John Fahey – America

I haven't compared to the CD but my copy plays clean on all four sides and sounds quite nice. Based on the reviews, I guess there are some bum copies or people with worn styluses or bad setups who are blaming the record.

This record is soooo much better than the responses below. My copy seems to play great through all four sides. The mastering seems great as well.

My copy is fine, no distracting pops and clicks throughout the album. Packaging is really nice.

Track 1 “Jesus Is a Dying Bedmaker” is a misspelling which may lead to misunderstandings: it should be “Jesus Is a Dying-bed Maker”.

The birth, death, and epitome and the American Primitive genre. The Swan Song. The piece de resistance. The "Led Zeppelin IV" of fingerstyle guitar music.

I have a question about this sentence in Notes: “America was the only Takoma release to be FIRST released on these labels.”—What about Leo Kottke’s ‘6- and 12-string Guitar’? According to Discogs, it was released in 1969 and had the orange/purple labels. If ‘America’ would have really been the only Takoma release to be first released on these labels then Kottke LP’s with the plain black and silver labels (originally from 1968) should exist. But I have never seen one nor are they posted on Discogs. Who can help to enlighten this inconsistency?

A tremendous disappointment in this pressing.
The treble clips on Side B and there is very little bass response. This is the side with the title track.
The quality of the vinyl was warped along the edges that would throw the needle.
Miscellaneous "pop" and noise throughout.

Buy the CD and you will have a better experience.
All prior comments are true.

My father in law gave me a copy of this and he said that he bought it new and was disappointed because instead of the America record, it had a copy of the christmas album inside. Is this something that happened frequently?

Bad pressing. I've had two copies of this Sonet pressing and both of them were defective. Records were so badly off center that they were borderline unlistenable.

I'm a huge Fahey fan. There's no way these guys have been given access to his recordings for vinyl reissue. Look at all the releases they have. Impossible to press all these releases in such a short period of time. These guys are frauds and completely taking advantage of the vinyl resurgence. Their packaging is great. The quality of the music sucks!!! Hopefully these hipsters disappear soon.