For all the effort required of running such a niche record label like Tompkins Square, the Grammy-nominated producer and record label owner Josh Rosenthal has relentlessly championed the artists on the TSQ roster. If you’ve read his book ‘The Record Store of the Mind’, the chapter ‘Start a Record Label If…’ would be enough to put off most from such a venture. However, the label is thankfully still going, releasing music into the world which, in many instances, would never have been heard beyond a handful of record crate diggers or not at all.
On June 16th, they are releasing Rick Deitrick Boxset – The Unguitarist: Complete Works, 1969-2022 – a Five-CD Boxset of the music of the Ohio-born Rick Deitrick. I wonder if Rosenthal sees a kindred spirit in Deitrick, after all, they share a rare level of commitment. Deitrick not only decided to start playing the guitar from the age of 16, but he also decided, as TSQ put it, to approach his playing as if he was the only guy on an island and the instrument had just washed ashore one day.
A lovely quote from Rick lets this sink in: “I completely divorced my playing from any formal music knowledge, but it was very important to me to use original tuning. During those years, the ‘60s/70’s, there was a lot of acoustic guitar playing, often using open tuning as a base. I wanted to create whole tones without de-tuning and keep access to the complex sounds stock tuning provided.”
So, while Davey Graham, Bert Jansch and Fahey were exploring open tunings, Deitrick made his standard tuning sound like he was using open tuning…”by spreading my fingers all over the place”. Even if you are not a well-honed guitarist, the accompanying booklet to the boxset is insightful and beautifully written.
Rick pressed 500 LPs of his tranquil solo guitar record, Gentle Wilderness, in 1978. He gave copies to libraries and left a few in the middle of the wilderness, next to trails, “so people would find them.” Rick sought inspiration in nature and, in particular, the various rivers scattered around the Western United States, often composing songs while seated beside them.
This boxset is beautifully presented, as all TSQ releases are, the perfect guide to Deitrick’s journey.
The box set contains the following:
Disc 1: Gentle Wilderness – 1978 album. Tompkins Square LP reissue out of print. First time on CD
Disc 2: River Sun River Moon – Recorded 1977-78. The Tompkins Square LP is out of print. First time on CD
Disc 3: Coyote Canyon – Recorded 1972-75, except for one song, 1999. Tompkins Square LP is almost out of print—first time on CD.
Disc 4: Homegrown: Recordings 1969 – 1979 – First time in a physical format
Disc 5: Sage & Sand – Recorded 1969-2022 – CD of previously unreleased material
Plus :
– A litho card hand-signed by Rick
– Notes by Rick Deitrick and Acoustic Guitar Editor, Adam Perlmutter
– Transcription of Rick’s “Ballet La Jeunesse”
– Design by D. Norsen
Tompkins Square released Coyote Canyon in 2021 on vinyl/digital, making it into Glenn Kimpton’s Top 10 albums of 2021 here on Folk Radio. In his review of the album, Kimpton sets it out so well that it’s worth repeating here:
Josh Rosenthal has never been afraid to quietly question and challenge the sometimes rigid guidelines too often attached to solo guitar music. Anybody au fait with Tompkins Square’s important Imaginational Anthem catalogue will be aware of the diverse instrumental guitar music there is to be found. Rick Deitrick‘s Gentle Wilderness – originally released as a private press in 1978 – found a wider audience after its Missy Christa track found its way onto the Michael Klausman compiled Imaginational Anthem Vol 8: The Private Press. Like Rick’s subsequent River Sun River Moon album, Coyote Canyon is largely built of material from around the same period that Gentle Wilderness was being created and even shares a version of the song For Marsha, here sounding slightly looser in structure and perhaps even a touch less self-conscious.
In fact, it is noticeable when listening to Coyote Canyon that, although familiar, its sound is more diverse than Gentle Wilderness while maintaining Rick’s preference for standard-tuned guitar.
I’m sure more dots will be joined in mind with this collection, especially with Deitrick’s music in one place – along with previously unreleased material.
One of the unreleased tracks featured on Disc 5, Sage & Sand is Free and Easy, is also my Tune of the Day. The connection to nature feels so strong in his music that it’s easy to imagine him sitting by one of the various rivers he frequented playing this piece.
Rick Deitrick Boxset – The Unguitarist: Complete Works, 1969-2022, is released on June 16th and is distributed by Ingrooves and Revolver for NA, Cargo UK for ROW.