John Fahey Christmas Album

John Fahey | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 16, 1994)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Burnside
• ASIN: B000003BLY
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #165,323 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #54 in Music > Indie Music > Alternative Rock > Alternative Folk

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This gifted guitarist possesses a remarkable blend of power and delicacy, and an unparalleled ear for the beauty of music both ancient and new. On this lovely collection, Fahey (accompanied by piano and cello) takes listeners on a tour that spans different cultures (Ireland and Spain, to name but two) and eras. Blending older sanctified music such as "Angels from the Realms of Glory" and "Mary Had a Baby" with thematically related pieces such as "Lo How a Rose E'er Blooms," Fahey captures the spirit of December 25th. --David Sprague

Product Description

John Fahey's 1975 Christmas album features stunning instrumental versions of classic holiday favorites.

Ranked in Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sixty Minutes of Christmas Cheer, October 7, 2000

By 

Steve Vrana (Aurora, NE) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: John Fahey Christmas Album (Audio CD)

Of the more than six thousand titles in my music collection, more than two hundred of them are Christmas albums. And starting the week of Thanksgiving, The John Fahey Christmas Album spends more time in my CD player than most of them. There's an intimacy to Fahey's music that befits the holiday season. Whether it's the solemn beauty of "Silent Night" or the gaiety of "Jingle Bells," Fahey's playing is mesmermizing. On about half of the tracks Fahey is accompanied by cello ("Angels from the Realms of Glory," "Good Christian Men Rejoice"), piano ("Spanish Carol) and/or flute ("Christ Is Born as Child of Man," "Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming") to wonderful effect. If you have found some of Fahey's secular music inaccessible, this is certainly not the case with his Christmas music. This hour-long album is as important as Phil Spector's or Elvis Presley's or Mannheim Steamroller's Christmas albums. Throw another log on the fire, pour yourself an egg nog and enjoy. ESSENTIAL

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Just before the silence descended, July 4, 2000

By 

P. Bryant (Nottingham, England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: John Fahey Christmas Album (Audio CD)

The latest in a series of Christmas John Fahey albums, and perhaps the prettiest, with flute, piano and cello arrangements gracing some less obvious Xmas pieces - this is Fahey at his most New Age. Enjoying its lambent simplicity, the listener would never realise that this is an album made by a man on a kind of precipice. Fahey was being gradually overwhelmed by various health and financial problems, and after this album nothing was heard from him for five years. (The silence was finally broken by the dark gratings and howlings of "City of Refuge" which includes a ghastly 15 minute noise sequence called "On the Death and Disembowelment of the New Age".) But as Fahey's Xmas albums go, this is probably the best. The somewhat mechanical syncopation of previous Christmas outings is abandoned for a kind of crystalline purity of melody which represents, in its way, one of Fahey's most extreme statements (as "City of Refuge" represents another).

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Received CD propmtly, in time for Chirstmas - Thanks, December 28, 2007

By 

I. M. Jack "Steve" (Florida) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: John Fahey Christmas Album (Audio CD)

My daughter loves John Fahey guitar. She grew up with his music and was thrilled to get this CD before Christmas so she could fill her home with the same music she grew up with. Received the CD in the mail so fast I didn't have time to question the shipping date. Thank you!