"voice of the turtle" has three quasi-subtitles on the cover. directly underneath the main title is "being a musical hodograph & chronologue of the music of john fahey, including his most recent composition, the story of dorothy gooch." on the right side of the cover appears "the volk roots & hiart leaves of john fahey, blind joe death, hubert thomas, virgil willis johnston, l. mayne smith, mark levine." and directly below that "the fahey picture album: genuine photographs of blind joe death, knott's berry farm molly, the adelphi rolling grist mill, etc." when the gatefold was no longer produced, the "fahey picture album" was replaced with a picture of a turtle.