LP in edition of 500
Lost 1977 album from the cosmic country/folk musician who is legendary in the Berkeley, CA community
John came up in the same '60s folk scene as Dylan, shared bills with Jerry Garcia and has a song featured
on Smithsonian Folkway's Original Folk
Barely saved from obscurity by a series of chance events, John Fizer’s only recorded album entitled Treasure
Man will
finally see the light of day. John’s story is a sad but triumphant one.
The album producer James Johnson and his daughter
met John in Berkeley, CA where he is beloved by the community and has
been holding court, performing and living rough since the summer of ’69.
John became known as the "Treasure Man" where he would hang semi
precious stones, crystals and jewelry from a tree and children were invited
to choose a treasure.
James got to know John and found out
in his former life he was a musician with an amazing treasure trove of
sound that had never been released. James
explains, "He is brilliant (he does the Sunday NYT crossword in 20
minutes) and has a fascinating story. I learned he started out playing
in the same lower east side folk scene as Dylan in the 60’s and has a
song out on the Smithsonian Folkways CD Original
Folk.
He learned I am a 3d sound designer and handed me an old 3rd generation
cassette and asked if I could make it sound better. When I listened I
was blown away. Such
amazing songs, singing and guitar playing."
Though the Treasure Man masters
were initially thought to be lost they were eventually unearthed deep
in John’s old Volvo where he he had lived for many years. James
continues, "I cleaned up John’s old cassettes over a year making them
sound as good as possible. After asking John four times
over a year if he had the original master and him saying no, one day
out of the clear blue he showed up with a 15 ips/sec 1/4” half track
master of some of his songs he recorded at Mountain Ears Studio in
Boulder in ’77 with a smokin' hot Ray Bonneville Blues
Band backing. Now I knew the world was going to hear his music the way
John intended big, fat, analog and on vinyl."
The A side was originally recorded at
the legendary Mountain Ears studio in 1977 with Ray Bonneville, Brad
“Honeyboy” Hays, Erik “Bobo” Johnson and Brian “Sluggo” Brown. The B
side was recorded live at Freight
and Savage in Berkeley, CA, where John reigned for decades. A great
effort went in to restoring the original reels thanks to some of the
world’s finest restoration specialists and engineers including Tardon
Feather (analog restoration), James Johnson (producer)
and Bob Katz (mastering).
"I had Tardon Feathered bake it and
clean off the mold growing on it and sent it to Jamie Howarth to do the
Plangent processes as he has done many times for Neil Young and the
Grateful Dead. It sounds amazing.
John Chester who was chief engineer at the old Fillmore East and was on
the technical crew at Woodstock did the very hires digital transfer.
For the B side I worked from a board recording of a 90’s show at the
venerable Freight and Salvage. Bob Katz, one of
top mastering engineers in the world did his ambient recovery
techniques and we mastered the whole thing," James says.
Like so many others from this era,
success for John was just out of reach though it wasn’t without trying,
including opening for Jerry Garcia at the famous Keystone. John
spent some of the best years of his life sharing his songs with the
students of UC Berkeley and with those he met on his travels around the
States, turning down a career in music to be simply a musician.
Artwork by Darryl Norsen
Listen on Spotify
