GARY HIGGINS Red Hash LP orig PRIVATE folk psych 1973
$
159
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Description
Gary Higgins -- Red Hash LP
Original 1973 stereo private pressing on Nufusmoon Records (catalog # WMI 3673). from Splendid Review: During one forty-hour period in 1973, folk musician Gary Higgins and his band of five -- guitarist Jake Bell, cellist Maureen Wells, keyboardist Terry Fenton, mandolin/flutist Paul Tierney and bass player Dave Beaujon -- laid down one of the saddest, loveliest acoustic recordings you'll ever hear, the now semi-legendary Red Hash. Time was tight because Higgins had recently been arrested on drug charges and was facing years, maybe decades in jail. Money, too, was in short supply. The entire album was recorded on four-track, giving it the warmth and immediacy of live performance, but making it hard to hear instruments like bass and drums. Even so, its haunting harmonies and wistful mood are amazing; in addition to being an absolute distillation of 1960s and 1970s folk, it hints at the skewed purity of contemporary psyche folk.Higgins disappeared after Red Hash was released, first serving out his sentence and later marrying, having a child and spending his time as many of us do, making a living rather than pursuing his dreams. Although Higgins and his friends recorded a few more songs together -- two of them appear on the Red Hash reissue as bonus tracks -- there was never another record. The whole unlikely experience seemed likely to drop into the black hole of lost albums.
Then, during the 1990s, word began to spread about Red Hash. Pirated copies appeared for sale on the Internet. Tracks were played on influential freeform radio stations like WFMU. Musicians, most notably Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance and Comets on Fire, cited the forgotten disc as an influence; Chasny even covered "Thicker than a Smokey" on his 2005 album School of the Flower. Zach Cowie, then negotiating to bring Comets on Fire to Sub Pop, received a burned copy from Chasny and immediately became fascinated with the album. He embarked on a quixotic quest to find its author, mailing off hundreds of letters and calling every Gary Higgins he could find in Connecticut phone books. Finally, he located that Gary Higgins -- still in northwest Connecticut, still writing and playing songs in his spare time, still holding the master tapes to his one and only full-length album. The album was remastered and reissued on Drag City in 2005.
CONDITION: Cover VG+ / Vinyl NM cover has light ringwear, no creases, no splits, no marks; vinyl is near pristine, great bright shiny gloss, barely any wear just one slight surface scuff keeping it from MINT. Graded conservatively using Goldmine standards [G / G+ / VG / VG+ / NM / ]grade only used if record is brand new.
Bid with confidence -- over 6000 positive feedbacks selling vinyl on eBay, 100% positive.
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