Amy Grant: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Dec. 17, 2018 | Lars Gotrich -- Growing up in the ’90s, there was never a Christmas without Amy Grant’s music. Home for Christmas, in particular, was a favorite around our household, its string-swept nostalgia wrapped around the family den like a warm blanket and a plate of cookies. So when I invited the Nashville pop singer to perform our annual holiday Tiny Desk, I had to bring my mom. You could almost map Grant’s fabulous four-decade career by those Christmas records (four in total, five if you count her reading of Jimmy Webb’s The Animals’ Christmas with Art Garfunkel). In them, you not only hear an artist progress — from ’80s synth-pop to lush string arrangements to a contemporary Nashville sound — but as a person, as her own feelings and faith surrounding the season evolve with a mixture of melancholy and cheer. “As I’ve gotten older, sometimes I’ve realized the bravest thing you can do at Christmas is go home,“ she tells the Tiny Desk audience after performing “To Be Together,“ from 2016’s cozy, yet