The fellow on slsk who was sharing Dave Bixby's 1972 Ode to Quetzalcoatl added "Christian Loner Folk" to the folder name as a parenthetical description. I still don't know anything about Bixby other than that he was a dope fiend (go figure) before finding Christ, and the songs on Quetzalcoatl are post-conversion.

I've been on a mild "'70s Jesus hippies" kick lately; there's the same post-apocalyptic comedown quality that's on all the folk records of the time, but some of the Jesus music is especially morose, not like today's "haha you blue-state pussies, WE WON (*burrrrrrp*)" cheerleaders for Team Goodbook. No, actually, with Bixby being a loner and all, it's not surprising that Quetzalcoatl is pretty solipsistic and self-absorbed -- if he were coming of age in the '80s instead, surely he'd be cutting his musical teeth doing covers of "Sanitarium" and "How Soon is Now?" at open mic nights.

With a little less outright misery, this'd be a ringer for shoegaze -- I've always said that the Beach Boys' "'Til I Die" could be interpreted smashingly by someone like Slowdive, and Bixby's record has a similar vibe, a quiet desperation, better to evaporate than to explode, etc. It distinguishes itself with vocals that tend to drift from sleepy emo-folk into an old-timey warbly Van Dyke Parks quality, and an emphasis on (quite pretty) solo guitar playing rather than production and arrangement.

A couple of mp3s to whet your whistle:

Dave Bixby - "Free Indeed"
Dave Bixby - "Morning Sun"
Dave Bixby - "Secret Forest"