Sandy Bull
Still Valentine's Day 1969
Sandy Bull was an American folk musician who rose to prominence with a series of albums on the Vanguard label in the 1960's and 70's. Still Valentine's Day 1969 is pulled from two live shows recorded at The Matrix in San Francisco in 1969 with Bull playing shimmering electric guitar and oud, accompanied by tape loops. Previously available on CD, but now out of print in all formats - this is the first ever vinyl pressing and includes the original liner notes from Byron Coley.
Live In San Francisco Late 1969
Sandy Bull’s unorthodox approach to guitar was as unique as his personal circumstances. Son of jazz harpist Daphne Hellman and brother to the sitarist Daisy Paradis, Bull became part of the bourgeoning Greenwich Village folk circuit. A move to San Francisco in 1963 found him sharing an apartment with Nubian oud master, Hamza El Din, which had a profound effect on his playing, spurring early world music experiments. The previously unreleased Live In San Francisco features bluesy electric ‘Memphis…
Re-Inventions
** 2021 Stock ** Sandy Bull, who died in 2001 at the age of 60, was part of the early blues/folk scene of the early 60s, friends with Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and both Roger MGuinn and Jim McGuinn. His own guitar and banjo style was quite distinct, featuring improvisation dubbed "psychedelic folk" by critics. This CD spans the years from 1963-1972. Includes the epic 21 minute 'Blend' recorded in one take with jazz drummer Billy Higgins.
Fantasias For Guitar And Banjo
Folk musician Sandy Bull took an unorthodox approach to stringed instruments, influenced in part by sharing an apartment with Nubian oud master, Hamza El Din. His 1963 debut LP for Vanguard, Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo, saw him backed by Los Angeles-based jazz drummer Billy Higgins: side-long epic Blend is influenced by eastern and middle-eastern music forms; Little Maggie displays a lightning-fast picking style, Gospel Tune hearkens to the American South, medieval classic Non Nobis Domine is…
Live 1976
Well further gifts abound, as this 1976 concert on Galactic Zoo Disk/Drag City will attest. Clearly, the explorations of Sandy Bull were not lost on the far-out audiences of the Bay Area, and though the heady days of the '60s have gone, the Berkeley heads are still in full force, hanging on Sandy's every note with a clearly expressed delight as they wait for headliner Leo Kottke to take the stage. Even though there were no further albums after 1972's Demolition Derby (a candidate for unhi…
E Pluribus Unum
a pure mantra: blending North African and Middle Eastern textures within a western context into our experience, regrettably the experience of a small few, but hopefully a wider community of listeners to come. Not only important historically, but musically: a wide range of music genres over the last couple of decades have worked with drone-note principles and it is an increasingly common device, but Sandy Bull was/is a superlative master of utilising the drone sounds;understated but effect…
Inventions
Sandy Bull's 1965 LP Inventions remains one of those legendary albums that almost no one has heard. Its impact, however, can be scene in the title of this new compilation spotlighting a great unsung hero of "psychedelic folk." "Blend," the 22-minute opus from 1963 that opens this disc, surely fits that designation, perfectly blending folk, jazz, and Indian influences into what Bull called "new guitar raga." An eclectic virtuoso who switched from acoustic guitar to banjo to Stratocaster to oud (m…
Vanguard Visionaries
Sandy Bull may have been the first man in the '60s folk renaissance to foreground modal drones in his music and thereby forge a link between Scottish ballads, jazz, and sitar meditations. The results are seismic, and when seen in the light of the millennial freak-folk scene, they cast Bull as one of the genre's primary father figures. VANGUARD VISIONARIES seeks to introduce neophytes to Bull's finest noodlings, covering ground that's similar to the previous Vanguard best-of, RE-INVENTIONS. The d…