Pat Donohue had done so many "Prairie Home Companion" shows that he was probably beginning to feel he'd been on the show longer that Garrison! His "Christmas Blues" was written for that show. When he stopped by our studios to sit in with our regular folk program, he took a moment in our recording studio to perform a new version of the song for Ornaments and Icing.
Pat comes from the other end of the Mississippi than the delta. Even though this blues sounds as if it was born at the end of Highway 61, it actually sprang from nearer to the source of the mighty river, up in Minnesota. He had this to say about it. "I don't know, I was sittin' around, just writing a song one day, and that's just what came out. It was around Christmas time and I was trying to write something for the Prairie Home show. This was a couple of years ago. And so I started playing this old blues thing and those words came out. So that's where that came from. As far as I can tell."
Pat's an expert guitarist. In fact, he's a national guitar champion. You might want to check out his first ever arrangement for guitar of Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy," or his touching tribute to the read essence of baseball, "Touch 'em All" about Kirby Puckett.
Pat comes from the other end of the Mississippi than the delta. Even though this blues sounds as if it was born at the end of Highway 61, it actually sprang from nearer to the source of the mighty river, up in Minnesota. He had this to say about it. "I don't know, I was sittin' around, just writing a song one day, and that's just what came out. It was around Christmas time and I was trying to write something for the Prairie Home show. This was a couple of years ago. And so I started playing this old blues thing and those words came out. So that's where that came from. As far as I can tell."
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