The Voice of the Turtle

The Voice of the Turtle is the seventh album by American guitarist John Fahey. Recorded and released in 1968, it is considered one of his more experimental albums, combining not only folk elements, but shreds of psychedelia, early blues, country fiddles, ragas, and white noise. The album had many reissues with various track listings, jacket designs and mismatched titles. History The mythical bluesman named Blind Joe Death, first introduced by Fahey on his debut album Blind Joe Death, appears again in the liner notes of The Voice of the Turtle. For years Fahey and Takoma continued to treat the imaginary guitarist as a real person, including booklets with their LPs containing biographical information about him and that he had taught Fahey to play. The conceit that the blues guitarist Blind Joe Death was an actual person and contemporary of Fahey is carried further with some tracks credited to being performed by Death and Fahey. There is debate that Fahey never actually appears on some of the tracks and that they are instead old, little-known recordings. Fahey has been quoted as saying "That whole record was a hoax. On all the songs that say it's me it isn't and vice versa." Barry Hansen, a friend and collaborator of Fahey's albums told Rolling Stone reporter David Fricke that three of the tracks were old 78s that Fahey copied to tape and credited to Blind Joe Death. The first track "Bottleneck Blues" is a 1927 recording made by Sylvester Weaver and Walter Beasley. The tracks with fiddlers Hubert Thomas and Virgil Willis Johnston were made with Fahey during his 1966 trip to the South with Barry Hansen. The Voice of the Turtle was reissued on CD in 1996. It was reissued on vinyl on the Four Men With Beards label in 2012. Both reissues use the second track listing.