CULTURE WATCH : Holiday Caroling Hits a New Stage

“Santa Took the Subway” and “Don’t Let Gramma Cook Christmas Dinner” aren’t your traditional Christmas tunes, but they join 43 carols featured on a pair of holiday CDs to provide financial help to people with AIDS.

Just released is “Cabaret Noel: A Broadway Cares Christmas,” performed by 58 soloists and groups from New York and Los Angeles cabaret and musical theater to support Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS.

Since October, 1987, that group has raised $8 million for grants to more than 350 nationwide AIDS service organizations.

The two-disc set features traditional carols along with the not-so-traditional, recorded by such artists as Maureen McGovern, Melba Moore, Robert Morse, Richard Kiley, Tommy Tune, Holly Near and Brian Green, Leslie Uggams and Lainie Kazan.

“The idea for ‘Cabaret Noel’ was a gift from the very same spirit whose birth we celebrate with this album,” says D.C. Anderson, who came up with the concept last July.

Profits from “Cabaret Noel” ($24.95) go to BC / EFA. The set is available in Los Angeles at Tower Records-Video, Aron’s Record Shop and Missouri Trader.