Karen Newman misses singing at Detroit Red Wings games, but she's keeping busy

While running through a recent pounding and lively rhythm-section rehearsal in a Birmingham music studio, Karen Newman took swigs of an energy drink in between her vocal performances.

The longtime Detroit Red Wings national anthem singer has been grinding while gearing up for her two annual Christmas shows, Dec. 9 at the Roxy in Rochester and Dec. 17 at Andiamo Celebrity Showroom in Warren, plus a television special that airs Christmas Eve on WDIV-TV (Ch. 4 in Detroit).

So the energy drink (or three) makes a lot of sense, especially since she has to keep her pipes away from astringent food and drinks. With rocket fuel flowing inside her, Newman belted out one holiday standard after another as Michael King, her music partner and the show’s music director, conducted a five-piece band like a quarterback calling plays and audibles.

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The two-hour session was such a lively explosion of Christmas music that even in late November it wouldn’t have been surprising if St. Nick himself had walked through the door, grabbed a guitar and started wailing.

Then it stopped. The band prepared to play “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and Newman groaned a little with unease.

I stood in a corner of the studio and didn’t understand her complaint. It isn’t a particularly difficult song and, well, who doesn’t love it? A little while later, over lunch at Beau’s Grillery in Bloomfield Hills, Newman explained.

“It's not hard to sing,” she said. “It gets emotional, because I get emotional and then I look out in the audience and I can't tell you how many sets of tears I see.

“People must be thinking of loved ones that are no longer with them. People who are serving overseas someplace or just in a different state that can't get home for Christmas. Yeah, that's a hard one to get through without really getting choked up.”

I’ve heard Newman sing the anthem countless times, as well as numerous other people, around the country. Newman is among the best I’ve ever heard. One of her strengths is her vocal phrasing and the way she delivers the difficult and archaic lyrics with an emotional punch.

“Yeah, but there's a fine line,” she said of singing any song with emotion. “You’ve got to be able to control it, too, you know?

“So you want to tap into that, you want to dip your toe in that pool. It becomes more believable and more genuine. But you can't sing when you're choked up and you got a big lump on your throat.”

At her Christmas shows, Newman might think about her twin sister she doesn’t see too often because she lives in Arizona. The year her father died, it was hard to see her mother in the audience.

As for singing the anthem regularly for the Wings, she misses that, too. At least parts. She became the Wings’ regular anthem singer, and an iconic one who sang at nearly every home game, during the 1990-91 season, when Atanas Ilitch told her his family wanted to build a tradition with her kicking off every game as the team’s exclusive singer.

It was always based on a verbal agreement. Two years ago, after the organization told her it wanted to give other singers an opportunity, she sang at just four games in the 2021-22 season. Last season, she sang at three games.

The Wings know what she means to the fans and the place she holds in their hearts, thanks to her association with the team’s glory years. As I understand it, the Wings plan to ask her to sing this season at select games that mark historical celebrations at Little Caesars Arena.

My profile of Newman in 2014 looked back at nearly 25 years of her singing for the Wings: Even then, she knew the gig might not last forever and was OK with it. She’s still OK with it. More than OK with it, actually, because she fully appreciates the opportunities the job gave her.

“It was amazing,” she said. “So I miss my friends down there for sure. It changed anyway, from Joe Louis to LCA. It just changed the interaction between everyone.

“But the one thing that never changed was the fans. It's been great. So I appreciate the opportunity. I mean, 34 years.”

Newman paused for a moment, looked at her salad, and then crinkled her eyes like a kid with a secret.

“They probably thought I'd never leave,” she said, howling with laughter.

What she doesn’t miss is the nerves that come with performing the anthem.

“In a physical sense, it’s been better for me because it's less work, it’s less stress,” she said. “Listen, every time I went down to sing that anthem I was a nervous wreck.

“People are all, ‘You’re still nervous after all those times that you sang it?’ Yes. Yes, I am. Every single time. Even now when I sing for the alumni (games) or I sing for a charity or I sing for a high school, I’m still nervous.”

One of the reasons for those nerves is the anthem’s difficulty. “It’s a big song. It’s an unsingable song,” she said, quoting late opera singer Jessye Norman. The reason, Newman explained, is that the song is “rangy.”

“It’s an octave plus five more notes,” she said. “And most people, even just most singers, only have an octave with maybe a couple of notes over it. But that's almost two octaves and that's a hard thing to sing from top to bottom.”

Next time you hear someone butcher “The Star-Spangled Banner,” keep that in mind.

And keep in mind the professional routine Newman had to go through for every performance. She couldn’t eat, because it might affect her voice. She would do her vocal warmup during the car ride, often singing along to Celine Dion. The she would tactfully navigate an arena, where she would be stopped countless times by fans and friends, on her way to sing for nearly 20,000 people.

“You know, it's only 90 seconds out of my life each game,” she said. “I had that down to 90 seconds, but it's a lot leading up to it to make sure that I was going to be on my game.”

Afterward, she might visit longtime suite owners before she left the arena. She and her husband, Dino, would listen to Ken Kal call the game on the radio on the drive home, then switch to Ken Daniels when they flipped on the TV at home.

She still keeps track of the team and stays in contact with several alumni. But Newman’s life is filled with plenty of other jobs, such as her holiday shows, countless charity appearances, working with Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals through Beaumont Children’s Hospital and, most important, being a mom to her 21-year-old twins, Kylie and Dylan, who are students at Michigan.

“I do miss the excitement of being at all those games,” she said. “But it's a choice. I can go down there anytime I want, you know? And I will.

“But it is a little bit liberating. I can breathe a little easier. I'm glad I still have my job as a mom, because that's just as important to me as anything else and even at 21 they still need me and I love that.”

There’s always been a wistful quality to the holidays. As we get older and more of those holidays pass, it’s natural that we think more and more about the people we miss. I asked Newman if she has a sense of how much Wings fans miss her.

It’s clear she does from the regular calls and texts and the personal encounters she has with them.

“And I appreciate the love, you know?” she said as her voice softened. “I don't mind that.

“I miss them, too. I miss being down there. I grew up on Red Wings hockey. It’s my dad's favorite team.”

Newman was right all those years ago. Nothing lasts forever, no matter how much we want it to or how much we miss it. But I think I speak for a lot of Wings fans who want to say what I want to say right about now: Have yourself a merry little Christmas, Karen Newman.

Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Karen Newman keeping busy while not singing at Detroit Red Wings games