Editor’s note: As we approach Christmas this week I wanted to pull this “Christmas in July” timed post from July 2024. If you’re wishing for your guy this Christmas, maybe take a minute a listen to Oak Cliff’s Lisa Lanye.  – Victoria Hernandez

In a strong, clear voice, the songstress cries out that no presents are necessary this year. All she really wants for Christmas is her guy.

It’s a simple wish, recognized by most of us as the theme of one of the all-time most popular Christmas songs: “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” And no, it’s not Mariah Carey’s version.

Long before the Queen of Christmas sang her early 2000’s classic, Americans have been listening to a similar tune. But one thing Cliffites may not know is that the original vocalist, Lisa Layne, grew up in Oak Cliff, graduated from Kimball High School, and began her career here.

Just one more Oak Cliff success story to add to the list.

Layne’s love of music started at home with her family. She began singing at the age of 4 with her father, who is still a professional musician.

“We were all musically inclined,” she says. “Not all of us performed professionally, however. That’s just what we all do for the most part.”

Her family lived in the Lenora Kirk Hall district, but because she was a diabetic, Layne attended Martin Weiss Elementary School, where her mother worked.

“Mom wanted to keep a closer eye on me,” Layne says.

Then, it was on to L.V. Stockard and Kimball.

“No teacher really influenced my music,” Layne says. “I did have a junior high choir teacher who told me I couldn’t really sing, but I decided not to listen to him.”

Layne and her family lived close to Westmoreland and Kiest Boulevards. “Living where we did in Oak Cliff was very nice,” she reminisces. “We had a creek and park running alongside the whole neighborhood. Lots of friends there, too. Oak Cliff is a lot prettier than North Dallas.”

“We ate at Tippy’s Taco House a lot,” Layne says. “My brother, Brett, and I worked there, too, during high school.”

In addition to her after school job, she sang as a member of the New Tyme Singers and participated in the 1979 school musical, “Bye, Bye, Birdie.” After her 1980 graduation, she joined a guitar-stroking vocal trio named Beaver Creek along with Marsha Britton — a friend from Oak Cliff — and a male vocalist/musician from California.

“Beaver Creek performed all over [the] North Texas area,” Layne says. “Most of the clubs and things, well, I can’t recall a name. We did do Johnnie High’s Country Music Revue a lot during the early ’80s.”

In 1986, she answered a newspaper ad from Vince Vance and the Valiants, who were looking for three female singers to sing the three-girl group songs. It turned out to be an event that changed her life.

During her five-year tenure with the band, Layne attracted quite a bit of attention for her mature voice with its heat-filled sound, a perfect fit for Vance’s vision of recording the now-Christmas-classic.

The song landed on the Billboard country charts six times in the 1990s, and LeAnn Rimes and Kelly Clarkson both covered it.

Layne then relocated to Nashville, where she joined a successful beach music band, while also doing quite a bit of demo work. In early 1993, she won the role of Patsy Cline in the first national tour of “A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline.” After touring with that troupe for the better part of two years, she joined the Nashville troupe as the lead in the same show. Her next move was performing at Nashville’s Texas Troubadour Theater, doing the Patsy show from 1998 until 2000.

Layne is one of only three women certified by the Patsy Cline Association to do official tribute performances to the late singer. Wearing her “Patsy costume” — including the trademark white leather boots — she belts out the familiar Cline tunes to appreciative audiences full of fans both old and young. Layne has appeared with Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Hall and Oates, Julio Iglesias, Little Eva, Larry Gatlin, Fats Domino and Chicago.

Since debuting the song, Layne has now re-recorded her signature holiday song alongside 12 other Christmas classics in an album fittingly titled “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” She is accompanied on all selections by the world-famous Jordanaires.

Her latest project? The new album, A Tribute to Patsy Cline.

“These are some of my favorite Patsy songs,” Layne says, “[the ones] I wanted to record.”

She’s also singing as Patsy in the show “Always, Patsy Cline” at the God and Country Theatre in Branson, MO, where she has been performing for the past seven years.

So this holiday season, when her song blasts over the airways, remember that Lisa Layne is one of us — she hails from the Cliff.