SUNI MCGRATH - CORNFLOWER SUITE (PT I)

Lesser known of the American Primitivist musicians than his contemporary John Fahey, McGrath's recordings are comparatively hard to come by and fewer/farther between. Cornflower Suite is his first EP, released by Adelphi records in 1969. This is the first portion of the title track, second part here.

McGrath's liner notes read:
"The music on this record is my attempt to explore and further the American acoustic guitar. I have four sources for the musics here presented: Bulgarian harmonies, Hindustani for subtle melodic graces and ideas of variation, Fahey for the conception of the art, Bartok for modal harmonies analogous to conventional Western harmony, and treatment of themes."

McGrath played 12-string guitar. With this, which is at once virtuosic and lush (in those ways, and as it is based on variations, fuguelike) as a precedent it's suddenly so easy to see where something like Led Zeppelin's "White Summer/Black Mountainside" could come from (without disregarding obvious Eastern influences). When I was a kid I was floored by that song, and now by this.