Dust-to-Digital : Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You [DTD-21]

Previously-Unavailable Music by John Fahey Published as a 5CD Box Set

Official Release Date: October 11, 2011

John Fahey - Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You (The Fonotone Years 1958-1965) is the long-awaited box set of the earliest recordings by and the first book ever written about John Fahey. The five CDs feature 115 tracks, most of which are available on CD for the first time. The audio was remastered from Joe Bussard’s reel-to-reel tapes to achieve pristine sound quality. As for the accompanying book, the list of scholars who contributed essays includes Eddie Dean, Claudio Guerrieri, Glenn Jones, Malcolm Kirton, John's collaborator Mike Stewart and John’s childhood friend R. Anthony Lee. Byron Coley contributed a poem about John, and Douglas Blazek’s 1967 interview with Fahey is published here for the first time.

Released 10 years after John Fahey’s death, this set puts one of the final puzzle pieces of Fahey’s career in place. Everyone can now hear where this guitar legend got his start – a smoky basement in Frederick, Maryland. Co-produced by Dean Blackwood of Revenant, Glenn Jones, and Lance Ledbetter of Dust-to-Digital, this set is released with the support of Joe Bussard and the John Fahey Estate. The set is dedicated to John’s mother, Jane C. Hayes and the late musician Jack Rose. The 88-page hardcover book comes with 5 CDs in separate gatefold portfolio – all housed in a deluxe slipcase.

Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You is available for order via our Credit Card and Paypal online stores. A bonus Fonotone bottle opener ships with all orders while supplies last.

Acknowledgments & Reviews

What People Are Saying About This Title

Entertainment Weekly:
Grade A: A rich exploration of Appalachian roots, Delta blues, and country, this isn't just a celebration of the grandfather of steel-string guitar fingerpicking, it's a history of American music. - Melissa Maerz

Pitchfork:
Best New Reissue, 9.5/10: The liner notes for Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You-- the complete recordings guitarist John Fahey made for the tiny but crucial Fonotone label between 1958 and 1965-- comprise an 88-page book, bound in beautifully toned, dense cardboard. These 88 pages brim with an obsessive sort of information about Fahey: his slapdash drawings of important people and places in his life, the first known photograph of him with a Gibson F-hole guitar, the receipt for his Holzapfel 12-string, his Boy Scouts photo, and even a personal letter to Fonotone owner Joe Bussard where he begs for recordings of a few old blues heroes. There's a revealing and hitherto unpublished interview, remembrances from past collaborators, and Italian researcher Claudio Guerrieri's guide to the various hand-written labels Bussard affixed to the center of each record he hand-cut on order.

This set is not just for Fahey zealots. It's for anyone interested in the story of American music, from its Appalachian string bands and mean-moaning Delta blues singers to the hymns sung from its church pews and the country-rock anthems soon enough crafted by its hippies... A must-have collection of lore, music, and history, it's a unified, brilliant, and often very challenging archive. - Grayson Currin