OLD FASHIONED LOVE

In a Persian Market

Composed 1920 by Albert Ketelbey (1875-1959). Fahey adds the song Chinatown, My Chinatown into the mix. He would have known versions of that song by the Mills Brothers, Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra, and Red Nichols.

Jaya Shiva Shankarah

JF: “A duet with Woody Mann. I was in open C; don’t know what Woody was in. I lived in a Hindu monastery in India for a while, and that was the first song we’d sing in the morning before meditation, 4am Traditional Hindu.”

(from the notes to Return of the Repressed)

Marilyn

The name of Fahey’s girlfriend at the time.

The Assassination of Stephan Grossman

He responded with The Assassination of John Fahey (released on the album Thunder on the Run). Grossman's name is mis-spelled in the title.

Henry Kaiser in the notes to Best of JF Vol 2 says : “Stefan and John planned a duo tour shortly after this to celebrate their mutual deaths but it was cancelled due to Stefan’s herniated-disc back problems.”

Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning

We believe the source for this one to be the Rev. Gary Davis but Fahey has transposed the melody into an easier fingering, oddly bringing it into the orbit of Willie the Weeper, aka Winnie the Wailer. Other versions of Keep Your Lamps were by Mississippi Fred MacDowell and Blind Willie Johnson.

Dry Bones in the Valley

The title comes from the lyrics of Dry Bones by Bascom Lamar Lunsford (on AAFM). No discernable melodic connection. The title reference is to Ezekiel 37.1-14.

Interested parties may wish to seek out Upgrade and Afterlife (1996) by that post-everything group Gastr del Sol, featuring the youthful Jim O’Rourke, which contains a fairly stunning 15-minute version of Dry Bones.

Note on the three orchestra records:

in 1990 Fahey remarked that he had never worked with such sympathetic, understanding musicians.