 |  | Open tunings and standard,beautifully wrought |  |
One more voice in loving praise of this wonderful record. I just tonight got a copy of this CD re-release. The earlier CD release had the artists/track titles mislabeled, as did the original vinyl, if I recall correctly. It is important to note for the newer listener that John Fahey re-recorded a couple of his works specifically for this recording. One can now 'collect' perhaps 6 different versions of In Christ There Is No East or West, if the "Guitar, Guitar" television segment on the "In Concert" DVD is counted. I treasure all the different versions of his pieces, and seeing how he evolved (rather than renamed) some pieces. I think he introduced On the Sunny Side of the Ocean here, and this version of Sunflower River Blues is somewhat evolved from his earlier recording of it. Wonderful Fahey. Then there's Peter Lang. His music opened up another small universe or me, especially the majestic and dissonant When Kings Come Home and Thoth Song. A guitar heir to some Stravinsky ideas. I didn't have a lot of new guitar records to share with a best friend back when this was released on vinyl, but I had to play the Peter Lang for him- and was very pleased that he was as awed as I had been. The Kottke pieces are, to my taste, less of an expansion. Certainly well-played (I made up my version of Cripple Creek in dropped D by hearing this open-tuning version) and skillful. But something about Mr. Kottke has never touched me as John Fahey and Peter Lang did. Except for this recording, and a couple vinyl records I got and then (idiotically) ignored, I've been a late comer to Fahey's HUGE musical achievement, beginning to listen to him only in early 2006. It is now a glorious time to be exploring Fahey, since (as of 11/07)almost his entire catalog has been newly released in expanded and lovingly annotated versions. Also, the original Fahey-selected "Best of..." has been expanded, and, thanks to Henry Kaiser et al., there is now a fine "Best of... Volume 2" There are 3 readily-available live recordings on CD (On Air; The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick; Live in Tasmania). There are well over 30 discrete CD recordings. (I'm not counting the several rearrangements of his Vanguard recordings that Vanguard has put out, apart from the magical originals such as The Yellow Princess). I have none of his seasonal music but nearly all of his recordings up until the 'electric' years. Everything except perhaps my least favored The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party is well worth having. The CD reissues of his earliest records now give both the first-released versions and the later re-recorded re-releases, all on one CD- a splendid achievement. Evey Fahey-lover and guitar-player he influenced has their special recordings to recommend, so I hesitate EXCEPT to note that any of the 3 available Live recordings would make terrific starting places. "Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick" has about the most material crammed on it, of the live recordings. Good as "Live in Tasmania" is, one of its tracks, originally titled 'Beverly' and then retitled by Fahey as "Indian Pacific Railroad Blues' is simply the earlier studio recording with fake applause added to make it sound as if it were part of his Tasmania performance. "On Air" another Henry Kaiser-assisted gem of a show, is lovely, long, and thoroughly impressive.
November 4, 2007| | | A Clinic on how to play a gitter | |
Unless your a fool you need to hear this and if your goin to that "desert Island" this is all you need for your morning, early afternoon, late evening............. you get the point.
June 29, 2007I heard him this summer at a folk festival, and wondered how I had missed such a wonderful muscian all these years. If for no other reason, get this CD to hear him, and John Fahey. And it is too bad that the producers forgot to tell Leo Kottke to tune his guitar.
August 5, 2005This is arguably the all-time best steel-string fingerstyle guitar record ever produced. It paved the way for Michael Hedges and more recent solo acoustic fingerstyle players, and the current acoustic instrumental music boom (if it's loud enough to be called that...;-)
Worth listening to, again and again and again. August 2, 2000
What Piccard and Jones did with a balloon in '99, Kottke, Lang & Fahey did way back in '74 with a guitar. They took centuries old technology and redefined its capabilities by applying innovation, vision and courage. For the unenlightened that thought the guitar was limited to either ear splitting rock riffs and/or, campfire strum-alongs, this trio lifts the listener far above the peaks of expected performance and shows them the light.
A must have for fingerstyle guitar enthusiasts? Certainly, but more importantly, a must have for anyone who has no idea what fingerstyle guitar is. These are the guitar-tists that changed the guitar-picker paradigm and defined the fingerstyle genre. July 10, 2000
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