Audio CD review:
John Fahey - Vol. 4: The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party

John Fahey - Vol. 4: The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party

Band: John Fahey Title: Vol. 4: The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party Rating: Release Date: 24 October, 2000 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party 2: Knott's Berry Farm Molly 3: Will The Circle Be Unbroken - John Fahey/Flea 4: Guitar Excursions Into The Unknown 5: 900 Miles - John Fahey/Nancy McLean 6: Sail Away Ladies - John Fahey/Mysterious Al Wilson 7: Oh Come, Oh Come Emanuel

Customer Reviews One of the greatest of all records of guitar music D. At last this magnificent recording appears on C. It is quite simply one of the greatest records of guitar music ever put together. The title track is a 19 minute tour de force, a tone poem, a saga of huge emotional range. Of all Fahey's extended compositions this is perhaps the most complete, the most satisfying and perfectly structured. There are moments of joyful optimism, gentle nostalgia, troubled uncertainty and sheer nightmare ( courtesy of some superb, haunting bottleneck). The piece draws to a close in the calm resignation of a simple, beautiful theme. . . . . . but then the nightmare bottleneck returns right at the end, just when we think the darkness has lost its power. Incredible! The recording also features KNOTT'S BERRY FARM MOLLY, a gorgeous piece of Fahey nostalgia with some backwards guitar sounds thrown in. Also there is a memorable guitar/veena version of SAIL AWAY LADIES. Other highlights include a delightfully rambling GUITAR EXCURSIONS INTO THE UNKNOWN (if Charles Ives had played guitar it might have sounded like this) and Fahey's finest version of OH COME EMANUEL. On this kind of form Fahey is awesome and speaks with absolute authority. He extends the vocabulary of the guitar, and in so doing creates music of unforgettable beauty and originality. Here is a unique and gifted performer at his most inspired. Don't miss it!. One of the all time greatest recordings This is the album that sets Fahey on a pinnacle of guitar virtuosity and creative genius. I am so glad to be able to finally listen to this without the crackles and pops on my vinyl to tape recording. It is as much an exporation of sound as it is an emotional tour de force as Fahey zigs, zags, and pirouettes from the still center into hypersonic overdrive across a moody and melodic soundscape. I first heard this on an old Tom Donahue radio show on KMPX in SF in 1967. I was sitting in a parlor in Oakland and was just blown away completely and still am. I even like what some call "filler. " When "Days Have Gone By" finally gets rereleased my Fahey void will be filled. Fahey's First Symphony for solo guitar Dusty country roads, cotton and tobacco fields. This music IS the Old South. I am amazed this has not been used as a soundtrack! The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party (GSBBP) stands as Fahey's towering achievement, a Symphony for Solo Guitar (sonata sounds too confining). It is the first, most approachable and most coherent of his long works. I am not exaggerating when I say it is so good, it should be covered by other artists - John Williams? If complex blues works by Winton Marsallis can be called "Classical", certainly this can. It starts with a major key sunny Ragtime Gallop, and then descends into mysterious minor key in a musings and inventions sounding alternatively Spanish, Bluesy, Native American and even Raga-esque. It holds ones interest for the entire 20 some minutes (not like many of the other over-long jamming pieces of the 60's). His other two long masterpieces on America are somewhat more dissonant and take longer to develop. Fahey once said he trying to create a symphony for the solo guitar and he certainly succeded here! Guitar fanatics NOTE: all the sounds you here were created with one acoustic guitar, 4 microphones, a tape loop (echoplex) and a tape recorder. None of the zillions of gismos that today's guitarists use! Knott's Barry Farm Molly uses tape editing and backward tape (two years before the Beatles "Sgt Pepper's"). Fahey's Guitar turns to rubber and then back to a guitar! The liner notes state Fahey doesn't like this record. He played the Birchmere a decade ago, I sat in front of him (I tuned his guitar for him!) I asked him when this was going to be on CD. He also told me that night that he didn't like this recording. I guess it's because of the personal events happening to him when he recorded it. I guess Tacoma Park, MD, where Fahey grew up, was once a pretty wild place. However I must add, the rest of the album is filler. From amaturish to awful. That's why I can only give it fours stars. Maybe that's what he didn't like it. But GSBBP and Molly, are brilliant. There is 25 minutes of the best most musically satisfying stuff he ever did. Not short 4 minutes blues and ragtime, coherent exposition in a classical idiom. And you get Fahey's zany album notes written by one of his many alter-egos. And those parts definately worth having!. . You can see a complete list of all John Fahey discography, or go back to the John Fahey tabs