Billboard's Review - Of Rivers and Religion
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JOHN FAHEY AND HIS ORCHESTRA / Of Rivers and Religion

Producer(s):
John Fahey & Denny Bruce
Reprise MS 2089
Originally reviewed for week ending 10/7/72

John Fahey can by no means be considered a novice on the music scene, yet he has been for the major part of his 13 year career rather obscure. What a shame the man can say more in one guitar chord than most people in a whole song. Listening to this album brings, as corny as it may sound, "a breath of fresh air" into one's head. The blend here is early jazz, southern blues, some gospel licks, etc., and the results are indeed memorable.

Of Clarity and Glue

In JF's important article "Bola Sete, the Nature of Infinity and John Fahey" (published February 1976) he writes: "I first saw [Bola Sete] playing - solo - in early 1972 at David Allen's Boarding House in San Francisco"… Shortly thereafter, I listened to a record I had cut while on various drugs…" - he must mean "Of Rivers and Religion" - "and was astounded to find that, although I had thought while cutting this album that I was playing fast songs fast, I had in fact been playing them very, very slowly and boringly. (That album received reviews which all referred to my special 'inner sense of space and peace' - it was nothing but drugs.) This record now sounded to me as though it were moving through thick glue."
Now compare that with Nat Hentoff's sleeve note : "What came through instantly, and has endured through a number of replayings of this record, is an extraordinary clarity, an opening of emotional space… Space is an integral part of his music…"

Playboy Magazine:
John Fahey says he plays "American Primitive Guitar," by which he appears to mean a style formed on Ives and early blues, ragtime and jazz, country and Gospel. Of Rivers and Religion (Reprise) shows, however, just how sophisticated such a style can prove. This is open and evocative music, with a stress on phrasing and pacing that is hard to imagine this side of Segovia. On several cuts, Fahey is joined by Nappy LaMare and Joe Darensbourgh. The results sounds like something out of Wooden Joe Nicholas and his New Orleans Band. Frequently you'll hear the strings squeak, as Fahey fingers his stops, or the tempo accelerate, perhaps inadvertently (as it often did in old music) and perhaps not. Who cares? This is the good old stuff, created and re-created lovingly.

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