These recordings represent a shift for Fahey, playing both solo and with an ensemble. On Of Rivers & Religion, the ensemble included many of the New Orleans players who performed on Walt Disney's Song of the South film soundtrack. Gorgeous, slow, ringing slide and fingerplucked tones establish easy themes before the band enters with clarinets, banjos, and trumpets. After the Ball was a more up-tempo affair steeped in the Delta blues and in wildly varying New Orleans and bluegrass music. There is some fine Piedmont playing on the disc, as well, on "Horses." There are a number of stylistic collisions here, where Delta blues meets ragtime on "Om Shanthi Norris" and slide guitar meets the 19th-century ballad on the title track that closes the album. Taken together, these two albums represent a radically underappreciated yet fiery and fertile period for the guitarist.
01 Steamboat Gwine 'round De Bend 02 Medley: Deep River / Ol' Man River 03 Dixie Pig Bar-b-q Blues 04 Texas And Pacific Blues 05 Funeral Song For Mississippi John Hurt 06 Medley: By The Side Of The Road/i Come 07 I Come 08 Lord Have Mercy 09 Song 10 Horses 11 New Orleans Shuffle 12 Beverly
13 Ohm Shanthi Norris 14 I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free 15 When You Wore A Tulip (and I Wore A Big Red Rose) 16 Hawaiian Two-step 17 Bucktown Stomp 18 Candy Man 19 After The Ball