Legend Of Blind Joe Death

one of the great acoustic guitar records of all time, no contest. spellbinding tunes, great fingerpicking, mesmerising, emotional, never ever just pretty. that's the music, here's some history: in 1959 the 19 year old egomaniac john fahey decided to make an album of solo acoustic blues-based guitar pieces and, knowing that the world was just not interested in any such thing (why doesn't he sing?) didn't even bother to try to interest a real record company, so he borrowed 300 dollars and got 100 copies of his album pressed up all by himself. one side said john fahey, the other side blind joe death, sort of implying that there were two guitarists, the other being an old blues guy. but that was just a little joke, there was only fahey. it took 3 years to sell the 100 records and then instead of re-pressing the album he figured he could play better, so in 1964 he rerecorded most of it. then, in 1967, he did it all over again. so there are three versions. this marvellous release gives you most of 1964 and 1967. why have two versions of the same album presented here? why not just the latest and presumably best version? if you get to listen to it you'll hear why - it's all in the differences. with this release fahey fans thought they'd died and gone to heaven.