After the Ball

Artist: John Fahey Label: Collector's Choice Category: Music Average customer rating: Media: Audio CD Number Of Discs: 1 UPC: 617742021325 EAN: 0617742021325 ASIN: B00005MHV6 Release Date: 2001-09-11

Listmania:

1. 12 Superb "Lost" Albums
2. Desert Island Concept Albums
3. Music

Tracks:

1. Horses
2. New Orleans Shuffle
3. Beverly
4. Om Shanthi Norris
5. I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free
6. When You Wore A Tulip (And I Wore A Big Red Rose)
7. Hawaiian Two-Step
8. Bucktown Stomp
9. Candy Man
10. After The Ball

Similar Items:

1. Of Rivers and Religion
2. Old Fashioned Love
3. Days Have Gone By, Vol. 6
4. Dance Of Death & Other Plantation Favorites
5. God, Time and Causality

Customer Reviews:

Surprisingly Distinctive.......2002-08-23

Among Fahey fans, this disc is not particularly popular because as with 'Rivers and Religion' (my Fahey favorite) he uses a Dixieland/ragtime orchestra on several cuts. But he uses it well, and sprinkles it judiciously throughout the recording. Now that bands like Squirrel Nut Zippers have risen in popularity, there might be a new audience for this disc.

Fahey was always trying to do something interesting with his music. Here he's picked the tunes, the musicians and the arrangements and pulled it off. New Orleans Shuffle (2) in the Squirrel Nut Zippers instrumental style, with solos of guitar, clarinet, and cornet. I wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free (5) is played with the reverence and precision a church hymn should. After the Ball (10) evokes images of the last number in a long night for 30's dance band.

But there's plenty of classic Fahey for the purists, and it's quality stuff. The acoustic tunes on *After The Ball* are more up-tempo than the funereal sound many people think of when Fahey's name comes to mind. Horses (1) is a jaunt with a bouncy, happy canter and a few flashes of Fahey's fancy fretwork. Beverly (3) starts out beautifully sinister and slow, then quickening in tempo and alternating again until it rises to satisfying finish. Om Shanti Norris (4) is my all-time favorite John Fahey tune for its intricacy of musical patterns. It's a delicate, blusesygrass mantra, done like a vocal round. It is like what a musical Jackson Pollack painting would be--- banjos providing a basic melodic drop cloth upon which slide guitars dribble ever so lightly, and Fahey's finger-pickin' good licks embroider their own patterns over all. When You Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Big Red Rose (6) A pleasant, happy song that evidences the influence Fahey's style had on the early Kottke. Hawaiian Two-Step (7) It's a shame this song is on such an obscure record, because it undoes the damage to ukulele music by Arthur Godfrey and Tiny Tim. Bucktown Stomp (8) acoustic guitar, with a little calliope/organ thrown in for good measure. Why didn't somebody use this for a TV commercial backdrop? Candy Man (9) A happy-go-lucky interpretation of the traditional tune.

Richie Unterberger wrote the interesting liner notes to the Collector's Choice Music CD, adding historical anecdotes of the production and marketing response to this recording and are worth reading. And if you like American music, this disc is well worth purchasing.

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4. Walking in Time ~ Robin Laing
5. Home Brew ~ Gary Brewer & The Kentucky Ramblers
6. Definitive Collection ~ Martin Carthy
7. Joy To The World ~ Acoustic Eidolon
8. Entre la Jeunesse et la Tendresse ~ Kate & Anna McGarrigle
9. Restless Rambling Heart ~ Laurie Lewis
10. We Can Swing Together ~ Lindisfarne

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