Handmade Music for Christmas

Spinning on Air | May 18, 2010

Had enough of the souped-up Xmas songs bombarding you in the stores? Host David Garland offers an hour of Christmas music on an intimate scale. For the last few years songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sufjan Stevens has been using his banjo, piano, guitar, oboes, recorders, his gentle singing voice, and his unusual sensibility to record some traditional and original Christmas music. He's given these recordings to family and friends, and this year they can be heard on Spinning On Air. The familiar Christmas song "I Wonder as I Wander" was written by the wonderful and eccentric folklorist John Jacob Niles, and that song and others will be heard from his 1940 album "Early American Folksongs and Carols." And John Fahey applies his American Primitive Guitar to carols for some rough-hewn beauty.
» Sufjan Stevens presents his "Michigan" album on Spinning On Air
» Sufjan's own website
» More on John Jacob Niles
» More on John Fahey
» Sufjan Stevens presents his "Illinois" album on Spinning On Air

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