Y is for Yuletide

There are hundreds of folk songs that celebrate Christmas, and just one exemplar album is: American Folk Songs For Christmas, featuring tunes played by the Seeger family and Ewan MacColl.

Recommended as an antidote to excessive Christmas commercialism, it is homespun and warm and includes old numbers like Stars In The Heaven, Oh Watch The Stars, Rise Up Shepherd and Follow, Don’t You Hear The Lambs A-Crying, Look Away To Bethlehem, Jehovah Hallelujah, Joseph And Mary, Go Tell It On The Mountain, Star In The East, Cradle Hymn, Poor Little Jesus, Mariner’s Hymn and Singing In The Land.

Y is also for Yusef Islam

Most famously known as Cat Stevens, one of the most influential song writers of the 1970s (comparable with Paul Simon, James Taylor, Don Maclean and Harry Chapin) combining classic pop with contemporary folk. Converting to Islam led to changing his name to Yusef, after Joseph, the interpreter of dreams, and his exit from the music scene.

And Y is also for The Yetties

An English folk music group more than 40 years in the business, named from their home Dorset village of Yetminster.

Listen (and watch): Cat Stevens (Yusef Islam) singing Wild World, his most covered song