Various Artists - I am the Resurrection: A Tribute to John Fahey - Vanguard
Generally, tribute albums are tricky but interesting, and this is no exception. There is a great amount of talent featured on the disk, but more impressively, the artists have uniquely created a unified and bonded sound. I am not familiar with John Fahey himself (I hope to change that), but the songs have a genuine and classic sense of musicianship, similar to the sounds of B.B. King or Tom Waits. Peter Case’s “When the Catfish is in Bloom” is an unaccompanied guitar solo. The song is subtly great; he quietly pulled me in for seven minutes on his up-and-down mellow riffs. The artists featured on the c.d. are very notable. Fruit Bats, Sufjan Stevens, Calexico, Devandra Banhart and many others inflect their own sound into timeless Southern soul. Good album.
-Molly Dwyer
