C or D: Robbie Basho, "Basho Sings"

robbie basho's american indian album, "Rainbow Thunder" (songs of the american west) Release date is 9/8/15 ! by grasstops records

Wanted to post this here for those interested, but wanted to make sure I secured my own copy first - ha! Original, sealed copies of Rainbow Thunder going for the relatively inexpensive price of $36.

www.grasstopsrecording.bandcamp.com/album/rainbow-thunder-songs-of-the-american-west?mc_cid=a5e92b6448&mc_eid=db424a4d62

Never heard this album, but if it's anything like Visions Of The Country, I'm excited. Does anyone know if this is an all-vocal album, or are there instrumentals mixed in?

It's vocal bar the opener (Redwood Ramble), one track is just vocals and drums, but it has some really lovely guitar playing on it too

Rainbow Thunder is a collection of songs expressing the feelings and textures of the West in its Prime, and of the Native American Peoples who lived there. I hope it does them some small degree of justice — they who looked so hard into Nature – Robbie Basho

- Track listing -

1. Redwood Ramble
2. Crashing Thunder
3. Moving Up A'Ways
4. Legend of Mount Tamalpias
5. Rainbow Thunder (hear a rare live version)
6. The Pathfinder
7. The White Buffalo
8. Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee
9. Home Again
10. The Long Lullaby
11. Black Hills Soliloquy

CD reissue Produced by Kyle Fosburgh
Originally Produced by Silver Label Recording
Originally recorded by Dennis Reed
CD remastered by Joe Churchich

p.s. i'm not sure that track 5 is a live version on the reissue---i believe it's studio, but i ould be wrong.

think they were just linking to this: https://soundcloud.com/grasstopsrecording/rainbow-thunder-by-robbie
excited to hear the reissue! they've done a great job with the others...

this looks nicely done too https://smeraldina-rima.bandcamp.com/album/twilight-peaks

Highly recommend that Twilight Peaks LP to anyone who doesn't have it. Unlike anything else in Basho's catalog and "Nice Enough For Love" is one of his most haunting and beautiful tunes. LP reissue sounds superb too, with great liner notes.

In other news, 2014 was the year I finally stopped disliking Basho's vocals; 2015 is the year I began to actually prefer them.

definitely agree that anyone who likes basho should get twilight peaks, it's absolutely gorgeous, so pleasing that he ended on such a high. no idea why they keep changing the cover, mutilated duck or whatever the latest is doesn't fit the vibe at all, the ganesh (or just an elephant?) was my favourite but I don't know where it originally came from

the basho documentary is finished; the maker is looking at which festivals to premiere it at.

RobbieBasho.com
September 9 at 12:16pm · Edited ·
The Basho Renaissance begins! Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho will be screening at the 23rd Raindance Film Festival in London ...
raindancefestival.org

tempted to try to go to this, anyone else considering it?

world premiere will take place on Saturday the 3rd of October at Vue Piccadilly in London.

shoulda gotten this already, bummer

Our release of Portrait of Basho as a Young Dragoon has been suspended indefinitely due to the discovery of the original reel-to-reel tapes and the entity claiming ownership of this material. For those who were looking forward to this release, we sincerely apologize.

mysterious entity wants its money

Saw that -- total bummer! The music is incredible.

better get this one now as well:

https://bandcamp.com/download?id=3702802609&ts=1456258426.1017183570&tsig=f999ff72bebfd3c37b70dc312979be91&type=album

weirdness! at least they're getting the music out there... kyle and those grasstops guys are super nice, and i'm sure they haven't been doing anything shady with this music. someone must think they're sitting on a Basho goldmine or something.

I imagine it has something to do with why those Takoma records haven't been reissued. madness.

Thanks for the heads up! I love his singing, btw

awesome

right now a woman is talking about the rainbow king while robbie "aaaahs" in the background. so good to visit a new bit of bashovia

lol at THE "PERFECT" CHRISTMAS GIFT!
https://40.media.tumblr.com/f826f2f6e864e10e2e959f7947951b53/tumblr_nxzhxkYfUl1rl3uofo1_500.jpg

love badly used quotation marks

this record is sounding pretty solid! had never heard it before.

weirdness! at least they're getting the music out there... kyle and those grasstops guys are super nice, and i'm sure they haven't been doing anything shady with this music. someone must think they're sitting on a Basho goldmine or something.

― tylerw, Tuesday, February 23, 2016 2:17 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah the whole thing is really dumb, grass tops just wants it available

i would say they are making an extremely modest amount if they are making anything doing these projects, they have a put a ton of work into them

yeah, i mean, they're actually putting the work into it all -- getting the best sounding versions they can get, creating nice packages ... i mean, if someone else actually holds the rights to the recordings, they should work something out -- i agree that Basho would probably just want his music heard.

Is "The Entity" the Meher Baba Trust?

i don't think so

Why not?

ha well i *know* it's not -- kyle at grass-tops told me who was behind it all, but I don't think it's my place to put it out there in a public forum.

Fair enough. (I figured you had insider knowledge and understand if you can't spill.)

yeah don't mean to be mysterious, just don't want to potentially make things worse!

Someone shared this on Facebook and for some reason if put me in mind of Basho, something about the voice/guitar combo, only beamed in from a whole other world/tradition. Anyway, ver nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7ICTX4MwRY

more previously unreleased basho up via grass-tops: https://soundcloud.com/grasstopsrecording/robbie-basho-interview-performance-the-coffeehouse-program-wers-boston-ma-71383

that bonfa is exquisite, much tidier than basho could ever manage but the romance is there

http://www.robbiebasho.com/ the new robbiebasho.com

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?