Like rivers and religion, John Fahey keeps rolling on. When he first surfaced on the Berkeley coffee house scene of the early Sixties, his angular, scraping bottleneck guitar style puzzled most of the neo-bluegrass folkies. Since there wasn't a blues revival, Fahey found it necessary to invent one. Together with Henry Vestine and Bill Barth he traveled south and, navigating on instructions he picked up from some old blues 78s, located long-lost legends like Skip James and Bukka White. His landmark study of bluesman Charley Patton has no equals in the field, and he continues to file new bits of musical Americana in the seemingly endless storage cabinet of his brain. Still, his guitar playing/composing (with Fahey the two processes are one) is his major contribution to the technical vastness of the post-rock future. He recorded a score of albums himself, on portable machines, and issued them on his Takoma label, nurturing in the process a generation of Leo Kottkes and Robbie Bashos. He then spent a few uneventful years with Vanguard. Of Rivers and Religion is his first for Warner Brothers; can it be that Fahey, who still wears work shirts and never grew long hair, has finally arrived?

Be that as it may, his new record is his best since Blind Joe Death. Better, he hasn't speeded up one bit. His fingers seem to float over the strings, dropping to pluck a clear tone with almost maddening deliberation. Nor has he found it necessary to delve deeper into esoterica. "Old Man River" and Protestant hymns are just fine. The former gets its first original reading since the Tune Weavers cut it as the B side of "Happy Happy Birthday Baby." The latter are played with the kind of languorous sobriety any preacher would be proud of. Fahey's original compositions are stunning. He was one of the first folklorists to understand that the "classic blues" of the Twenties were in fact rigorous, through - composed pieces which, once set, were rarely varied or improvised upon, and he has now arrived at a new blues classicism that is very much his own. He uses traditional motifs to construct pieces of dazzling contrasts, counter-balancing their deep feelings and dark undertows with a dry but devastating sense of humor. "Funeral Song for Mississippi John Hurt" weaves several of Hurt's characteristic fingerpicking styles and riffs into a haunting, breathtaking whole. "Steamboat" and "Song" are equally brilliant. A neo-dixieland band surfaces on "Texas and Pacific Blues" and "Lord Have Mercy." Arranger/trumpet player Jack Feierman plays uncomplicated open horn in a style that is strongly reminiscent of King Oliver, and veteran Joe Darensbourgh plays fine, flighty clarinet. Fantasy artist Chris Darrow contributes understated backup on fiddle, second guitar, dobro and mandolin. But it's Fahey's show most of the way and the guitarist makes the most of what is surely his finest hour.

Incidentally, Nat Hentoff's amiably bullshitting liner notes bring up a point that must be laid to rest. Hentoff, after commenting that Fahey calls what he does "American Primitive Guitar," disagrees and chooses to call it "American Natural Guitar." In terms of harmonic sophistication, rhythmic variety and classical technique, Fahey is indeed a primitive. But so are the Moroccan drummers who can flip their listeners into a trance in 30 seconds flat. So were blues players like White and James. Folks use the word "primitive" to describe magic and other processes which they don't understand. Fahey is proud to be "primitive" and with good reason; his art transcends the slick veneer of our culture and gets down to the rocky roots, the matrix of who we are and where we've been. (RS 121)

BOB PALMER