Death Chants, Breakdowns & Military Waltzes

Sources date the release to 1963 or 1964. It was Fahey's second record and the first with a national distributor, which is why it sold faster than the first. It was recorded in Adelphi, Maryland, in 1962 and in Berkeley, California, in 1963, the year he and ED Denson found Bukka White. Peter Stampfel praised it in his Broadsides column, and the good reception led to Fahey's first paying gig, at the Odyssey Coffeehouse in Boston in the summer of 1965.

The liner notes are credited to Chester C. Petranick, a music teacher from Fahey's youth, and carry on the Blind Joe Death story. Dale Miller of Acoustic Guitar described such notes as phony folklorical ramblings that spoofed the pedantic notes on folk releases, and Denson said Fahey mythologized his life in them. In 1967 Fahey made new stereo recordings of ten of the twelve tracks under the same title, and a 1999 Takoma CD put both versions on one disc. Ben Ratliff of the New York Times called the record dense with eccentricity.