98 Degrees plays Stamford’s Alive@Five concert series

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98 Degrees will heat things up in Stamford this month when it performs in the Alive@Five concert series. The pop and contemporary R&B group takes the stage at Columbus Park on Thursday, July 18.

Nick Lachey said he and his band mates are looking forward to the concert. “We are so excited to be back in Connecticut, and performing in Stamford!” he said via email. “It’s going to be a fun night with a show full of energy, the hits you know and love to sing along to, and maybe even a few surprises mixed in as well!”

Aside from Lachey and his brother, Drew, the quartet includes Jeff Timmons and Justin Jeffre. 98 Degrees is known for such songs as “Because of You,” “I Do,” and “The Hardest Thing,” not to mention “Give Me Just One Night (Una Noche)” and “My Everything.”

From 1997 to 2002, the group sold 10 million records and scored a chart-topping single, “Thank God I Found You,” with Mariah Carey and R&B singer Joe, according to a news release. 98 Degrees also collaborated with Stevie Wonder on “True to Your Heart,” for the 1998 Disney film, “Mulan.”

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98 Degrees emerged at a time when teen-oriented acts such as the Spice Girls and The Backstreet Boys were just hitting the top of the charts around the world, the release said. “They differentiated themselves from many of the other teen bands at the time as they wrote much of their own material, which reflected their own R&B influences.”

In 2013, 98 Degrees hit the road with New Kids On the Block and Boyz II Men. In 2016, the quartet headlined its own 38-city trek. The My2K tour, which also included O-Town, Dream and Ryan Cabrera, played to sell-out or near-capacity crowds. . . ”

During the next year, 2017, the band released its first full-length Christmas album in 18 years. “Let it Snow” received glowing reviews and sparked another successful tour plus appearances on television. The guys even performed in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Columbus Park, Stamford. Enter through single main entrance on Main Street at Atlantic Street with multiple entry portals. Thursdays, July 11-Aug. 8, 5 p.m. $20, cash only. Over 21 only. Happy hour 5-6 p.m., all drinks $5. No re-entry. Shaggy July 11, 98 Degrees July 18, POP 2000 Tour (hosted by Lance Bass of *NSYNC, with O-Town, Aaron Carter, Ryan Cabrera and Tyler Hilton) July 25, Travie McCoy (of Gym Class Heroes) Aug. 1 and T-Pain Aug. 8. Check here for restricted items. 203-348-5285

Nick and Drew Lachey Are Closing Their Sports Bar After 3 Years: 'Onward and Upward'

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DAVE QUINN 

February 06, 2018 02:11 PM

Pour one out for Lachey’s.

The Cincinnati sports bar founded by 98 Degrees singers Nick Lachey and Drew Lachey is closing its doors after three years. Its final day in business will be Sunday, Feb. 11.

“This week will be our last week of operations,” reads a message on the restaurant’s website. “Party with Nick and Drew at Lachey’s one last time this weekend as a final farewell.”

Both Nick and Drew posted about the closing on their Instagram accounts, each sharing photos taken at the bar.

“Me and my boys enjoying one last hurrah at @lacheysbar,” Nick, 44, wrote on a photo with his sons Camden John, 5, and Phoenix Robert, 1.

“It’s been an incredible 3 years full of lifelong memories,” he continued. “Thank You Cincinnati for helping me realize a dream and the chance to share it with multiple generations of Lacheys and Lachey fans. We will be closing it’s doors after this Saturday night. Let’s make some more amazing memories this weekend and send her out in style!!”

'Please Come Home for Christmas' was born in Cincinnati

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Chris Varias, Special to Cincinnati Enquirer

On their new Christmas album, “Let It Snow,” 98 Degrees put their spin on several holiday favorites. One of the tracks, a sentimental ballad with an R&B feel called “Please Come Home for Christmas,” has a connection to 98 Degrees’ hometown.

Nick Lachey, one-fourth of the vocal-pop group, was raised and schooled here and owns an Over-the-Rhine bar bearing his name. He says the first version of “Please Come Home for Christmas” he heard is the one by the Eagles, who released it as a single in 1978. It peaked at No. 18 on the Billboard chart.

What Lachey didn’t know was that, just like 98 Degrees itself, “Please Come Home for Christmas” is rooted in Cincinnati.

“I had no idea, honestly,” he admits.

“Please Come Home for Christmas” was written by Charles Brown, an R&B singer and pianist who charted several hits in the 1940s and ‘50s, including another soulful Christmas classic, “Merry Christmas Baby.” In 1999, the year of Brown’s death, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

According to local-music historian Brian Powers, Brown got stuck in Cincinnati at a point in his career when the hits had stopped coming. He was supposedly a horseplayer. Newport’s gambling racket saw its opportunity and compelled Brown to commit to an extended engagement performing in mobbed-up nightspots.

In 1960, Syd Nathan, the owner of Cincinnati’s King Records, asked Brown to write a Christmas song. Nathan was hoping for another hit along the lines of 1947’s “Merry Christmas Baby,” and that’s what he got. Brown recorded “Please Come Home for Christmas” at the King studio in Evanston. It became a holiday-season smash that year and lives on through versions by the Eagles, Willie Nelson, Bon Jovi and many others.

“Smokey Robinson recorded a version this year,” Powers says. “The song has got staying power.”

Lachey isn’t the only “Please Come Home for Christmas” crooner that didn’t know the Cincinnati angle. Don Henley, who sings lead on the Eagles’ version, didn’t know, either.

In an e-mail written earlier this month, Henley explains how the Eagles picked up the song.

“I first heard Charles Brown’s recording of ‘Please Come Home for Christmas’ when I was a teenager, living in my little hometown in northeast Texas,” Henley writes. “The song was a hit for Mr. Brown in 1960, but not every radio station was playing it. I only heard it on what was then a powerful, 50,000-watt AM radio station, WNOE, located 340 miles to the southeast in New Orleans. At that time, WNOE was a Top-40 station, but the playlist was not rigid and also included local and regional music. Charles Brown was born in Texas City, Texas, a small city located south of Houston, on Galveston Bay. His career later took him to Los Angeles, but he also spent some time in New Orleans and did some recording there. I wasn’t aware that he had recorded ‘Please Come Home for Christmas’ in Cincinnati.”

Henley continues: “When the Eagles were recording ‘The Long Run’ album in Miami, we needed a break from the daily routine. So, I suggested that we record a Christmas song, and I went on to suggest this song that I had remembered from my teenage years. The band members, and our producer, welcomed the idea. I think we recorded the whole thing is just a day or two.”

From a studio in Evanston to a radio station in New Orleans to a studio in Miami to a studio in Los Angeles, where 98 Degrees recorded their version – there’s no reason to think this 57-year-old tune will stop marching through time.

“We just loved the record,” Lachey says. “But the fact that it has a little bit of tradition rooted there in Cincy – I’m gonna use that little tidbit moving forward.”

Nick Lachey is worried about his team's road to the Final Four

By: Jessie Karangu

As a Cincinnati native, former boy band star Nick Lachey has always pledged his allegiance to the Cincinnati Bearcats. So when he looked at the bracket this year, he got a little queasy. His team’s road to the Final Four, it seems, is full of tough match-ups.

“We’ve got UCLA, we’ve got Kentucky, we’ve got North Carolina all in our bracket just to get to the Final Four so we’re definitely going to have to play our best basketball of the season if we’re going to get very far this year,” Lachey said.

Lachey said he’s always been more of a college basketball fan than an NBA fan and he believes March Madness is the second marquee sporting event of the year — the first being the Super Bowl.

“It’s a whole season’s worth of work coming down to hey a chance to get hot at the right time make a run and anyone’s got a shot. It’s the best sporting event of the year,” said Lachey.

Lachey expects the madness to continue this year, picking Middle Tennessee State to beat Minnesota but he also has his eye on Princeton because they play “kind of old school, pick and roll basketball.”

There are at least two schools we know he won’t be rooting for – Xavier and Louisville.

Xavier, a rival of Cincinnati, has “become so good year in and year out” according to Lachey, he believes the school has “supplanted Louisville as my most hated school in college basketball.”

Like most fans though, he’s just mostly excited the big day is here.

“It’s almost an excused absence of work for most people and the chance to sit down and watch four games at once with a cold beer in your hand on St. Patty’s Day weekend. It just feels right.”

Nick Lachey to be voice of Cincinnati Bell Connector

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Fox19Now

You soon will hear Nick Lachey's voice when you ride the Cincinnati streetcar.

The Cincinnati native is now the official voice of the Cincinnati Bell Connector.

His voice will provide station and landmark information to Cincinnati Bell Connector riders along the 3.6-mile loop route from Second Street to Henry Street. His voice will be heard by the end of the year.

Lachey grew up in Cincinnati, and attended the School for Creative and Performing Arts. He and his brother Drew own Lachey’s Bar with in Over-the-Rhine.

“As a native Cincinnatian and someone who went to school in OTR for many years, I am honored to be a part of the Cincinnati Bell Connector and the role that it will play in the revitalization of this great neighborhood,” Lachey said.