The who guitarist
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "ODE TO GRAVITY") Now, those personal recordings stashed in cardboard boxes are being released for the first time in a five-disc set called "Song Of The Avatars." ROSE: Basho has had a deep impact on generations of fellow guitar players and listeners, but his music never found a wide audience in his lifetime.
#THE WHO GUITARIST FULL#
PETE TOWNSHEND: I think anybody - any young guitar player that hears his music today would be influenced by him because it's beautiful and eloquent and profound and full of love and devotion and melancholy. (SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "VOICE OF THE EAGLE: THE ENIGMA OF ROBBIE BASHO") ROSE: Barker's documentary is called "Voice Of The Eagle: The Enigma Of Robbie Basho." One of the people he interviewed was guitarist Pete Townshend of The Who. And miraculously, some of these recordings sound like they were recorded yesterday. (SOUNDBITE OF ROBBIE BASHO'S "GYPSY ROSARY")īARKER: Fortunately, they were kept in sealed cardboard boxes. He was hunting for a long-rumored collection of Basho's personal recordings, and he found them. Barker was making a documentary about Robbie Basho. ROSE: There were stacks of old newspapers and animal excrement everywhere. LIAM BARKER: When I went there, it was kind of like something out of a horror film - you know, unbelievable filth all around. JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: A few years ago, Liam Barker found himself in a ramshackle house in South Carolina. NPR's Joel Rose reports on previously unreleased recordings prompting a new appreciation. His music was almost forgotten for a time, but now it's back. He helped invent what's known as the American primitive style of guitar playing. More than 30 years after his death, Robbie Basho is getting a second look.
One of the amazing things about music is the recordings that musicians leave behind.