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"New Orleans Shuffle" From John Fahey's 1973 Album "After the Ball"

Michael Fremer  |  Jan 19, 2016

In 1973 the late guitarist, music historian, fanatical record collector and audiophile John Fahey recorded for Reprise Records the album "After the Ball" (MS 2145)—an album of original and "period" pieces including this track: New Orleans Shuffle by the pianist Bill Whitmore, originally recorded in 1925 by The Halfway House Orchestra.

Fahey and his manager Denny Bruce produced this version 1972-3, recorded by Doug Decker at famed Western and United Recorders in Los Angeles and the sonics are superb.

This is the Air Force 1 turntable, Swedish Analog Technologies tone arm and Lyra Atlas feeding the Ypsilon 16L transformer/VPS-100 phono preamp decoding an original white label promo copy repeatedly played since 1973. Every copy of this short, but sweet sounding record that I've seen has been a WLP with the sticker on the cover. It's possible Reprise never figured out how to market and sell the record and so never got past the promo stage.

Why this now? Why not?

COMMENTS
johnmotex's picture
Submitted by johnmotex on Tue, 2016-01-19 13:26

Thank you, Michael!

amsco15's picture
Submitted by amsco15 on Tue, 2016-01-19 14:28

Take a trip to New Orleans and hang out on Frenchman Street. You'll find dozens of bands, made up of young people, playing just this kind of music. It's awsome!

cdvinyl's picture
Submitted by cdvinyl on Tue, 2016-01-19 16:14

Loved the music, sound, all of it. If the rest of the album sounds as good as this first track than see if it can't be re-issued??

Cheers

Steelhead's picture
Submitted by Steelhead on Wed, 2016-01-20 21:54

That turntable looks freaking amazing.

I would love to plug one in here at the shack but it probably costs more than my truck.

Wow, what a deck!!!

Jancuso's picture
Submitted by Jancuso on Fri, 2016-01-29 14:47

This is a wonderful record. I have my original copy and surprise folks when I play it for them. They have no idea who/what/when it is! Thank you for discussing!

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