Wow, Glenn Jones! That all sounds really cool. I bet Thurston would want to take part. I read (source (obviously) uncited and at his moment unknown) that Fahey himself regarded Sonic Youth highly and deemed them and the like the true inheritors of the thing he sort of started or helped to start. Heard also about some murmurings of another Fahey tribute album too, which only makes sense considering his remarkable influence and depth.
The Handbook vol 1 looks essential (and implies there'll at least be one more). Fahey's
How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life and his essays and other writings are so stimulating too. I really do enjoy the minutiae of the song by song thing though. The inimitable Chris O’Leary writes the pushing ahead of the dame blog at
http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com about each and every known Bowie recording; the entries are to comprise the bulk of a two-book deal to be published soon. It's rather great stuff. Years ago someone started a blog on every R.E.M. song at
http://popsongs.wordpress.com/ that remains rather unfinished. At any rate, 33 1/3 books and that kind of thing aside, it's my personal belief that these works are chiefly inspired by
Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties, the superlative 1994 book by
Ian MacDonald.
That Mr. Brown's audience recording show is a time capsule (one can tell it'll be just that by the description at the landing page at the blog). Still, you'd probably agree that the
On Air fm soundboard performance is the one to listen to out of all of those (atsonicpark pointed me that way years ago--thank you, atsonicpark). It's so lovely to hear him in top form. The improvisational elements on "Red Pony" and "Dance of the Inhabitants...Phil14" are, to me, the absolute highlights.