David Bowie and Bing Crosby were always a bit of an unlikely pair. And yet, they proved that when two incredible talents join forces, a splash of magic can happen. Their story also illustrates that it often takes a village to make a song work, and that was exactly the case with their incredibly popular Christmas duet.

It was September 1977, and the air in England was just beginning to turn crisp. American crooner Crosby was recording his Christmas special and had agreed to have David Bowie accompany him on the classic “Little Drummer Boy.” But there was a tiny ripple in the plan.

‘A fascinating combination’

In a behind-the-scenes interview posted on PBS, songwriter and composer Alan “Buz” Kohan (who had also written for Michael Jackson and many other artists) shared what went down when Bowie first heard the arrangement.

First, Kohan explained that the production company Smith-Hemion thought Bowie and Crosby were a perfect match. They “figured it would be a fascinating combination, since we were shooting in England anyway, to see if we can get some genuine English performers to appear on the show. And we got Twiggy, and we got some other English artists that were basically only known in England; they didn’t........

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