Charlie Tweddle - Fantastic Greatest Hits (1974)



Country-Beefheart on acid

Charlie Tweddle. What a name. Figured it had to be a stage name, but nope, he's a real Tweddle from a long line of Tweddles. Also figured his obscure 1974 album would be the story when I met him, and nope again, it's just one of many crazy projects he's worked on in his life.

Charlie's a good guy. Very warm and open. Has a wonderful wife and carries himself like a simple, old-fashioned country boy. Before long it becomes apparent that he's anything but. Yes, he was raised in a Kentucky cabin with no running water or electricity, and yes, he's picked watermelons and designs roadkill cowboy hats for a living, but Charlie's art is as savvy and calculated as it gets – not one effect or detail escapes his attention.

Fantastic Greatest Hits was created after a long chain of events including a lead guitar position in the Kansas City garage band The Prophets of Paradise, a stint in art school, a 3 year lsyrgic tour through the Haight-Ashbury, and a childhood filled with chirping crickets and UFO sightings. By the time 1971 rolled around, Charlie's pharmaceutical wanderings led him to believe he was a real life prophet and that his brand of Appalachian Psychedelia would change the world.

Instead, the LP was almost universally panned and he spun off into a deep depression from which he wouldn't emerge for several years.

Fast forward 20 or so years and his lone eccentric LP would become a highly sought-after (and befuddling) psychedelic artifact, quietly championed by the few who had the great fortune to run across a copy in a flea market or thrift shop. Give this album some time, we think (and hope) you will find it rewarding in some small or big way. --- Will Louviere 


We are happy to announce the reissue of eccentric folk artist Charlie Tweddle's self-released 1974 LP Fantastic Greatest Hits, a unique blend of psychedelic country and tape experiments.

Charlie felt sure his new style of music would take the world by storm – it didn't work out that way. Recorded in 1971, 500 copies of Fantastic Greatest Hits were pressed in 1974 under the name Eilrahc Elddewt with extravagant packaging. The LP was hand-distributed and received only minimal positive feedback; sales were poor.

Why? Well for one, side two of the album is 25 minutes of chirping crickets and sound fragments. The abrupt patches of dead air on side one probably didn't help much either. More than a few of these albums were returned as "defective". Of course, all of these production moves were intentional.

The CD was transferred from a copy of the original album. It includes six unreleased tracks from the same period as well as all of the original artwork in a fold-out digipak. We hope you find it as nice and as interesting as we do. (companionrecords)

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