Of all the Christmas songs in print, here’s what one writer has called “the most underrated.” It was included in the 1990 “Trinity Hymnal,” when the editor found it in a paperback InterVarsity Christian Fellowship songbook. He had heard it on a Christmas recording with a smaller choral ensemble from Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida years earlier. He has since discovered several churches that include it every year in their special Christmas music festival services. It deserves to become more widely known and utilized. It has also been a pleasant surprise to discover several recordings of it being sung in churches as an anthem recently.
It is “Lovely Child, Holy Child,” written in 1968 by David Nathaniel Johnson (1922-1987). Born in San Antonio, Texas, he was an American organist, composer, educator, choral clinician, and lecturer. He studied organ and composition at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (1940-1942). Between 1942 and 1946 he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps/Air Corps in India, Burma, and China, receiving a Meritorious Service Award and campaign ribbons. He continued his music studies at Trinity University (Texas) with a Bachelor of Music degree in 1950 and Master of Music in 1951 and Ph.D. in 1956. He also earned the associate certificate from the American Guild of Organists (AAGO).