Album Notes

North-Central Washington residents Rolf Vegdahl and Mike Lundstrom have performed their eclectic mix of blues, swing, folk, Celtic music and jazz at Northwest music festivals and concert venues for a decade. However, they're best known for their adaptations of traditional hymns for steel stringed acoustic guitar and resophonic guitar (dobro). They released this CD of Christmas hymns and carols entitled "Christmas Gifts" in 2001. Most of the Christmas Gifts arrangements are faithful to the arrangements found in the Lutherean and Episcopalian hymnals, however some of the tunes have morphed into country blues, swing and jazz. "I can't explain it," said Lundstrom. "It just happens. It's like throwing a bunch of ingredients into a boiling pot of water and watching to see what happens. Rolf and I get together and begin working up a tune and if there's any propensity towards jazz or blues or swing in that tune, it simply bubbles to the surface." Vegdahl began his musical career as a teenage organist in the Lutheran church where his father was pastor. As he recalls, his father had to admonish him on more than one occasion for jazzing up the hymns. In the years since, he has performed solo, and with numerous roots-oriented groups including Genie and the Concubines, the All Mammal Band, Far Darrig, and The Blaggers. He is the musical director at Lake Chelan Lutheran Church, and is a former resident musician at Holden Village, a religious retreat in the North Cascade Mountains near Lake Chelan. In addition to his CD projects with Vegdahl, Lundstrom has recorded extensively. In December 2006 he released "Reciprocity," his solo CD of blues, jazz, and swing music. He contributed to the critically acclaimed compilation CDs, "Resophonics Anonymous" and the Resophonics Anonymous second recording project, "Relapse," released in 2000 and 2005. In 1996, he recorded his first solo CD, "Please Accept This Simple Song," and in 1995, he appeared on "Behind The Barn" with Tab Tabscott. A four-time winner of the Columbia Gorge Bluegrass Festival dobro contest, Lundstrom currently performs in jazz/blues quartet with John Weeks, Bradly Scott, and Ron Clark; in the guitar duo with Vegdahl; and in the five-piece bluegrass band, Methow Valley Bluegrass. Vegdahl and Lundstrom have appeared at the Tumbleweed Music Festival, the Northern Rockies Folk Festival, Northwest Folklife, the Columbia Gorge Bluegrass Festival, Basin Summer Sounds, the Leavenworth Summer Music Festival, the Chelan Bach Festival, and the Boise River Festival as well as numerous other Northwest venues.