Artist: Tony Trischka
Hometown: Syracuse, New York, and Fair Lawn, New Jersey
Songs: “Christmas Night” & “The Christmas Medley”
In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Christmas Night’ around 10 years ago. The process of creating the lyric was inspired by a John Hartford song, wherein he stream-of-consciousnessed a descriptive story. By taking this approach with ‘Christmas Night’ the words just flowed out, rather than my painstakingly having to think of what lyric should come next. While doing this, an image popped into my head that brought me right back to my childhood. The wonderful thing about our tree, as opposed to those of other folks in our neighborhood, was that we had blue lights, rather than white or multi-colored. It created a beautifully peaceful atmosphere in the house that resonates with me to this day. It kind of symbolized the way I always knew my parents weren’t exactly in the Eisenhower mold.
“For ‘The Christmas Medley,’ I chose three of my favorite traditional Christmas carols. For the second song, ‘Joy to the World,’ I utilized Keith tuners to bring out the melody, similar to the Scruggs pegs Earl used on ‘Flint Hill Special,’ wherein the banjoista safely retunes while playing. These songs were recorded at Ricky Skaggs’ studio in December of 2019, after having just performed them on the Grand Ole Opry.” — Tony Trischka
