C or D: Robbie Basho, "Basho Sings"

On iTunes there's a Vanguard Digital Vaults release of an unissued album, "Indian II"

Never seen or heard talk of this, but it seems it surfaced 2006. Downloaded and it's pretty solid Basho, though no highlight. I like that the opening track is a piano number. Still, would be worth Vanguard doing at least an actual, physical, limited release.

I've been thinking without listening to this album for a while now. Very beautiful, strange music.

I love how the melodies follow their own tails up surprising directions.

unreleased live album?

http://static.boomkat.com/images/130055/333.jpg

Live at the Kulturforum, Bonn, Germany, November 24, 1980

i remember someone or other on fmu talking about the situation regarding all the live tapes that exist - that they ended up with the, uhh, religious faction that he was involved with towards the end of his life, and that no-one knew where they were, how to get in touch, what was recorded, etc.

haha what religious faction was that? i gave this a listen and it's great. possibly the best album i've heard of his.

listened to basho all day yesterday, it's been a long time since i just played the same records over and over. mostly 'Art of the Acoustic Steel String Guitar 6 & 12' but also some 'Rainbow Thunder'. i like his singing but i do prefer the instrumentals, i feel like his voice overshadows the guitar a bit too much when it comes in

i have all these mislabeled basho mp3s but I've been listening to them over and over that one that's all "on my waaay, Colinda, lord, I'll catch the, westbound train" is slaying me lately.

who is this colinda chick anyway?

i once used a song from 'basho sings' in a skate video and most people really dug it in that context. i suspect most of them really would not have cared for it on its own. maybe basho's ready for the big screen. he'd sure add some intensity to a sequence.

these make a great soundtrack to forrest bess paintings btw

i've grown to like his vocal albums now except for voice of the eagle which is too cheesy

crazy this is the only basho thread! anyone heard this "new" thing?
http://dustedmagazine.com/reviews/7065
sample sounds gorgeous.

anyone see this? only know video footage of basho posted here:
http://robbiebasho.com/Home_Page.html
cool site overall too.

Holy smoke, those videos! They seem to confirm what I thought I heard in the music -- there is very little random in his playing -- when improvising, he might surprise the audience, but he seems to know precisely what he's doing at all times. Also his right hand tonal and dynamic control are phenomenal.

amazing! i knew his right hand wld be crazy but it looks so strange: floppy wrist, hand really far away playing loosely at the bridge. incredible to see.

yeah, the right hand was what was most interesting to me, don't know if i've seen anyone playing like that. hope there's more!

Fuck, this rules! I too like how his right hand kinda curls around the guitar and the way he's almost bent over double so that his ear is right near the sound hole.

Love Basho so much but I've never explored his ouvre much beyond Bashovia and Guitar Soli. Guess I really should buy some more albums! He inspired me to play open tuned exclusively like 10 years ago when I was just starting out on guitar and I'm forever in his debt.

Anyway, I am surprised that no one in this thread about Basho's singing mentioned Antony Hegarty.

Well, if people mostly know his singing from the 60s, it's not that much of a surprise, but he got really good through the 70s, and his best vocal tune -- man, wow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYaGChm8RWw&feature=related

holy cats

afterwards, it ask me if i want to listen to 15 minutes of pharoah sanders "the creator has a master plan"

um, yeah

I can't see youtubes at work but I really hope that's "Orphan's Lament".

Nah, it was "Blue Crystal Fire" from one year earlier -- but I do dig Orphan's Lament as well, so here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFjkdjb7WNs

Actually, that's from the same record. Best thing Windham Hill ever put out, and it's not Windham Hilly at all.

Excellent! Love "Blue Crystal Fire" too...Visions of the Country just kills me; I think it's probably his best record.

xp liam there have been a few great releases since the comps & Seal of the Blue Lotus reissue. Venus in Cancer has been reissued by tompkins square & is first-class basho imo, features both the tracks in the video footage, a surprisingly amazing piece w/ french horn & some great vocal stuff. bo'weavil also issued a nice live concert from 1980, Bonn ist Supreme, which has lots of good stuff which is otherwise OOP.

i've bitten the bullet and forked out for the reissue of Twilight Peaks which came out earlier this year - http://en.smalltownromanceblog.com/new-robbie-basho-reissue-twilight-peaks/ - some live&unreleased stuff, really good sound & quite a bit slower than versions floating around online, although idk what has gone on w/ the cover art, which imo should have been:

http://www.musikzimmer.ch/pics/covers/albums/20124.jpg

but yeah it's amazing, his technique has improved so much compared to the early recordings & it's an incredibly tender, gentle & calm record, mb my fav basho.

obv all his stuff should be reissued but Basho Sings!, Voice of the Eagle, Visions of the Country, & Rainbow Thunder especially. mb Zarthus too but it seems like his fruitiest record.

something i doubt will be reissued any time soon, at the other end of his career, is this lone track from a takoma comp, The Thousand Incarnations Of The Rose, which is an awesome instance of ambition carrying him through even if the technique is not 100% there & incredibly dramatic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFshZQYmLBY

*listens to robbie basho instrumental song*

"OMG this guy is the greatest of all time"

*robbie basho singing song comes up*

"....oh dear god"

^ hahahah otm

the worst is when it's like a sublime 9 minute track that you think is instrumental but then his vocals kick in around the five minute mark

his singing rules fuiud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJKhHY2OhEQ

i'm afraid i will be fu'd in this case

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYaGChm8RWw

not loving this does not compute imo

oh, haha. already upthread oops.

basho sings is not one of my favorite bashos, but song of the stallion and visions of the country are two of my vary favorite vocal records.

very

someone upthread compared his voice to antony hegarty, which was quite apt, as I cannot stand hegarty's voice either. i dunno, just something about it. basho is a pretty unstoppable guitarist, though. people always say jack rose was a fahey acolyte but i'd say he was more the reincarnation of basho. big arpeggiated 12 string epics. i've never been able to get into basho because his stuff is hard to find around the internet and physical copies of his stuff are also hard to find! it's almost like his work didn't get any momentum out of the takoma revival, i wonder if it's becuz of his singing/that some of his stuff was released as 'easy listening' near the end of his career?

yeah, when he wasn't wearing his dr ragtime hat, jack rose played a lot on the 2nd & 4th beats, loose & expansive ala basho. he cribbed p evenly from both tho imo

So can someone recommend me some more players doing stuff similar to Basho on tracks like "The Falconer's Arm" and "Lost Lagoon Suite"? I am pretty firmly entrenched in Takoma worship, and am already quite enamored of Jack Rose, who I feel comes closest to evoking that feel imo (Catedral et Chartres <3 omg). However, James Blackshaw puts me to sleep for whatever reason, so don't tell me to check him out, unless I'm really missing something. So enlighten me. Who am I missing?

Hey global, check out William Tyler - Behold the Spirit...

Also did you ever get lessons with peter lang?

new album by daniel bachman is very jack rose-y. not super basho-y

Yeah dude, 8-9 of em! It was fun. We'd do a lot of b.s'ing about music in general. He'd get a bit rambly at moments but I didn't mind- he's kind of like an endearing kooky uncle. He said I was one of the more advanced/quick learners he'd taught at the school in terms of the American Primitive style, so he taught me a lot of tunes he doesn't generally teach? Got to learn Thoth Song, which is a fun one, in fact we did all four of his off that Lang/Fahey/Kottke one. Also learned some basic blues/folk standards. Probably 15 songs in total.

Overall, it's fun to learn straight from the mind of the guy who wrote the songs, and hear stories about hanging out with Fahey/touring, the 60s, etc. I don't think I got a ton better technique wise, since I was already fairly decent. But I definitely broadened my overall sense of the fretboard and songwriting, which is probably more of a fundamental thing in American Primitive since it's less about chops and more about spirit? At the same time, he seemed like he could really get you going if you've never fingerpicked in your life, too, he's got like 3-4 more basic tunes he teaches to newer players as well. He's a good teacher in that he can teach to all levels. It was funny listening to him talk about teaching Turnpike Terror to a group of 10 year olds!

The WBSM is a fantastic thing for the community, too, so there's that too.

I'm surprised at the number of people here do dislike Basho's singing, A North American Raga is one of my favorites of his, and all of Song of the Stallion. I especially love the songs where his voice comes in after 5 minutes of beautiful guitar. What I dig about Basho is how serious he was, his mysticism and all.

cool global, currently playing phone tag w.him can't wait to start...

it's less about chops and more about spirit?

man i've just now started playing closer attention technique in listening to fahey and that guy's tempo is BONKERS...like he's constantly speeding up and slowing down, maybe on purpose?

yeah, i think it's mainly on purpose, there was some quote where he talked about his sense of time, but i can't remember where. there are definitely tempo things that fahey does that i've found to be mindsplitting, sort of other dimension playing that i don't think you could ever "learn."

i need to read more about fahey, but yeah it's striking, where, god, i bet he's swinging 20 bpms either way in the course of one song

or the same larger phrase!

been a while since i read it, but fahey wrote his thesis on charley patton, and patton is the king of irregular tempos/bizarro rhythms. as well as being the king of the delta blues.

yeah duh, of course, tons of those delta dudes had way fucked up phrasing and meter, so i guess that's only natural

My God, how was anyone able to enjoy music before drum machines were invented? (What's amatta with you people?)

Anyone know if the documentary will get a DVD release? I'm very eager to see it, but it isn't playing anywhere near here I live.

i bet it'll get on youtube. the fahey one was off-and-on on there for awhile. probably not legal, but could give it a look

Hope so! But would gladly buy a DVD if one became available. I bought the Fahey DVD, and it'd almost have to be better than that.

Anyone see this btw?

Thanks to this wonderful forum, I have discovered the music of Robbie Basho - one of my favourite discoveries of the past few years. I took Visions of the Country to record club the other night.

https://devonrecordclub.com/2016/09/02/robbie-basho-visions-of-the-country-round-94-toms-selection/

Which album(s) should I get next?

Visions Of The Country is a great one. Basho albums are pretty much divided (somewhat superficially) between vocal albums and instrumental albums. For years the prevailing logic was that the vocal ones were bad and the instrumental ones were good, but I think that consensus has changed a bit in recent years. I was a person who initially couldn't deal with the vocals, but at some point I realized how much a part of Basho's music / imagination / gift his vocals were, and that to truly appreciate him, you had to reckon with the singing (which I now find quite beautiful, though like I said, it took me years to come around). He held nothing back.

If you like Visions of the Country, you'll probably like any other of his vocal albums. Rainbow Thunder is a somewhat obscure one that was recently reissued and iirc this was from the same general period as VFTC.

Not sure you can go wrong with any Basho album though (some here may disagree). Good luck and enjoy the search!

Oh, also, read this! www.elephantjournal.com/2011/07/robbie-basho-was-an-angel-i-dont-believe-he-was-terrestrial-jerome-burdi/

that's a good article, though I think basho was playing steel string before he met fahey (fahey says they were introduced on the basis that they both had 12 strings) and it's worth noting that both his guitar and footage of him playing have turned up since it was published.

you'll probably want to stick to his guitar albums at first (there are some with piano and drumming and so on). the earliest are a bit rough technically but fiery and a lot of fun. I recommend going for his early-mid period where he's marking out his territory and is very much in full bloom, maybe the falconers arm I, venus in cancer or voice of the eagle

Thanks for the info. I'll try to find one of those three on vinyl. The other album that seems to be particularly rated is Zanthus...have you heard this one?

My mistake...Zarthus.

zarthus is very much basho at his celestial fruitiest, lots of piano etc, will revisit it at some point

Shame the Grass-tops label that did the Bouquet reissue seems to have vanished.

Apparently closed up earlier in the year. Glad they put out what they did at least.

Don't have any inside info, but really seemed from afar that this labor of love was cock-blocked at every turn

How would one track done that reissue at this point?

There will be a showing of the movie "Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho" at Coe College, Cedar Rapids Iowa, at Sinclair Auditorium where Robbie performed in 1978. Admission is free, and it is open to the general public.

Time and date of the above movie showing:7:30 Sunday March 19th 2017

https://obsoleterecordings.bandcamp.com/album/robbie-basho-live-in-forl-italy-1982

The samples sound great on this one. They're funding a short run vinyl.

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0098279777_16.jpg

great cover

is he throwing up?

enjoying some fresh rocky mountain creek water

better to drink fresh rocky mountain creek water from your hands than...

Hey everyone--

Just to let you all know, tessaract3 from this thread passed this morning in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He was 67 years old.

As it happens, he was my wife's birth father. He had a rough go of it for many years, but it was neat to see him connect with people over music he loved over the past several years.

(As for me, I'm a San Francisco-based mostly-lurker who's been here for the fifteen years or so.)

I'm sorry to hear that. I really love the community that built up around Fahey, Basho & Takoma, always seems to be really good, interesting people

anyone heard this new rarities compilation?

i didn't know there was one!

Land of our fathers, released on a swiss label called 'holographic ontological networks'. You think you've seen all the rad basho pics and then they dig this one out:

https://assets.boomkat.com/spree/products/606201/large/R-12025590-1526807186-3343.png.jpg

1000 incarnations of the rose and then a bunch of stuff I don't know.

Oh, I ordered that one in 2018! So not quite brand new. Definitely great though.

huh looks like boomkat have the wrong date! what's it like?

To be honest, I got it right before I moved so it quickly went out of sight and out of mind. Since finding it I've only spun it once so far.

I can't confirm any time soon (traveling), but the youtube list on the discogs page might be accurate?

https://www.discogs.com/Robbie-Basho-Land-Of-Our-Fathers-Rarities-1967-1983/release/12025590

ah, so a lot of the bouquet stuff!

Basho died unexpectedly at the age of 45 due to an accident during a visit to his chiropractor, where an "intentional whiplash" experiment caused blood vessels in his neck to rupture, leading to a fatal stroke.

Yup. Super freaky!

Phew -- new 5 CD set of unreleased Basho due out in December:

http://www.tompkinssquare.com/bashoboxset.html

It's out, and it's spectacular - depending on your tolerance for his voice, which is all over these tracks. (My personal tolerance is sky-high.) Other than some random string-tunings and asides to studio personnel, the tracks are pretty realized, not odds-n'-endsy at all.