New labels

Once again this is here to flag up some additions to long-standing posts. Glenn Jones has very kindly photographed some of his rarest Fahey records, in particular the original 1959 Blind Joe Death and the limited edition of Transfiguration (shown above to catch your attention).

You can see all the new labels by clicking on the Record Labels link in the sidebar, then scrolling down the page.

My thanks to Glenn who has put in a lot of work on this. He's sent me more, and I'll be getting that posted in due course.


Please add any comment on the labels to the original posts, rather than here.

The Bastrop Waltz

Another terrific recording, probably left over from sessions that contributed to The Voice of the Turtle. Considerably longer than the recording mentioned on the Fahey Files, and with the usual thanks to the provider, here is The Bastrop Waltz.

The Eye of the Turtle

It has long been said that there were two different eye variations for the turtle that presides over the front cover of Voice of the Turtle. After I had an email from Glenn Jones confirming their existence, I thought I'd better check my own copies with a magnifying glass, and yes, there are indeed two versions. All the early sleeves (at least until circa 1974), the ones that have the outer pasted wrap-round, have a plain pupil. However, when the sleeve switched to the later and more standard construction, printed to a higher standard off new plates, cross-hatching substitutes for the colour of the earlier ones . I've seen it suggested that there is more than one variant of hatched eye; however the two examples of cross-hatched eyes I show here (from the two batches of the last gatefold sleeves manufactured) appear different only in that the printing plate has been more heavily inked in the earlier than the later example, so ink has flowed into the hatching at some points. I suspect that the hatching was added by the person who made up the new printing plates for the later sleeves, possibly to cover up a flaw or error in the photo-etching, but probably damage to the original artwork. Further plates were made up when the switch was made to the single sleeve around 1977; this added a second turtle (copied from the first but slightly smaller) to the bottom right-hand corner of the sleeve, replacing the promise of a book within. The hatching in the eye remained although it is difficult to tell whether it is the same, given the considerable difference in print quality. The smaller of the two turtles has clearly had its eye reworked, probably because the hatching wouldn't reduce easily (the pictures below are shown in scale to show the relative size of the smaller turtle).

As always, click to enlarge the pictures.


Early eye 1968-Circa 1974, 3rd sleeve, original plates:



Later eye, Circa 1975-1977, 1st printing, second plates:



Later eye, Circa 1975-1977, 2nd printing, second plates:



Last eye, main turtle, Single sleeve, Circa 1977

Eye of second turtle, Single sleeve, Circa 1977

For more details on the various sleeves for this album, or to add any comment, please see my earlier post, The Mystery of the Turtle. This new information has been included in that post too; I've put it here as well to highlight the update. If you own another variation, get in touch.



Please add any comment to the 'Mystery of the Turtle' post, rather than here.

The Roots of John Fahey

In my 'to do' box, as it were, has been the intention to start uploading the original source material that Fahey drew from and used to shape his own music; I had very kindly been sent a copy of the wonderful VrootzBox and had found that a lot of the material on it opened up Fahey's work more than I anticipated. I had got as far as ripping an initial selection of recordings, but now I find that I have been beaten to it by the Irate Pirate over on Wrath of the Grapevine, who has produced his own 5 CD selection of material (plus a bonus disc). He's put a lot of time and effort into a very substantial project, and it's well worth taking advantage of all his work.

Here's the link to the Pirate's specific post - The Roots of John Fahey

Dick Waterman's wonderful photo is of JF with Son House; I've appropriated it from the Irate Pirate but only to catch your attention!

Vol. 6 Days Have Gone By

The original 1967 release:

Second sleeve, probably 1968:

Final sleeve, probably circa 1976:

This album has four sleeves that I know of. The first three have a simple paste-around over a black cover, the final sleeve is of standard manufacture.

The earliest sleeve credits Chester Burnett as the photographer for the front cover, and has Takoma's Box 2233 address in Berkeley. The colour of the front cover has an orange tinge to the brown.

The second sleeve appears to have replaced the first quite quickly. The colour is now a far darker brown, with no hint of orange whatever. The photographer is now correctly credited as Jeff Lovelace. The Berkeley address remains, with the addition of the zip code 94711.

The third sleeve removes the address, and the brown reacquires its orange tinge. I hope to be able to add photos for this variant very shortly.

The final sleeve, of conventional construction, obviously lacks the black border of the earlier ones, instead the yellow area extends round the edge. The brown is now quite distinctly orange.

To help with colour comparisons between the sleeves, here is a photo of the three sleeves photographed above shown together; the oldest sleeve is on the right just to add a touch of confusion.

Original 1967 booklet, inside back cover:

Second edition 1968, inside back cover:

Note the wonderful Pre-Raphaelite styled 'T' graphic in the original 1967 booklet, Tom Weller's first tentative design for a Takoma logo. The booklet was changed in 1968, updating the discography inside the back cover and using the newly introduced Takoma logo. The 1967 booklet is printed on paper with a more pronounced beige colour than the later one, although the paper for the later one is clearly of poorer quality and has faded despite being stored inside the record sleeve.

'The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death'

The 1967 Riverboat release:

The second Riverboat sleeve, circa 1970:

The final Riverboat sleeve, circa 1972:

The 1973 Takoma re-issue:

The 1980 Chrysalis re-issue:

Prior to the commercial release of this album, Riverboat pressed a limited edition of fifty numbered copies. These simply came in a plain white sleeve. Copy #1 was sent out as a promotional copy, and here is the card that accompanied it:

Riverboat's 1966 sleeve names the company as 'Riverboat Records', shows their address as 12 Noyes Place, Boston, Mass 02113, and quotes a price of $5.00. The second marks the company's relocation to Cambridge around 1970; the rear paste-over now shows the address as 141 Columbia Street, Cambridge, Mass 02139 and the price remains at $5.00; the front of the sleeve is unaltered. Incidentally, the remaining stock with the Boston address were cleared as cut-outs, which is why they are sometimes found with a corner missing. The final sleeve names the company as 'Riverboat Enterprises', uses a different steamboat logo, and abandons the $5.00 price. Takoma inherited the bulk of these on acquiring the 'Transfiguration' rights in 1973 and continued to use them for some time before bringing in their own variant (dated as 1973 above, but probably not actually in use until 1975). Here are enlargements of the two Riverboat logos:

The original Riverboat graphic:

The later Riverboat graphic (circa 1972):

An unusual back cover for the first Takoma sleeve is shown above, with no credits. The one here has subsequently been signed by John. I do not know how many were printed like this.

Use of the Chrysalis era sleeve carried over to the Allegiance release, and I have not yet seen an Allegiance sleeve


Original 1965 booklet, back page:

Second edition, 1970, back page:

It is interesting to see from the card that accompanied the pre-release edition of 'Transfiguration' that although the subsequent sleeve was not yet ready, the booklet was (I'm presuming that they didn't come with hand-written ones). Early booklets appear to have been printed 'in-house' and are much more attractive than later ones, using an ivory coloured paper and a less harsh black ink. Later booklets are on whiter, and finally white paper, with hard black lettering, suggesting fairly cheap lithography. The printing quality of the later booklets is variable, and some have unwanted black ink stripes across the pages (like those from misfiring photocopiers).

I have posted pictures of the backs of the booklets because this is where one is able to determine definitively whether a booklet is an early one; in the bottom right-hand corner are the printer's details:

12 Noyes Place was of course the address of Riverboat Enterprises at that point. Following the move to Cambridge, the printing credit was removed. These later booklets were printed in very considerable quantities, and Takoma inherited sufficient to be able to use them until the end. Even then there was a significant quantity remaining, and Fantasy were happy to post them out to owners of the CD. This very generous supply of booklets means that many early Riverboat records have subsequently acquired booklets that date from later. I can say with considerable certainty that all those first albums that show Noyes Place as the Riverboat address have the Gringo Press credit on the back of the booklet; this means that comparisons of paper colour are thankfully unnecessary given that paper tends to discolour with age anyway.

The Early Sessions

A plea for help! I am seeking information on Fahey's Takoma album 'The Early Sessions'. If you own or have ever owned a copy of this rare record, please could you email me via the link on the right. Many thanks.

Fahey Live 1972

This is material that has been around on bootleg for some time, and is credited as having been recorded in 1968 at the Worcester MA Polytechnic in 1968.

That date at least is wrong; Fahey talks (in slightly less than glowing terms) about Vanguard; he has signed with WEA in order to record 'Of Rivers & Religion', so it must be 1972. Fahey believes it is going to come out on Elektra, but of course it was finally assigned to Reprise. There's a lengthy 'Voice of the Turtle', and two medleys. The sound quality is somewhat variable but entirely listenable; John's repartee is entertaining as always.

Get the download here.


Thanks to ejg who gave me this.

More 'Voice of the Turtle' and 'Dance of Death' outtakes

Finally, some more unreleased material. It's in zipped folders, so it won't require nearly as many downloads as normal.

From 'Turtle', there's 'A Raga called Pat Part III' with no sound effects, then a recording believed to be 'A Raga called Pat Part V'. Finally, an alternative recording of 'The Story of Dorothy Gooch'
Download the file here.

From the 1964 Adelphi sessions that produced the 'Dance of Death' album , a collection of short recordings, often incomplete - Be present at this table Lord, C Tuning parts 1 and 2, Camptown races takes 1 2 and 3, intro to Portland Cement Factory, Last thing # 1, Revelation take 1, a fragment of Sevastopol, and Steel guitar rag take 1.
Download the file here.

Paul Bryant: Blind Joe Death. The different editions of Volume 1

I am very grateful to Paul Bryant for letting me have this analysis of the various editions of the Blind Joe Death album.

BLIND JOE DEATH EDITIONS

NV = new version1959.........1964.........1967
(1996 CD)

On Doing an Evil Deed Blues 4.37……..NV 5.07 (1964)……..NV 3.56 (1967)

St Louis Blues 5.29…………………… edited to 4.56 (1964)……NV 3.15 (1967)

Poor Boy Long Ways from Home 3.12…….………………………NV 2.23 (1967)

Uncloudy Day 3.12 ……………………....………………………………..NV 2.22 (1967)

John Henry 3.20 ……………………….....………………………….……. NV 2.05 (1967)

In Christ there Is No East or West 2.37…NV 2.21 (1964)…NV 6.30 (1967)

The Transcendental Waterfall 6.34……NV 10.35(1964)……NV 6.30(1967)
(CD has 1964 version only)

Desperate Man Blues 4.04…………………………………………….NV 3.58 (1967)

Sun Gonna Shine in my Backdoor &c 3.32……………..………. NV 4.36 (1967)

Sligo River Blues 3.05………………………………………………….. NV 2.23 (1967)

West Coast Blues 3.12………………………Omitted (1964)…… Omitted(1967)
(CD has 1964 outtake)

I'm Gonna do all I Can for my Lord - 1967 only

Notes:It seems strange to have included the incongruous 1964 outtake of "West Coast Blues" on "Legend" - copies of the first edition were readily available.

INCORRECT STATEMENTS
See Legend Notes p6 : on the reproduced back cover of BJD II it clearly states that 4 songs were rerecorded in April 1964: On Doing an Evil Deed Blues, The Transcendental Waterfall, In Christ there is no East or West, and Uncloudy Day. This is untrue - Uncloudy Day was not rerecorded. (Legend Notes confirms this.) Legend Notes incorrectly state that the cover lists 5 rerecordings, adding Desperate Man Blues. That song was also not rerecorded.

Legend Notes also say "the recording of The Transcendental Waterfall used on BJD III was the one recorded for BJD II with about 4 minutes lopped off". This is untrue, TW was rerecorded in 1967. That rerecording is omitted from Legend.

Legend Notes say "what of the six missing tracks from BJD I?" In fact there are four - In Christ, Evil Deed and Waterfall, which Fahey rerecorded, and West Coast Blues, which wasn't reissued at all. The full take of St Louis Blues is presumably being counted as the fifth and Glenn's misplaced conviction that Desperate Man Blues was rerecorded makes up the six.

John Fahey: official Takoma 1972 biography by Barry Hansen

I am very grateful to Vincent Smith, who has spent some time scanning copies of two US Takoma catalogues, a selection of UK press clippings, and particularly this 'official' biography written by Barry Hansen for Takoma in 1972. As with the other posts from Vincent's archive, all these images can be enlarged by clicking on them.

UK Press Articles and Reviews

Some articles from Vincent Smith's archive, mainly drawn from the 'Melody Maker', from the late 60s - early 70s (click to enlarge the images)










Light at the end of the tunnel maybe? The 1969 Melody Maker article on Fahey 'Syncopated Classics...' quotes him as saying of his Takoma albums "But there was one we had to withdraw because we were losing 30 cents on each one. It had photographs, a book, and a double cover. We didn't know how much it was going to cost but some of it was bad anyway". He's clearly talking about 'Voice of the Turtle', and this interview, which I had long since forgotten until Vincent sent it in, may be the source of the entire myth, but Fahey himself is confused. The album Takoma withdrew because it was making a loss was not 'Turtle' but 'The Early Sessions' (Takoma C-1000). Putting out the bulk of the '63 and '64 recordings from Volumes 1 & 2 as a double album at a single album price was not the best of ideas anyway, as most buyers would regard them as a better value alternative to either the '67 'magnificent mono' recordings, or the subsequent stereo versions. The '67 releases were not a great success either, and that no doubt lay behind the decision to repackage and stereo mix those recordings before too long had passed.

Takoma Records 1969 Catalog

Takoma Records 1973 Catalog