week, but then he would get bored — and how do you entertain a 4-year-old going from town to town?”

Since finishing second behind Ruben Studdard on “American Idol” in 2003, Aiken has had a satisfying career. His debut album, “Measure of a Man,” sold more than 2 million copies, and “Merry Christmas With Love” was the biggest-selling holiday album of 2004.

He doesn’t garner the huge album sales of “Idol” winners Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, but he has a large, devoted following — they’re called “Claymates.”

“They’re wonderful,” he says. “Who could ask for anything more?”

His post-“Idol” résumé is impressive: He has guest-starred on “Scrubs,” “Drop Dead Diva” and “30 Rock.” He finished second to Arsenio Hall on the fifth season of “The Celebrity Apprentice.” And he made his Broadway debut as the not-so-brave Sir Robin in the Tony Award-winning musical “Monty Python’s Spamalot” in 2008-09.

He’s also passionate about the many causes he supports, such as the National Inclusion Project, which he co-founded in 2003. It promotes the inclusion of children with disabilities in activities with their non-disabled peers.

“I’ve been blessed with a great career, and I’m very happy with everything I’ve done so far,” he says, “so anything I can do to help others, I’ll do it. It’s important to me.”

I don’t know about you, but I enjoyed reading this interview.  I really laughed at “I blast Christmas music really loud, I’m dancing around the house and singing all these songs.”

Please make you way to Ticket Sarasota, the page where this great interview was published.  It is very important that we give the page hits and please, take the time to comment.  It lets the author know that information about Clay is a popular thing to post.  Thank you, Mr. Galipault for the great interview.

The popular site, BroadwayWorld.com also published an article about The Joyful Noise Tour on Monday.  It is short, but the site reaches out to many readers.

Christmas is in the air, and what better way to get into the spirit than a night with Clay Aiken and his classical renditions of all your Yuletide favorites? Backed by a 20 piece orchestra, the Joyful Noise Tour will be a holiday show like no other.

To read the entire article, visit BROADWAYWORLD

There were a few fun tweets about the tour on Monday too.

AtlanticCityInsiders ‏@ACInsiders
Don’t forget to enter for your chance to win tickets to see @clayaiken@trumpcasinos in #atlanticcity #acinsiders
https://www.facebook.com/AtlanticCityInside…=ts&fref=ts

WEBE108 ‏@WEBE108Radio
Listen to Storm N Norman for your chance to win a pair of tickets to see Clay Aiken’s Joyful Noise Tour 2012! He… http://fb.me/2iUz9k43d

Visit Central FL ‏@VisitCentralFL
Clay Aiken’s Joyful Noise
Tour comes to the @PolkTheatre November 27. Purchase your tickets now! – http://ow.ly/floP0

City of Clearwater ‏@MyClearwater
Christmas music & American Idol lovers rejoice: @Clayaiken is coming to #Clearwater next Sunday! Get your ticket now: http://ow.ly/fgx3z

If you have a twitter account, watch for these kinds of tweets and re-tweet them.  It’s just one little thing we can do to help Clay fill the seats at his concerts.

As always, I will be watching for more interviews and promotion about Clay and the tour.  Please check back as I will post it as soon as I find it!

One of my favorite holiday performances from Clay was on December 6, 2004.  He was a guest of Jay Leno on the Tonight Show.  Clay was recovering from a severe throat illness so he brought a video of his vocal chords.

Clay seemed relaxed and talked about his upcoming Christmas tour, his new CD, and his book.

As always, Clay was dressed in his own style.  His brown plaid pants and blue blazer stood out from the others.  All and all, it was a wonderful visit as Clay was able to show his intense and stirring side as he sang and then his humorous, light banter and a set of slightly bruised vocal chords up there on the screen for all to see!
Clay sang a beautiful rendition of  Mary, Did You Know?