{"title":"Bill Fay","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"tomorrow-tomorrow-and-tomorrow","title":"Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe temptation to mythologize Bill Fay can be overwhelming; Fay was, for decades, as prolific as he was under-appreciated. Fay was, and still is, an artist disinterested in performance and promotion while remaining as dedicated a songwriter as ever, composing stacks upon stacks of stirring, abundant new music. Fay’s unsung-hero status has changed slowly, steadily, on the order of almost twenty-five years. With each new album comes new hosannas and evangelizers — Jeff Tweedy, Kevin Morby, Adam Granduciel and Julia Jacklin, to name just a few.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut to focus on the mythology is to distract from what’s truly special: Bill Fay writes music with the honesty and clarity of a person with much to say but nothing to prove, and in doing so delivers songs of remarkable beauty and confidence. The Bill Fay Group, in particular, is Fay’s most significant collaborative work; he records as a member of a larger group here, and the result summons a grander sonic scale, an elegant counterweight to Fay’s instincts for the understated. Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow brings to bear the galactic qualities of early rock, the intricacy of jazz improv, and Fay’s earthy folk magic. For whatever might be going on amongst the instruments, Fay’s lyrics almost inevitably come back to nature, and to a matter-of-factness about love and loving that gives his work even more depth and power.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow has a patchy release history: recorded between 1978 and 1981, it was not released until 2005, when it appeared on CD with limited streaming and no vinyl companion. A 2006 reissue brought the album onto vinyl but with a truncated sequence and nine songs missing. Now, finally, Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow arrives in full worldwide. Available on streaming services worldwide and pressed to a double-album vinyl edition, it features the album’s original 20 songs and includes rare and previously unseen photographs from Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow’s original recording session.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWe are fortunate to have a brief history of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, written by Gary Smith and Rauf Galip, missing Bill Stratton, and abbreviated from the forthcoming album notes:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBoth Bill Stratton and Gary Smith liked Bill Fay’s albums at the time they were released. When his third album didn’t appear, Bill S. contacted Decca Records to find out why. They gave him a contact for Bill’s manager who said there wasn’t another contract in the offing, so put the two Bills in touch.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eForward to 1977, we’ve got The Acme Quartet, a trio, with Gary on guitar, Rauf on bass and Bill S. on drums (as Bill Fay said “Their sound was such though that they could have called themselves ‘The Acme Quintet’ or ‘Sextet’”). We’d been gigging for a while and got a performance at The Fulham Arts Centre in S.W. London. We asked Bill to come along and do a solo set. Nice grand piano for him and we all had a great evening. Bill asked us if we’d be interested in getting together, so we hired a rehearsal room above a pub in Wandsworth and it worked out well, socially and musically.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWe met regularly in Gary’s flat in Tooting, in a tiny living room, to talk and work on the music. Bill had a lot of songs, and it was important for us, Gary, Bill S., and Rauf, to choose what we thought were the right songs. The Acme Quartet was an intense, uncompromising group, with a lot of improvising, beyond jazz and coming out of rock music. We initially wanted to make the music extremely powerful (there are elements of this in the song ‘Life’). Also, by this time Gary had more or less left rock music and hadn’t expected to work with someone like Bill and his music, he’d spent years doing that, but Bill was different. As has been said, we all served the music.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWe chose five songs to record as finished pieces: Life, Spiritual Mansions, Cosmic Boxer, Strange Stairway, Isles of Sleep, all recorded in two studio sessions. We sent them out to try and get a record deal. There were few really independent labels back then and Punk was in the record labels’ ears. No deal.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAround this time Bill Stratton left the group. It was a difficult time, late night trains, not a lot to expect from beyond the music itself, hours in a day and we were financing everything, which wasn’t easy as we were all broke! Bazz Smith came in and generously gave his time, a brilliant drummer whom Gary and Rauf had both worked with (the same goes for Chris Merrick Hughes, John South, and Dave Bernez who gave their time and considerable skills). We knew we wanted to carry on to complete a full album, which we did.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd now, Dead Oceans who have a lot of faith in Bill’s music wants to re- release the ‘Tomorrow’ album. A double vinyl package. Is there any more unreleased music for the fourth side? Of course. So, we’ve been opening old boxes, finding CDRs, cassettes, a musical archaeological dig. This is our choice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003efrom all the music we found.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFly Like a Bird.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bill Fay Group","offers":[{"title":"LP (Black Vinyl)","offer_id":44527314567331,"sku":"DOC345lp","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD (Compact Disc)","offer_id":44536219369635,"sku":"DOC345cd","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/6703\/2483\/files\/doc345.bf.tomorrow.lp.mock-e0ab12573200d1420c834dec0fdb3717.jpg?v=1715585204"},{"product_id":"dust-filled-room-bill-fay","title":"Dust Filled Room","description":"","brand":"Steve Gunn b\/w Bill Fay","offers":[{"title":"7\" Steve Gunn b\/w Bill Fay","offer_id":44536167727267,"sku":"DOC272lp","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/6703\/2483\/files\/doc272.bf.km.dust.mock.jpg?v=1715585020"},{"product_id":"i-hear-you-calling-bill-fay","title":"I Hear You Calling","description":"","brand":"Kevin Morby b\/w Bill Fay","offers":[{"title":"7\" Kevin Morby b\/w Bill Fay","offer_id":44536178081955,"sku":"DOC271lp","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/6703\/2483\/files\/doc271.bf.km.calling-web.jpg?v=1715585019"},{"product_id":"just-to-be-a-part-bill-fay","title":"Just To Be A Part","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Recording this song got me out of a dark place musically; I hadn’t sung or played since my last album tour finished and covid started. I just went to a local studio near my house with some friends and recorded it in a couple of hours. It was just so nice to sing again and play with friends. It was hard to capture the spirit of Bill’s version but it was a true gift getting to live in his song for a day” - Julia Jacklin\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eJulia Jacklin has shared her version of Bill Fay’s ‘Just To Be A Part’, the next installment in a special series of 7” singles featuring different musicians celebrating and interpreting Fay’s work. It follows the recently released cover of ‘Dust Filled Room’ by Steve Gunn and ‘I Hear You Calling’ by Kevin Morby. The ‘Just To Be a Part’ 7” is available to pre-order now\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Julia Jacklin b\/w Bill Fay","offers":[{"title":"7\" Julia Jacklin b\/w Bill Fay","offer_id":44536182538403,"sku":"DOC278lp","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/6703\/2483\/files\/doc273.bf.jj.just.mock_3661b9bd-4999-4db2-b708-c88fa9cdfc67.jpg?v=1776689947"},{"product_id":"life-is-people-bill-fay","title":"Life Is People","description":"\u003cp\u003eBill Fay is one of English music's best kept secrets. At the dawn of the 1970s, he was a one-man song factory, with a piano that spilled liquid gold and a voice every bit the equal of Ray Davies, John Lennon, early Bowie, or Procol Harum's Gary Brooker. He made two solo albums but his contract wasn't renewed, which left his LPs and his reputation to become cult items. But he never stopped writing, the music kept on coming. Now, in his late sixties, he has produced Life Is People, a brand new studio album that shows his profoundly humanist vision is as strong as it ever was.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bill Fay","offers":[{"title":"2xLP","offer_id":44536184340643,"sku":"DOC061lp","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":44536184373411,"sku":"DOC061cd","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/6703\/2483\/files\/life-is-people-dead-oceans-doc061.jpg?v=1776689889"},{"product_id":"still-some-light-bill-fay","title":"Still Some Light: Part 1","description":"\u003cp\u003eReleased in two parts, pressed on vinyl and out digitally for the first time, Still Some Light: Part 1 is released 14th Jan, 2022. Part 2 is scheduled for release in April, but both parts are available for pre-order now on black 2xLP. Alongside, Dead Oceans has announced plans of a special series of four 7” singles, consisting of different musicians’ interpretations of Bill Fay classics. The first two (one a cover of ‘Dust Filled Room’ by Steve Gunn and the second, Kevin Morby’s version of ‘I Hear You Calling’) will also be released 14th Jan, 2022. Fans who add both a 2xLP and 7\" to their cart can get the 7\" for 15% off. \u003cem\u003eStill Some Light\u003c\/em\u003e was originally released on compact disc as a two CD collection in 2010. Reimagined with new artwork and available for the first time ever on vinyl, \u003cem\u003eStill Some Light Pt. 1\u003c\/em\u003e collects Fay’s archival recordings from 1970 and 1971. Many of the songs are intimate sketches which were eventually re-recorded for Fay’s landmark second album, \u003cem\u003eTime of the Last Persecution\u003c\/em\u003e. The announcement follows the release of \u003cem\u003eCountless Branches\u003c\/em\u003e on 17th January, 2020, Fay’s acclaimed seventh studio album and third since his decades-long hiatus. On the upcoming release of \u003cem\u003eStill Some Light Part 1\u003c\/em\u003e, David Tibet, a long-time fan and collaborator of Bill Fay’s, wrote the following introduction: \u003cem\u003eIt must have been around 2000 that I first heard of Bill Fay. The artist and polymath, Jim O’Rourke, asked me if I had ever heard of him. Like almost everyone in the world, apart from rare-vinyl obsessives, I said I hadn’t. Jim then extolled Fay’s virtues in a fascinating pæan to him and his creations, and I was already hooked without having heard anything Bill had created. There was a See For Miles CD which included both of Bill’s incredibly rare albums from 1969 and 1970, as well as his sole single from 1967. I bought it, put it on, and in swept “The Garden Song”. From that very first song, I knew I had discovered the artist who, for me, was the greatest singer-songwriter I had ever heard. So I had to find Bill Fay. But there were very few leads out there; the usual comment was based on the cover of Time of the Last Persecution—“I think he’s somewhere leading a religious group”; “he’s disappeared completely’; “he’s become a Christian hermit somewhere”. Through various synchronicities I did manage to find Bill and we have been very good friends now for almost a quarter of a century, so I hope Bill won’t mind my stating he is indeed a very private man. I spoke with Bill Stratton and Gary Smith, two of the people who had worked with him in The Bill Fay Group, and on the recording sessions which eventually became the Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow album, first released by our Durtro Jnana label as a CD in 2005. I was honoured and delighted to get to know Bill well. Bill is the kindest, most generous, most supportive, most gentle, and most talented of men. Anyone reading this, I am sure, already knows of the profundity, and simplicity, of his work, and the intense emotional truth and honesty it carries—all of which Bill himself also has in his soul. Still Some Light, which you now are offered, was the second release we did with Bill, a collection of treasures from the Bill Fay treasure-chest, full of delights, and reality, and as real as rainbows.\u003c\/em\u003e David Tibet, Hastings 18 October 2021\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bill Fay","offers":[{"title":"2xLP Part 1","offer_id":44536210194595,"sku":"DOC224lp","price":31.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD Part 1","offer_id":44536210227363,"sku":"DOC224cd","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"7\" Kevin Morby B\/W Bill Fay","offer_id":44728070963363,"sku":"DOC271LP","price":7.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"7\" Steve Gunn B\/W Bill Fay","offer_id":44728070996131,"sku":"DOC272LP","price":7.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"7\" Julia Jacklin B\/W Bill Fay","offer_id":44728071028899,"sku":"DOC278LP","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"7\" Mary Lattimore B\/W Bill Fay","offer_id":44728071061667,"sku":"DOC273LP","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/6703\/2483\/files\/doc224.bf.ssl.lp-web.jpg?v=1769600837"},{"product_id":"bill-fay-still-some-light-part-2","title":"Still Some Light: Part 2","description":"","brand":"Bill Fay","offers":[{"title":"2xLP","offer_id":44536210260131,"sku":"DOC270lp","price":31.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":44536210292899,"sku":"DOC270cd","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/6703\/2483\/files\/doc270.bf.ssl.ii.lp-web.jpg?v=1715585019"},{"product_id":"bill-fay-who-is-the-sender","title":"Who Is The Sender?","description":"\u003cp\u003eAsk Bill Fay about his relationship with his instrument and he says something revealing, not \"Ever since I learnt to play the piano,\" but \"Ever since the piano taught me...\" What the piano taught him was how to connect to one of the great joys of his life. \"Music gives,\" he says. And he is a grateful receiver. But, it makes him wonder, \"Who is the sender?\" Fay - who after more than five decades writing songs is finally being appreciated as one of our finest living practitioners of the art - asserts that songs aren't actually written but found.  He recorded two phenomenal but largely overlooked albums for Decca offshoot Nova in 1970 and 1971. After 27 years of neglect, people like Nick Cave, Jim O' Rourke, and Jeff Tweedy were praising those records in glowing terms. Recorded in Ray Davies' Konk Studios, North London, Who Is The Sender? sees Bill expanding upon themes he has touched on from the beginning, spiritual and philosophical questions, observations about the natural world and the people in the city he has lived in all his life.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bill Fay","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":44536226742435,"sku":"DOC097cd","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"2XLP","offer_id":44733347102883,"sku":"DOC097LP","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/6703\/2483\/files\/doc097_380px.jpg?v=1776689107"},{"product_id":"countless-branches-bill-fay","title":"Countless Branches","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCountless Branches is available as both a standard 10-track album and a deluxe 2xLP, which includes seven bonus tracks.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe great Bill Fay returns with the third album in the celebrated second phase of his recording career.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“21 years ago, Colin Miles of See For Miles records dropped a pebble in a pond.” says Fay. It was Miles who, on a gut instinct, reissued Bill Fay’s albums for Deram - records made in 1970 and 1971 and deleted shortly afterwards - which Miles had always admired. Rave reviews and endorsements from the likes of Jim O’Rourke (Sonic Youth) and Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) led to a huge revival of interest in this vanished artist. Fay, now 76, was not actually a hermit but a quiet, private person who had withdrawn from a music world changed to the point where he felt no longer involved. But he had continued to make music almost every day in the intervening decades.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Colin said to me, ‘You wanna get out there, Bill’,” Fay says, chuckling at the memory. “I replied, ‘I’m a corner-of-the-room person, Colin’.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bill Fay","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":44674104230051,"sku":"DOC141lp","price":23.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":44674104295587,"sku":"DOC211cd","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"2xLP Deluxe","offer_id":44674104328355,"sku":"DOC211lp","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/6703\/2483\/files\/doc141.bf.countless.branches.lp1.jpg?v=1769601150"}],"url":"https:\/\/secretlystore.com\/collections\/bill-fay.oembed","provider":"Secretly Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}