Snow Beneath the Belly of a White Swan: The Lost Live Recordings

Despite being revered by guitarists and the subject of a documentary film, the late Robbie Bashos profile, nearly 40 years after his passing, remains overshadowed by his peers -- Leo Kottke and John Fahey among them. The six- and twelve-string virtuoso lived and worked in poverty and relative obscurity throughout his two-decade career. Tompkins Square, the label run by Josh Rosenthal, hasnt forgotten the guitarist. In 2020 he and director/producer Liam Barker (Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho in 2015), released the essential Song of the Avatars: The Lost Master Tapes, offering unreleased studio recordings. Snow Beneath the Belly of a White Swan: The Lost Live Recordings, its companion, offers 30 tracks of unissued concert material. The complete Basho experience could only be witnessed live, where Bashos innovative use of Indian raga, Middle Eastern scales, flamenco, classical, folk, blues, and country commingled and collided. Lavishly designed and illustrated with rare photos and a fine essay by Robbie Dawson, the sound, while not pristine, is certainly very good. Each disc contains entries that reveal Bashos virtuosity as instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Set-opener "Chung Mei - The Chinese Orchid" displays a command of Asian classical music and country-blues. His cover of Faheys "Sligo River Blues" delivers harmonic invention amid melancholy modal overtones. The title-track closer on disc one is a long fantasia with dazzling fingerpicking, drone blues, mountain folk, and Indian music reflecting one another. Its followed by a 12-string version of "The Falconers Arm," which emerges from raga, staggers harmonic scales, and shows off Bashos wildly original, dramatic fingerstyle technique. The disc closes with "Portrait of Fahey as a Young Dragon," that unfolds as an otherworldly collision of octave drones before an inspired Celtic baritone vocal stridently claims the center. His stage banter is wryly humorous. Disc three highlights include the shaky warm-up "Song of God" and the Persian-inspired "Pasha," followed by "Cantos of California" that emerges from Mexican ranchera to embrace Segovian flamenco and bass drones. His vocal during the final third is wonderfully experimental. On disc four, Basho revels in a self-created raga style on "Green River Suite," followed by the episodic "California Raga" and old-time mountain music in "The Lady She Is a Waiting." "Song of the Stallion" showcases his finest vocal before concluding with "American Raga" joining deep folk-blues, Celtic folk, Indian classical, and more, anchored in drones major and minor. Disc five contains the spooky murder ballad "Keteri Tekakwitha" that sits between Bob Dylans "Ballad of Hollis Brown" and "House of the Rising Sun." Snow Beneath the Belly of a White Swan: The Lost Live Recordings balances and extends Bashos reach with spontaneity, creativity, and incendiary in-the-moment energy and guitaristry. Its an essential listen and/or purchase for anyone interested in American music as it evolved in tradition and innovation during the 60s, 70s, and 80s. ~ Thom Jurek