Archive
RUSSELL POTTER
Lost albums by a guitar wunderkind
A Stone’s Throw/Neither Here Nor
There (reissues, 1979, 1981)
TOMPKINS SQUARE
7/10, 8/10
On his 1979 debut, A Stone’s Throw, teenage guitarist Russell Potter covers “The Assassination Of Stephan Grossman” by John Fahey. His version recreates the loping pace and lo-fi immediacy of the original, but Potter has the audacity to combine it with his own jumpy “Lemon Rag”. It’s a startling moment that shows an admirer linking arms with his hero. A freshman at Goddard College when he wrote, recorded and self-released A Stone’s Throw, Potter was a devoted student of the American Primitive scene of the ’60s and ’70s, peppering his compositions with obvious references to Fahey, Robbie Basho and others. He’s a deft guitarist putting his own youthful spin on the music, combining the processional melodies of UK folk with the rawer dirges and dissonance of Appalachian music. That culminates on 1981’s Neither Here Nor There, where the acolyte graduates to idiosyncratic artist. He never released another album.