Exclusive Audio: Sufjan Stevens

Brooklyn singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens has promised to write an album about each of the fifty states. The quietly prolific indie darling is four percent done, having released Greetings From Michigan and Illinois. Despite the long journey ahead, he took some time away from his ambitious project to talk to Austin Scaggs about how Arthur Lee influenced his songwriting, the strange things you hear when you hang out in deserted churches at night, and why, despite his strong Christian ties, Christmas is just like any other day for him.

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Song Stories

“Is It True”

Brenda Lee | 1964

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."

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