The past few years have seen a variety of unsung acoustic artists from the ‘60s and ‘70s make their way out of decades long obscurity. Seasoned yet underexposed musicians like Vashti Bunyan and Bert Jansch have resurged onto the scene, and this is, in part, due to the growing interest in the psych folk (or New Weird America) movement, fostered by young artists such as Devendra Banhart, CocoRosie and Animal Collective. These folks have garnered a particularly strong following in the last couple of years, and have spread their notoriety to these otherwise obscured artists—the ones that have influenced and preceded them—by collaborating with them, or in some cases, by dusting off the master tapes of a forgotten magnum opus.

Enter Gary Higgins’ Red Hash, which was independently recorded in an acute 40 hour period between his arrest and sentencing that stemmed from a trumped-up drug bust. Higgins, facing an inordinate amount of jail time, found a pressing need to document his music. He said, “I had the feeling I might never get a second chance to complete [Red Hash] or any other musical project for, essentially, ever.” The need to quickly chronicle his craft, along with the range of intense emotion he must have been experiencing at the time, proved to be the formula for one of the most poignant yet forgotten albums of that era.

Higgins’ interest in music started early. He got a plastic toy guitar when he was eight or nine years old and soon after became a six-string disciple. As a teenager, he took an interest in the finger picking style of artists like Doc Watson and Dave Van Ronk. Around 1964, Higgins helped form a band with Simeon Coxe called Random Concept. Higgins mentions that they “started out rock ‘n’ roll, but gravitated to the more psych end of that.” Playing regular gigs with Random Concept, and also with backup bands in NYC for recording artists like Len Barry and Gary “U.S.” Bonds, Higgins devoted a lot of time to his craft. But after a while city life didn’t seem conducive to Higgins’ or his band mates lifestyles, except for Simeon who reveled in the culture and nightlife of New York. Gary packed up with members Dave Beaujon and Jake Bell and moved back to the countryside near Albany, NY, and Simeon went on to form the Silver Apples.

While Random Concept was still alive, with a few less members, Higgins and guitarist Jake Bell started playing in an acoustic group with flautist Paul Tierney and cellist Maureen Wells called Wooden Wheel. Higgins found himself writing for two musical venues at the same time; one more psych and rock, and the other more folk. He melded these two groups and sounds together to record Red Hash.

The wide range of musical influences is evident in this record from the very first listen. The fragile and translucent beauty of tracks like “Unable to Fly” and “Windy Child” give way to loose-jointed songs like “It Didn’t Take Too Long”, which is reminiscent of some of the soft rock heard on Top 40 radio in the early ‘70s but with less sappy sentiment and more ingrained emotion. A lot of good music can benefit from a little humor, and Red Hash has it peppered throughout. “Stable the Spuds” is a dulcet love ballad, with the lyrics mired in the protagonist’s penchant for baked potatoes. “Down On the Farm” is straight up Beefheart, with the grinding vocals mirroring the bass line, and crass lyrics about milking a bull. Flute and strings lend themselves well to this record, creating an environment both organic and mystical throughout.

Red Hash didn’t reach very far with the original pressing of around 5,000 copies. Then Higgins ended up doing 13 months in jail and was never able to play the original 11 tracks to a live audience. Over the years, the record gained a cult following by music fans lucky enough to get a listen. Tracks were played regularly on freeform and college radio stations, and in the late ‘90s an Italian bootleg CD surfaced. Gary “watched very casually from a distance,” while the record gained more interest and monetary value, selling for more than a $100 on eBay.

In 2003, Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance and Comets On Fire, introduced Higgins’ little known masterpiece to Zach Cowie who was then at Seattle’s Sub Pop record label. Cowie became consumed by the emotive songs on the album and took it upon himself to set out a nationwide search for Higgins. There were a number of rumors floating around: Higgins had gone crazy, fled the country, or was still incarcerated somewhere. Chasny helped the search with the release of Six Organs’ School Of the Flower, which contained a cover of Higgins’ missive to a young drifter known as “Thicker Than A Smokey.” In the liner notes of the album Chasny made a plea for the whereabouts of Higgins. The search was made complete by the obsessive efforts of Cowie, who sent a form letter to every Gary Higgins he could find in the United States. He finally got the response he’d been waiting for after almost exhausting his resources. Higgins said, “I sat on it for a few days, and then called him and one thing led to another.”