Let's end the weekend with another one of those sort of tapes that makes archival music what it can be.
This one's been floating around for years in a kind of mis-indexed form, owing to the fact that it's essentially 66 minutes of a flowing river, with one song blending into the next.
The titles were a little confused as well, but I poked around the internet to clarify them and at least broke most of them out to each be their own, individual tracks.
I think this might be the first post ever for me of solo acoustic guitar music. Such things don't get any better than in the hands of the man doing the picking on this extraordinary tape.
Some artists ought require no introduction. If you don't understand who John Fahey is, there really isn't anything I can say other than you need to change that. Today's post is definitely somewhere to start.
This was captured over WAER-FM in Syracuse back in 1972, with JF in the midst of inventing his best record (IMO) and yes indeed, he plays a whole half hour of it in pure, composed-improvisational style here.
All of Fahey's many moods and motifs are on display, with his percussive Primitive side and his Indian classical side well represented. When he gets into the slide, though, things just go out of the galaxy and into the six-string sublime.
John Fahey
Jabberwocky
Syracuse, NY
7.15.1972
01 Stomping Tonight Fantasy
02 In Christ There Is No East Or West
03 Beverley
04 The Dance of the Inhabitants of the Palace of King Philip XIV of Spain
05 tuning and ID
06 Fare Forward Voyagers/Thus Krishna On the Battlefield
07 Some Summer Day
08 Brenda's Blues/When You Wore a Tulip
Total time: 1:06:31
John Fahey - guitar
sounds like a master off-air FM reel of the original WAER-FM broadcast
325 MB FLAC/July 2018 archive link
I didn't do anything to the sound, which is awfully fantastic for a 46 year old broadcast; I just cleaned up the titles and track markers so it corresponds better to the database tracklist and there's less half-hour medleys.
I shall return soon with a whole lot more, but this Sunday foray into the John Fahey universe, via this amazing and unissued hour-plus of vintage FM airwavery, ought to keep your Sunday on the sunny summer side of the street. So.... bon appetit!--J.
2.28.1939 - 2.22.2001