John Fahey - Your Past Comes Back To Haunt You: The Fonotone Years 1958-1965 [5CD Box Set] (2011)

115 tracks on 5 CDs 88 page Hardback Book Extensive Notes and Essays Never-before-seen Photographs A co-release between Dust-to-Digital and Revenant. Oversized, hardback book with Gatefold Portfolio housing 5 CDs inside Slipcase. More than 10 years in the making, this box set features the earliest recordings and the first book ever written about one of the most influential guitarists from the 1960s and 70s, John Fahey. The five CDs feature 115 tracks, most of which are available on CD for the first time. The audio was remastered from Joe Bussard s reel-to-reel tapes to achieve pristine sound quality. As for the accompanying book, the list of scholars who contributed essays includes Eddie Dean, Claudio Guerrierri, Glenn Jones, Malcolm Kirton, Mike Stewart and John s childhood friend R. Anthony Lee. Byron Coley contributed a poem about John, and Douglas Blazek s 1967 interview with Fahey is published for the first time. Released 10 years after John Fahey s death, this set puts one of the final puzzle pieces of Fahey s career in place. Everyone can now hear where this guitar legend got his start a smoky basement in Frederick, Maryland. Co-produced by Dean Blackwood of Revenant, Glenn Jones, and Lance Ledbetter of Dust-to-Digital, this set is released with the support of Joe Bussard and the John Fahey Estate. The set is dedicated to John s mother, Jane C. Hayes and the late musician Jack Rose.

If you are of the opinion that such distinctions are completely arbitrary and that all the year s releases should be judged against each other, then if you combine the votes cast, and points applied, in both the Main and Archive charts to get 2011 s Ultimate Releases of the Year according to The Wire, you would get a top ten that looked like this: 1. John Fahey Your Past Comes Back To Haunt You: The Fontone Years (1958-1965) 2. Albert Ayler Stockholm, Berlin 1966 3. James Ferraro Far Side Virtual 4. Bill Dixon Intents And Purposes 5. Rustie Glass Swords 6. Theo Parrish Ugly Edits 7. Eliane Radigue Transamorem Transmortem 8. Hype Williams One Nation 9. The Beach Boys The SMILE Sessions 10. Michael Chapman The Resurrection And Revenge Of The Clayton Peacock --The Wire, Tony Herrington, Dec. 09, 2011

Best New Reissue, 9.5/10: The liner notes for Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You-- the complete recordings guitarist John Fahey made for the tiny but crucial Fonotone label between 1958 and 1965-- comprise an 88-page book, bound in beautifully toned, dense cardboard. These 88 pages brim with an obsessive sort of information about Fahey: his slapdash drawings of important people and places in his life, the first known photograph of him with a Gibson F-hole guitar, the receipt for his Holzapfel 12-string, his Boy Scouts photo, and even a personal letter to Fonotone owner Joe Bussard where he begs for recordings of a few old blues heroes. There's a revealing and hitherto unpublished interview, remembrances from past collaborators, and Italian researcher Claudio Guerrieri's guide to the various hand-written labels Bussard affixed to the center of each record he hand-cut on order. This set is not just for Fahey zealots. It's for anyone interested in the story of American music, from its Appalachian string bands and mean-moaning Delta blues singers to the hymns sung from its church pews and the country-rock anthems soon enough crafted by its hippies... A must-have collection of lore, music, and history, it's a unified, brilliant, and often very challenging archive. --Pitchfork, Grayson Currin, Oct. 27, 2011

Grade A: A rich exploration of Appalachian roots, Delta blues, and country, this isn't just a celebration of the grandfather of steel-string guitar fingerpicking, it's a history of American music. --Entertainment Weekly, Melissa Maerz, Nov. 25, 2011