Having releasing two under-appreciated records in the ’70s, Bill Fay’s songwriting didn’t fully get its due until 3 decades later when Jeff Tweedy performed a stirring cover of “Be Not So Fearful” in the Wilco documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. That said, a number of musicians in Tweedy’s circle at the time — from YHF/Loose Fur cohort Jim O’Rourke to Scott McCaughey and R.E.M.’s Peter Buck of the Minus 5 — were also singing praises, literally, for Fay’s lost work. Okkervil River’s Will Sheff has since followed suit, and now Fay himself is set for another return to the limelight. Life Is People, his first album as a solo artist in 40 years, arrives on August 21 via Dead Oceans. The label is calling this follow-up to the Bill Fay Group’s 2005 LP, Tomorrow, Tomorrow & Tomorrow, “his masterpiece,” which — coming from the guy behind “Screams in the Ears” — has my interest even more piqued. The tracklist is below.
Now here’s something to appreciate in the meantime: a 2003 recording of Fay’s “Pictures of Adolf Again” by Jim O’Rourke and Glenn Kotche. I hadn’t heard this cover before today, but yeah, it’s fantastic: