John Fahey is feared and revered around the world as a guitar player and composer. His inventions for acoustic and electric strings are the stuff of legend. Known for his finger-picking finesse, Fahey's pen has the same world-gobbling ferocity as his guitar. Fahey's collection of short stories defy classification - part memoir, part personal essay, part fiction, part manifesto. It is a collection that makes an explosive selection of his work available for public consumption. What else is there to say, except 'Grab your ankles, dear readers. It's kingdom time!'

Vampire Vultures is an unexpected gift from the late music legend John Fahey. Originally a project of his own conception, it was to be an epic work that would expand on many of the character and experiences he introduced in How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life (2000). It is a unique volume that allows the reader to walk deep into the mind of its creator. Compiled from his private papers, it includes notebook entries, short stories, letters never sent, revealing the struggles and victories of a cult icon's life in modern America.

John Fahey hovers ghostlike in the sound of almost every acoustic guitarist who came after him. He was to the solo acoustic guitar what Hendrix was to the electric: the man whom all subsequent musicians had to listen to. Fahey made more than forty albums between 1959 and his death in 2001, fusing folk, blues, and experimental composition, taking familiar American sounds and making them new. Yet Fahey’s life and art remain largely unexamined. His memoir and liner notes were largely fiction. His real story has never been told—until now. Journalist Steve Lowenthal has spent years talking with Fahey’s producers, friends, peers, wives, business partners, and many others. He describes how Fahey introduced pre-war blues to a broader public; how his independent label, Takoma, set new standards; how he battled his demons, including stage fright, alcohol, and prescription pills; how he ended up homeless and mentally unbalanced; and how, despite his troubles, he managed to found a new record label, Revenant, that won Grammys and remains critically revered. This portrait of a troubled and troubling man in a constant state of creative flux is not only a biography, but also the compelling story of a great American outcast. Steve Lowenthal started and ran the music magazine Swingset; his writing has also been published in Fader, Spin, Vice, and the Village Voice. He lives in New York City. David Fricke is a senior editor at Rolling Stone magazine.

Noted guitarist John Fahey presents a textual and musicological examination of the music of blues legend Charley Patton. This new edition is enhanced by Fahey's notes from the Grammy-winning, out-of-print box set Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton.

A photographic look into the world of vinyl record collectors—including Questlove—in the most intimate of environments—their record rooms. Compelling photographic essays from photographer Eilon Paz are paired with in-depth and insightful interviews to illustrate what motivates these collectors to keep digging for more records. The reader gets an up close and personal look at a variety of well-known vinyl champions, including Gilles Peterson and King Britt, as well as a glimpse into the collections of known and unknown DJs, producers, record dealers, and everyday enthusiasts. Driven by his love for vinyl records, Paz takes us on a five-year journey unearthing the very soul of the vinyl community.

Bluegrass has found an unlikely home, and avid following, in the Czech Republic. The music’s emergence in Central Europe places it within an increasingly global network of communities built around bluegrass activities. Lee Bidgood offers a fascinating study of the Czech bluegrass phenomenon that merges intimate immersion in the music with on-the-ground fieldwork informed by his life as a working musician. Drawing on his own close personal and professional interactions, Bidgood charts how Czech bluegrass put down roots and looks at its performance as a uniquely Czech musical practice. He also reflects on “Americanist” musical projects and the ways Czech musicians use them to construct personal and social identities. Bidgood sees these acts of construction as a response to the Czech Republic’s postsocialist environment but also to US cultural prominence within our global mediascape.

Skip James (1902–1969) was perhaps the most creative and idiosyncratic of all blues musicians. Drawing on hundreds of hours of conversations with James himself, Stephen Calt here paints a dark and unforgettable portrait of a man untroubled by his own murderous inclinations, a man who achieved one moment of transcendent greatness in a life haunted by failure. And in doing so, Calt offers new insights into the nature of the blues, the world in which it thrived, and its fate when that world vanished.