The Story of the Ghost is the seventh studio album by American rock band Phish, released by Elektra Records on October 27, 1998. The album features an emphasis on the jazz-funk influenced "cow-funk" style, which the group had been experimenting with in concert throughout 1997 and 1998. The album's first single was "Birds of a Feather", which was a Top 20 hit on Billboard magazine's Adult Alternative Songs chart. Much of the album originated during large-scale improvisation sessions. The band then took favorite moments from those in-studio jams and wrote songs around them, adding lyrics from a book of writings by long-time Phish lyricist Tom Marshall. Additional excerpts from the improvisational "Ghost Sessions" were also later released as The Siket Disc.
A few of the album's songs reflect the band's 1997 "cow-funk" sound, with bass guitarist Mike Gordon taking a more prominent role. Anastasio had coined the "cow-funk" term in the band's 1997 official biography The Phish Book, observing that "What we’re doing now is really more about groove than funk. Good funk, real funk, is not played by four white guys from Vermont." Much of the album, however, is defined by what Rolling Stone called an "unhurried vibe ... with airy, uncluttered grooves and relaxed vocals." Unlike Phish's previous albums, The Story of the Ghost does not include any instrumentals. "End of Session" was performed live for the first time on July 25, 2017.
Early incarnations of several tracks from the album can be heard on the 2000 release Trampled by Lambs and Pecked by the Dove, a collection of song sketches recorded by frontman Trey Anastasio and lyricist Tom Marshall.
The album was recorded of the course of several sessions at Bearsville Studios in the village of Bearsville, New York, where the band had also recorded Billy Breathes. The band chose Andy Wallace to produce the album because of his work on Reign in Blood by Slayer, Nevermind by Nirvana and Grace by Jeff Buckley.
"Birds of a Feather", "Frankie Says", and "Shafty" (the latter song a reworking of Phish original "Olivia's Pool") were all debuted live during the "Island Tour", a brief run of shows the band played while taking a break from recording the album in April 1998. All four nights of the "Island Tour" were later released as part of the LivePhish Series.
In 2000, during the promotion for Farmhouse, many interviews saw Anastasio citing a certain disdain for the process of creating The Story of the Ghost. He was critical of the band's "socialistic" approach to the song selection for the album. "There were songs I thought should have gone on The Story of the Ghost album, that were better than the songs that got on there" Anastasio said in a 2000 interview. "if anyone didn't like a song it was out. But what happens with that approach is the material gets watered down. You end up with songs that everyone is fine with, but the best songs are usually those where one person is passionately for and one person really hates, because the best songs are those that arouse strong reactions".[11]
Tom Marshall recalls that one of these stronger songs was omitted in favor of what he felt was a weaker track in "Fikus".[12] Anastasio named "Bug" and "Twist" as two songs he was disappointed were cut from the album, and both later appeared on Farmhouse. In 2018, Marshall had Anastasio as a guest on his Under the Scales podcast to discuss the 20th anniversary of The Story of the Ghost, and both conceded they were now happy with the album as it was released, with Marshall revising his opinion of "Fikus" to a more positive one.
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