A holy grail of vinyl rarities, Donald "D.R." Hooker's 1972 album The Truth is handily one of the most famed and sought after privately pressed records of all time. A former hippy with a history of substance abuse, Hooker had just recently turned to evangelical Christianity when he assembled a collection of local Connecticut musicians to commit 10 tracks of psychedelic folk to wax. The Truth features cuts that are far too expansive and groovy to have come from someone so deeply religious, and yet the album oozes psychedelic wonder and ambience. Hooker himself poured his own tumultous life experiences and tribulations into the songs as well, from the anti-addiction anthem "Forge Your Own Chains" to the pained longing and lonesomeness of "Weather Girl", to devout head-trips like "The Sea." Hooker's The Truth may not have initially expanded beyond the original 99 vinyl pressing copies, but the earliest glimpses of the exploratory and eccentric folk of artists like Sufjan Stevens and Iron & Wine can be heard throughout, and is filled with equal parts pious purity, and raw psychedelic power
