Grow Fins

Not sure why this album is unavailable commercially anymore but it’s a great album! That gravelly, despairing voice singing about busted times is a great listen. It’s hard to define this music – it should be country but it sounds something more akin to Johnny Cash or Kris Kristofferson in that way that even though those artists generally get classified under Country yet transcend that genre. Perhaps it’s a hybrid of country, folk and ’70s AM radio pop. Well, maybe it’s just lonesome cowboy music. Whatever it is… Enjoy

Long out of print, this is one of the most difficult albums I’ve ever tried to acquire. It’s stunning. Peter Walker studied with Ravi Shankar briefly in Los Angeles and with Ali Akbar Khan in San Francisco. He was a marginal member of the early ’60s Cambridge Mass. and Greenwich Village folk scene where he recorded and released only 2 albums. He released his third album only last year after a 40 year hiatus. Rainy Day Raga was released on Vanguard Records in 1966. It’s a collection of solo guitar instrumental pieces built around eastern compositional structures. It’s a beautiful recording. Shame it’s so difficult to find. I ripped these VBR MP3s myself from my own copy of the CD which was available only briefly in the late ’80s – probably fewer than 5000 copies were made. God knows where they’ve ended up. In a gesture of respect to the artist, I am making the album available here to download for free since no record company seems interested in making the album available commercially. Enjoy