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Peter Walker - Rainy Day Raga

Posted by shurgaree on December 5, 2016 at 12:45 AM

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This is an album and artist I found recently, but it's something I found at the right time. Had I heard this album four years ago, I wouldn't have had the background or patience to enjoy it, but as I listen to Rainy Day Raga while writing this, I couldn't think of a more perfect album for where I've been, musically speaking. Between folk, primitivism, and Hindustani music all in a drawn out improvised manner, this album is at the apex of what those individual genre could connect to become. This album is so beautifully relaxed and melodic that Timothy Leary of LSD fame hired Walker as his "Musical Director" in the 1960s. Walker with his six string plays over a droning tanpura, occasional flute, and sometimes percussive instruments that inspire a sound somewhere between the Indian cities of Varanasi and the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, probably closer to the former. This album is worth a listen - I've done my homework with Basho, Fahey, Sandy Bull etc, and Peter Walker is right there with them. It also stands out from them in that he's accompanied and he's far closer to Indian music than American music (we could argue Basho too).


After Rainy Day Raga and a follow up entitled Second Poem released in 1968, Walker faded into relative obscurity until pretty recently when we saw a resurgence of insterest of American primitivism and conveying raga sounds on six string steel guitars. He recorded a few tracks for a tribute album "A Raga For Peter Walker" which also includes original tracks by Jack Rose, Thurston Moore, and James Blackshaw. While appreciative of his music of old, it seems that Walker's love is in flamenco guitar, which drawns shocking comparisons to the Indian raga system. I've yet to listen to any of his flamenco records, but I'll get to that.. and maybe post about it here. Enjoy this one.

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