With all the unearthed music sprouting up here and there over the last few years, its surprising that more lost finger picked folk music hasn’t come to light. Mark Fosson can’t be the only guitarist from the sixties or seventies whose story is worth retelling. And while it’s worth more time hearing the music than the history, both are amply engaging.

Growing up during a time when country music went through its high point, living in Kentucky, Fosson was dealt a healthful dose of early blues music by his father, who collected old recordings. Coupling those two components as well as the newly constituted primitive guitar style as evidenced by Takoma Records, Fosson started writing songs.

What he came up with – which hasn’t been dispensed and maybe never will be – apparently so entertained John Fahey, Takoma’s honcho, that the elder guitarist offered Fosson a deal out of hand.

Immediately moving to the West Coast, country boy Fosson finished up sessions that would have comprised his first long playing album. Unfortunately, musicians don’t always make for good business people as was the case with Fahey who sold his label to a major imprint and almost disappeared during the eighties.

Luckily, Fosson was granted those master tapes, which apparently just say around somewhere for the last thirty years or so until Chicago’s Drag City Records reissued the spate of tracks in 2006.

With Fahey basically functioning as the poster child for this sort of playing, it’s interesting to figure Fosson sounds a far sight more similar to Leo Kottke than anyone from that period. Maybe the younger player wasn’t quite as dexterous – Kottke’s “Vaseline Machine Gun” still ranks as one of the most amazing two minutes of recorded music – but was talented none the less.

Since Fosson hailed from just south of Ohio, listeners should assume Chillicothe references a town just north of where the guitarist grew up. Sitting on a river, surrounded by factories, the song might seek to represent that city at day break – all shimmering, lax plucked strings without too much concern for getting around to the next note until absolutely necessary.

Whatever the place name, Fosson’s latter day acoustic release displays a talent that should have been revealed years earlier. He still tours today and writes songs for himself and others to perform. But having this disc under his belt during the seventies may have made him a huge name in music. At least we have it now.