The Voice of the Turtle | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 1968 | |||
Recorded | 1968 | |||
Genre | Folk | |||
Length | 39:45 | |||
Label | Takoma | |||
Producer | John Fahey | |||
John Fahey chronology | ||||
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The Voice of the Turtle is the seventh album by American guitarist John Fahey. Recorded and released in 1968, it is considered one of his more experimental albums, combining not only folk elements, but shreds of psychedelia, early blues, country fiddles, ragas, and white noise. [1] The album had many reissues with various track listings, jacket designs and mismatched titles.
The mythical bluesman named Blind Joe Death, first introduced by Fahey on his debut album Blind Joe Death , appears again in the liner notes of The Voice of the Turtle. For years Fahey and Takoma continued to treat the imaginary guitarist as a real person, including booklets with their LPs containing biographical information about him and that he had taught Fahey to play. [2] [3] [4]
The conceit that the blues guitarist Blind Joe Death was an actual person and contemporary of Fahey is carried further with some tracks credited to being performed by Death and Fahey. There is debate that Fahey never actually appears on some of the tracks and that they are instead old, little-known recordings. [5] Fahey has been quoted as saying "That whole record was a hoax. On all the songs that say it's me it isn't and vice versa."[ citation needed ] Barry Hansen, a friend and collaborator of Fahey's albums told Rolling Stone reporter David Fricke that three of the tracks were old 78s that Fahey copied to tape and credited to Blind Joe Death. [6] The first track "Bottleneck Blues" is a 1927 recording made by Sylvester Weaver and Walter Beasley. [7] The tracks with fiddlers Hubert Thomas and Virgil Willis Johnston were made with Fahey during his 1966 trip to the South with Barry Hansen. [8]
The Voice of the Turtle was reissued on CD in 1996. It was reissued on vinyl on the Four Men With Beards label in 2012. Both reissues use the second track listing.
The original LP release was a gatefold with the cover designed by Tom Weller. The original liner notes are extensive (the first sentence alone is 561 words long) [9] [10] and were included in a 12-page booklet, including photos in an old-time scrapbook format. Later pressings did not include the gatefold and booklet.
Voice of the Turtle has three quasi-subtitles on the cover. Directly underneath the main title is "Being a Musical Hodograph & Chronologue of the Music of John Fahey, including his most recent composition, The Story of Dorothy Gooch." On the right side of the cover appears "The Volk Roots & Hiart Leaves of John Fahey, Blind Joe Death, Hubert Thomas, Virgil Willis Johnston, L. Mayne Smith, Mark Levine." and directly below that "The Fahey Picture Album: Genuine photographs of Blind Joe Death, Knott's Berry Farm Molly, The Adelphi Rolling Grist Mill, Etc." When the gatefold was no longer produced, the "Fahey Picture Album" was replaced with a picture of a turtle. [8]
The photograph labeled Blind Joe Death is actually a retouched old Vocalion Records advertisement of Blind Joe Taggart who recorded in the late 20s and 30s under several different names. [11]
The back cover quotes a "Song of Solomon" verse "... and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." After his death, the verse was printed in Fahey's funeral program. [12]
The original 1968 release is the only version that has the correct match of the songs on the label, the actual songs on the vinyl, and on the back cover. [8]
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
DownBeat | [13] |
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [14] |
The Great Folk Discography | 7/10 [15] |
MusicHound Folk: The Essential Album Guide | [16] |
Q | [17] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [18] |
Q stated in its December 1996 review: "Half of this 1968 album...is made up of pleasant, traditionally styled instrumentals... But it's the three lengthy improvisational pieces that dominate, pointing forward to his later, more elliptical work..." In a November 1996 review in DownBeat it was rated 4.5 Stars — Very Good/Excellent — "...has to be the strangest folk trip of the '60s... it's Fahey's loopy sound collages and odd sonic touches that make this largely instrumental album a treasure." It received three-and-a-half stars in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide .
In his AllMusic review, music critic Richie Unterberger called the album "One of his more obscure early efforts, Voice of the Turtle is both listenable and wildly eclectic, going from scratchy emulations of early blues 78s and country fiddle tunes to haunting guitar-flute combinations and eerie ragas." and its "...undercurrent of dark, uneasy tension that gives much of Fahey's '60s material its intriguing combination of meditation and restlessness." [1]
The credits given on the original album cover are shown in italics below. Two versions of the track listing were released. The notes on the songs are from The John Fahey Handbook, Vol. 1. [8]
Track changes, if any, are noted below the song title.
Hot Rats is the second solo album by Frank Zappa, released in October 1969. It was Zappa's first recording project after the dissolution of the original version of the Mothers of Invention. Five of the six songs are instrumental; while "Willie the Pimp", features vocals by Captain Beefheart. In his original sleeve notes, Zappa described the album as "a movie for your ears".
Takoma Records was a small but influential record label founded by guitarist John Fahey in the late 1950s. It was named after Fahey's hometown, Takoma Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C.
Peter Lang is an acoustic guitarist who recorded for Takoma Records with John Fahey and Leo Kottke.
Robert Hicks, better known as Barbecue Bob, was an early American Piedmont blues musician. His nickname was derived from his working as a cook in a barbecue restaurant. One of the two extant photographs of him show him playing a guitar and wearing a full-length white apron and cook's hat.
The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death is a 1965 album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey. Originally issued in a hand-lettered edition of 50, it was Fahey's first album to be released by a label other than his own Takoma Records. As with all of Fahey's independently released early albums, it had little critical recognition upon release. The album has grown in stature since its reissue on CD in 1997 and is now highly regarded critically. It was Fahey's fourth album to see release, though after his fifth album, The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party & Other Excursions, was labeled Guitar Vol. 4, reissues of The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death were subtitled John Fahey, Volume 5.
Blind Joe Death is the first album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey. There are three different versions of the album, and the original self-released edition of fewer than 100 copies is extremely rare.
Alan "Blind Owl" Christie Wilson was an American musician, best known as the co-founder, leader, co-lead singer, and primary composer of the blues band Canned Heat. He sang and played harmonica and guitar with the group live and on recordings. Wilson was the lead singer for the group's two biggest U.S. hit singles: "On the Road Again" and "Going Up the Country".
Stefan Grossman is an American acoustic fingerstyle guitarist and singer, music producer and educator, and co-founder of Kicking Mule records. He is known for his instructional videos and Vestapol line of videos and DVDs.
John Aloysius Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who played the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been enormously influential and has been described as the foundation of the genre of American primitive guitar, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the self-taught nature of the music and its minimalist style. Fahey borrowed from the folk and blues traditions in American roots music, having compiled many forgotten early recordings in these genres. He would later incorporate 20th-century classical, Portuguese, Brazilian, and Indian influences into his work.
Death Chants, Breakdowns & Military Waltzes is a 1963 album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey. Various sources show either a 1963 or 1964 original release. It was Fahey's second release and the first to gain a national distributor.
The Dance of Death & Other Plantation Favorites is the third album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released in 1965. The 1999 reissue contained four previously unreleased tracks.
Fare Forward Voyagers is an album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released in 1973. It contains three songs, one comprising a complete side of the original LP.
America is an album by American folk musician John Fahey, released in 1971. Originally intended to be a double album, it was released as a single LP. The unreleased material was subsequently restored in later CD and vinyl reissues.
After the Ball is an album by the American folk musician John Fahey, released in 1973. It was his second and last recording on the Reprise label and like its predecessor, Of Rivers and Religion, it sold poorly.
The Best of John Fahey 1959–1977 is a compilation album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released in 1977. The songs are collected from four of Fahey's dozen or so releases up to that point.
The Return of the Repressed: The John Fahey Anthology is a compilation album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released in 1994. Fahey's career, health and personal life had been in decline. The release of The Return of the Repressed, along with an article in Spin magazine by Byron Coley served to provide a renewal of his career.
The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick is a live album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released posthumously in 2004.
Georgia Stomps, Atlanta Struts and Other Contemporary Dance Favorites is a live album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released in 1998. It was the second and last live album he recorded and released during his lifetime.
Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You: The Fonotone Years, 1958–1965 is the title of a box set compilation of recordings by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released in 2011.
Terry Robb is a Canadian fingerstyle guitarist, composer, arranger and record producer living in the United States. He plays electric and acoustic guitar, and is associated with the American Primitive Guitar genre through his collaboration with steel string guitarist John Fahey. He is a member of the Oregon Music Hall of Fame and Cascade Blues Association Hall of Fame, and was honored with the eponymous "Terry Robb" Muddy Award for Best Acoustic Guitar in 2011. His original compositions draw on the Delta blues, ragtime, folk music, country music and jazz traditions.