Robbie Basho - The Grail & The Lotus
(Takoma)

Whereas folk guitar master John Fahey focused on the old, weird America and the blues, cohort and contemporary Robbie Basho took his influence from Eastern modes.
Thanks to his studies with Ali Akbar Khan, Basho sought to replicate the droning tones so prevalent in Indian music with unique open tunings while his finger-picking technique was singular in itself, in part to his time working with the Sarod, an instrument of Indian classical music. 
Originally released in 1966, his 2nd LP for Takoma The Grail and the Lotus, beautifully combines his love of Indian passages and Americana. There’s haunting, far-eastern ballads (“Oriental Love Song”) and complex yet serene pastorals (“The Golden Shamrock”), all punctuated by Basho’s mystical sense of tone and melody.
Robbie Basho deserves to be revered in the same ways that John Fahey and Leo Kottke are. With his catalog finally getting reissued over the last few years and a new documentary just completed, (The Voice Of The Eagle), that time is now. (Dom)
Check out a track here.