VIA PRESS RELEASE | Saved from obscurity by a series of chance events, John Fizer’s only recorded album entitled Treasure Man will finally see the light of day. John’s story is a sad but triumphant one. The album producer, James Johnson, and his daughter met John in Berkeley, CA where he is beloved by the community and has been performing and living rough since the summer of ‘69. John would hang semi-precious stones, crystals, and jewelry on the Treasure Tree and invite children to choose a treasure. The children named him the “Treasure Man.”
James got to know John and found out John was a musician with an amazing treasure trove of songs that had never been released. James explains, “He is brilliant (he does the Sunday NYT crossword in 20 minutes) and has a fascinating story. I learned he started out playing the same Lower East Side folk scene as Dylan in the ’60s and has a song out on the Smithsonian Folkways CD Original Folk. When John learned that I am an immersive audio pioneer, with credits including a 3D sound remix of Jimi Hendrix and 3D sound designer for the LA production of the musical The Who’s Tommy, he handed me an old third generation audio cassette tape and asked if I could make it sound better. When I listened, I was blown away. Such amazing songs, singing, and guitar playing.”
Though the Treasure Man masters were initially thought to be lost, they were eventually unearthed deep in John’s old Volvo where he had been living for several years. James continues, “I had cleaned up John’s old cassettes, making them sound as good as possible. Over the course of a year, on four different occasions, I asked John if he had the original master tapes. Each time he said “No.” But one day, out the clear blue, John showed up with a 15 inches per second, quarter inch, half track, real deal master of some of his songs he recorded with the smokin’ hot Ray Bonneville Blues Band backing him. Now I knew the world was going to hear his music the way John intended: big, fat, analog, and on vinyl.”
The A side was originally recorded at the legendary Mountain Ears studio, Boulder, CO in 1977 with Ray Bonneville, Brad “Honeyboy” Hays, Erik “Bobo” Johnson, and Brian “Sluggo” Brown. The B side was recorded live at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, CA where John reigned for decades. A great effort went into restoring the original reels thanks to some of the world’s finest restoration specialists and engineers including Tardon Feathered (analog restoration), James Johnson (producer/engineer), Josh Morales (editing), and Bob Katz (mastering).
James: “I had Tardon clean off the strangely beautiful mold growing on it and bake it. Then we sent it to Jamie Howarth to do the Grammy award winning Plangent Processes (Jamie has done this process for many clients including Neil Young and the Grateful Dead). It sounded amazing! John Chester, who was chief engineer at the old Fillmore East and was on the technical crew at Woodstock, did the very high resolution digital transfer. For the B side, I worked from a board recording of a show at the venerable Freight and Salvage. Bob Katz, one of the top mastering engineers in the world, did his Ambience Recovery magic and then worked with me to master the whole thing.”
Like so many others from this era, success for John was just out of reach (though it wasn’t without trying), including opening for Jerry Garcia at the famous Keystone. John spent some of the best years of his life sharing his songs with students of UC Berkeley and with those he met on his travels around the States, turning down a career in music to be simply a musician.
TRACKLIST
Side A
1. Lady Lying Lovely
2. Good Morning Glory
3. Moonlight On My Windowsill
4. I Call For You
5. Sleeping Goddess
6. Give It All You Got
Side B
1. Tibetan Bells
2. The Web
3. Outside The Pale
4. Trainsong
5. Think On These Things
6. Send Out Love
