Daniel Hecht – guitar
No year on this one but my guess is early seventies. This came out on the Dragons Egg label out of Wisconsin. I’m not sure what else came out on this label but I am very curious. In the tradition of John Fahey, this is a great solo acoustic guitar record. Subtle slide guitar and mellow guitar picking make this one of my current faves.
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i would love to hear this! the cover alone is pretty amazing.
I remember in his later Windham Hill years he had some kinda contraption that was sort of a very advanced variable mechanical capo thing that fits onto the guitar neck. Pretty odd and interesting.
I knew Daniel when I was a student at Goddard. I remember intimately his music. It always made me feel so peaceful. I would love to be able to hear it on your site again. He is a wonderful musician.
My recollection is that this album cover was designed by a woman named Jean. She was also a wonderful seamstress. I remember she made Daniel a beautiful shirt-jacket from yellow & red wool tartan material. I got one too, but it was Daniel she was in love with. Daniel had just made his first record, it was 1971 and there was a “commune” going on in an aging Victorian house on Old Sauk Road in Madison, Wisconsin. In my memories that house is always flooded with sunlight, I think it must have been a hot, dry, pretty summer.
There was a parlor room with an angled bay window in it, some sort of boldly patterned throw rug on the polished wood floor. Daniel used to gather us all in the parlor each evening for sundown drumming circle. It was all about getting in touch with esoteric aboriginal spiritual knowledge, and pursuing a natural high. There wasn’t much drug use in the house, mostly just pot, Daniel didn’t approve. Jean and my friend Shanna cooked a lot of zucchini and brown rice casserole that summer. There was also a reedy guy with a wispy beard who had a real job as a mechanic. He wasn’t home much in the daytime but he loved drumming circle too, though it was only Daniel who could carry a beat. Daniel was so pretty it would make the birds climb down from the trees and walk around the yard. They all loved Daniel, and the idea of making family in that big old house in Madison, and the summer, and sunlight. It felt like I’d crash landed on a different planet. I grew up in the suburbs where we had wall-to-wall carpet. I’d never seen a polished wood floor before. They look nice. But they can be cold, too.