The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death

The title looks back to Blind Joe Death, the fictional bluesman Fahey introduced on his first album and, with Takoma, went on treating as real, down to booklets giving his biography. Riverboat issued the record in a hand-lettered edition of 50, making it the first Fahey album on a label other than Takoma. Takoma reissued it in 1967 and 1973, and Transatlantic made it his first album released in the UK, in 1968. The original liner notes came in a separate booklet. They were written by Fahey's roommate Alan Wilson of Canned Heat but credited to one Charles Holloway, Esq.

Part of the album was recorded on the East Coast and more tracks were needed. Barry Hansen, who engineered and edited, said there was no budget for a proper studio, so he found someone with a good home recorder and a quiet room and let Fahey play, a dog at his feet. A bark in the middle of one track stayed in by Hansen's decision. The cover appears in a record-store shot in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. After a 1997 CD reissue with notes by George Winston the album drew warm reviews: Stylus gave it A+, and Pitchfork placed it 74th on its 2017 list of the 200 best albums of the 1960s.