Cherry Red Records Bill Fay

As a songwriter, the music written and recorded by Bill Fay has taken many years to reach the audience it deserved, thanks mainly to the American group Wilco covering Fay’s ‘Be Not So Fearful’, a song featured on Fay’s first album. Now highly regarded, Fay’s debut album is now released by Esoteric Recordings. This reissue also adds Fay’s first recorded offerings, the single ‘Screams in the Ears’ b/w ‘Some Good Advice’, appeared in 1967, produced by Peter Edenand featuring Southend band The Fingers, as backing band. ‘Bill Fay’, first released on the Nova label, was a work both sumptuous and delicately melancholic. Featuring string arrangements by jazz musician Mike Gibbs, sessions would also feature guitarist Ray Russell. Cited by Uncut magazine as ‘The Missing Link Between Nick Drake, Ray Davies and Bob Dylan’, Bill Fay’s work now has the patronage of a younger generation of musicians to bring Fay the critical accolades he deserved. Fay’s supremely creative muse has deservedly come full circle.