RUSH: Chip Davis, Mannheim Steamroller. You know, when we started this program back in 1988, we started playing Mannheim Steamroller Christmas tunes during the Christmas season during the bump rotation. I’d not met Chip at that point. I think it was a couple years after we started that I finally met Chip and all the gang at Mannheim Steamroller. They had two Christmas CDs at the time. Now they’ve gone way big. I forget how many the have. I think five or six. Back then they used to tour from November through December, and they would have 12 or 13 stops, and they’d always end up in Omaha where Chip is, and they’d do their big finale tours a couple days over Christmas.
Now there are two Mannheim Steamroller groups, one on the Left Coast and one on the Right Coast to handle the demand. They have 75 tour appearances now, Christmas concerts from November through December, and Chip has gotten so big and so busy he can’t make them all. Some original members of Mannheim are on the Left Coast now handling that version of Mannheim Steamroller, and the others are on the East Coast, and then they mix it up. They’ve just grown by leaps and bounds. If a Mannheim Steamroller Christmas concert is coming soon to your region, you gotta go to it. It’s just wonderful. No other way to describe it.
Now, many people have called here over the years and want to know, ‘What is your Heritage, Limbaugh? You always talk about illegal immigrants.’ I came from Germany. My family actually is a town in Germany, ‘Limbach.’ L-i-m-b-a-c-h. Limbach. You can find Limbach, Germany, on Google Maps. It is just 20 miles east of Mannheim in Germany. That’s right. Mannheim. Mannheim Steamroller. Limbach and Mannheim are 20 miles apart in Germany. Yeah, it’s cool. It’s really cool. Chip’s got a house over there and once offered me the use of it, and I never had an opportunity to take him up on it. But if you do have a chance to see one of their Christmas concerts don’t miss it. I once took the whole staff here (when the whole staff was much smaller) to a concert.
We chartered a plane and took ’em New York to Chicago. It was fabulous. We all stayed in the hotel. We went to the concert and out of the blue I’m sitting next to Diana Schneider in the audience, the editrix here of the Limbaugh Letter, and Chip starts talking on stage about wanting to take a time-out to thank a good friend of theirs on the radio who has been incredibly supportive, and I’m listening to all the people around me whisper who they think it is. I’m hearing all kinds of names, Chicago people, radio personalities. Some people said, ‘Oh, talking about Howard Stern,’ and he got to me and mentioned my name and I stood up and walked up to the stage. It was great. He gave me an official Mannheim Steamroller letter jacket. You remember that, Snerdley?
Snerdley was on the trip. We chartered a giant bus with 55 seats. It had about 14 people on it. (interruption) Yeah, it was a perfect day. It was snowing, wasn’t it? Little snowflakes in Chicago? It was a perfect winter night. We gotta find a way to do that again. They have 75 concerts all over the country now. It used to be just small, 10 or 12 a year. They’d go to places like Tampa or Orlando, once went out… (interruption) It’s a Norman Rockwell kind of experience. They have a giant electric train set up in the audience. The last concert I was able to go to was out on Long Island. I forget the venue. It’s where the Islanders play. I’m just having a mental block on the name of the venue. But again if they’re ever anywhere near you, bop in and check them out.