The John Fahey Christmas Album

Jingle Bells: “…I really put together the final arrangement for Jingle Bells in a Portland hotel the night before we recorded it. I think of it as the ultimate guitarist’s Jingle Bells; it sets the mood for the whole album.” – JF
Angels from the Realms of Glory: “…popular just after 1925, when it appeared in the magazine ‘Christian Psalmist’. I learned the song at church when I was a kid. I like the cello a lot on that piece.” – JF
Silent Night: “I play Silent Night on steel guitar in G with an original intro, break and outro, but in a way as traditionally as I’ve played it for the last hundred years or so.” – JF
Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming: First part of this changed shape and became Gamelan Guitar on the Epiphany of Glenn Jones extravaganza.
O’ Little Town of Bethlehem: “Now if I had been a kid in Philadelphia in the 1860s, my Sunday school teacher at Holy Trinity could’ve written O Little Town of Bethlehem just for us kids.” – JF
Christ is Born on Christmas Day: “One of the key hymns on this collection… meaning that He is eternally born every day or every Christmas. In the Episcopal Church, most of the priests will pray that Christ will be born in all of us, and I like that idea a lot.” – JF
O’ Come Little Children/Ach Du Lieber Augustine
Mary Had a Baby: “…a black Christmas carol that I play steel guitar on, and what’s interesting about this song is that it reveals how very few black carols there are. There are lots of theories why, but it’s more than possible that the black people just had to work harder so the white people could have their parties around Christmas time.” – JF
Good Christian Men, Rejoice, Rejoice: “We would typically sing it with drinks at the Episcopal Church, though its origins were of a higher order of spirit. It’s a free rendering of the carol In Dulci Jubilo, the text of which was first sung by angels to Heinrich Suso the mystic (d. 1366) who was drawn into a dance with his celestial visitors by their singing.” – JF
Spanish Carol: “I learned Spanish Carol at the Episcopal church camp in Virginia where I used to go for a week every summer in my teens. Those weeks I spent were probably the happiest individual weeks in my life. It was just wonderful. We used to sing Spanish Carol every day before lunch, but we always changed the words; you can sing the doxology to it, and that’s what we did.” – JF
O Holy Night: “…my #1 favorite song on this record. Every other version I’ve ever heard is too dramatic. I’ve made an arrangement in open D that sounds nice… quiet instead of hysterical.” – JF
Christmas Medley:
Samuel Barber’s Largo / It Came Upon a Midnight Clear / We Three Kings / Greensleeves / In the Bleak Midwinter / Hark! the Herald Angels Sing / O Come All Ye Faithful / Samuel Barber’s Largo: “Finally, the Christmas Medley begins with an anthem, a Largo by Samuel Barber. Next we have my own standard medley with the first two songs I learned from the church when I lived in Maryland.