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Isaac Paulson's avatar

Thanks! I love seeing the work of Fahey featured here! Have you explored the work of Duck Baker? He plays in a similar style and records many jazz standards. He has at least one album of Monk tunes and at least one album of Herbie Nichols tunes, for example.

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fanuzzi's avatar

> Kottke’s output is essentially conservative

As a longtime devotee of Kottke (and Fahey!) I must object. He very much started from a similar place as Fahey (it was Fahey that "discovered" him and put him on the seminal Takoma records comp with Peter Lang and Basho, as well as released his seminal "6 & 12 String Guitar" ), but as he then achieved some level of success that is currently unimaginable for a fingerstyle guitarist (major label and all), his composition certainly stayed within a certain range. However, that contract didn't last forever, and at one point, his extremely aggressive right-hand technique caught up with him and he found himself having to take a break and re-learn how to play. His compositional style also shifted accordingly, as the crazy speed and thump of his youthful playing was no longer a thing. "One Guitar, No Vocals", to me, is an album I know backwards, and demonstrates this period better than anything.

"Chamber of Commerce" is one my favorites of his- a longform composition I had heard was inspired by Bartok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEL8sttnWgU

"Peckerwood" has a confounding melody that gets constantly stuck in my head - he says that he had the Woody Woodpecker song stuck in his head, and he wrote this "backwards" to get it out. Most spectacularly, listen to his bass counterpoint.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26YjdIbu1W0

"Bigger Situation" was his first song that I learned as a teenager (uh, 20+ years ago). Coming from a classical guitar background, this very much aligned with my Segovia obsession. It's a beautiful longform piece :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LZImeqpdXo

You can definitely hear echos of this in earlier works of his such as "The Ice Field" (which features his producer simply tapping a muted violin string with his bow):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzA1JiXKaPw

Anyhow, I can't tell you how satisfying it is to see two of my biggest inspirations (TBP and fingerstyle guitar) meet at last. Thanks for this post!

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