Dating from an original 1963 limited issue of 300 copies, this second album by John Fahey is presented here in both its initial form and its 1967 re-recorded form, with the latter being at least partially prompted by his constantly improving playing. This mirrors his first album, "The Legend Of Blind Joe Death" which was re-visited on two occasions and is available via Ace as Takoma CDTAK 1002. "Death Chants" proved to be the album that began the first real spread of his music when his friend Norman Pierce began to wholesale copies to US folk hotspots from his Berkeley record store. Fahey had re-located to Berkeley where he was majoring in Philosophy at UC, and he was happy for Pierce to become the main outlet for his tiny Takoma label issues. As with his first album, this second outing had spoof notes from Fahey under a pseudonym that set him apart from the then folk mainstream for which he had a healthy distaste. He saw the music being moulded to middle class tastes by taking out the bite of the songs. Friend and producer ED Denson, also disdainful of the commercial sentimentalisation of the folk world, described him as 'a breath of air from a different clime".