Twilight on Prince Georges Avenue: Essential Recordings | ||||
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Greatest hits album by John Fahey | ||||
Released | September 22, 2009 | |||
Genre | Folk, avant-garde | |||
Length | 51:17 | |||
Label | Rounder | |||
Producer | David Godowsky | |||
John Fahey chronology | ||||
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Twilight on Prince Georges Avenue: Essential Recordings is the title of a compilation recording by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released in 2009.
The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking. The term "fingerstyle" is something of a misnomer, since it is present in several different genres and styles of music—but mostly, because it involves a completely different technique, not just a "style" of playing, especially for the guitarist's picking/plucking hand. The term is often used synonymously with fingerpicking, although fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues and country guitar playing in the US. The terms "fingerstyle" and "fingerpicking" also applied to similar string instruments such as the banjo.
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 greatly influential and has been described as the foundation 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.
Fahey recorded four albums for Varrick Records, a division of Rounder Records, from which these selections are taken.
Rounder Records is an American record label specializing in folk, bluegrass, blues, and other forms of American roots music. Its roster includes Alison Krauss and Union Station, Béla Fleck, Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, and Steep Canyon Rangers. Rounder's musicians have won over 40 Grammy Awards since the label's inception in 1970. The company also maintains book and video divisions.
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Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
Allmusic |
Allmusic critic Thom Jurek favorably reviewed the album. In referring to the original releases as "given some marginal notice, but generally weren't regarded as among his best," he goes on to say "The ten selections compiled [here] and taken from those albums are proof that the critics were dead wrong. While Fahey may have been struggling with health issues and personal poverty, his guitar playing continued to reflect his sense of adventure and wry humor... Each selection here is worthy, and so were the albums they came from. This is an excellent introduction to an obscure period in the father of American Primitive guitar playing's strange, nearly mythological career." [1]
All songs by John Fahey unless otherwise indicated.
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