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.
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
"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.
"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 :
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):
It repeats something I read elsewhere long ago - that Kottke mailed a demo tape to John Fahey and that’s what led to his making that first album for Takoma Records.
John Fahey, the father of the American primitive guitar style, who died at 61, was a creative force to be reckoned with. During his lifetime he recorded 40 albums, participated in the rediscovery of Bukka White and Skip James academically (he was a scholar), started two labels, one of which - Takoma - was the first artist-owned label ever and one of the most successful independent labels of its day. He started the careers of Leo Kottke, Peter Lang, Al Wilson, George Winston, and influenced hordes of others from Bob Dylan to Pete Townshend to Jerry Garcia to Thurston Moore. He wrote four books and contributed liner notes to many, many records. He canvassed for records throughout the South, did field recordings, looked for people who recorded these 78s, lived on the two coasts and Hawaii, was married and divorced three times. Most importantly, he was the first person to create an audience for steel-guitar music without vocals. In that way he’s hugely influential, even for people who might not know he influenced them by creating a market for it in the exact same way that Segovia created a market for classical guitar music in the 1920s. John Fahey had "genius" written all over him. Just listen to him here talking about speed and rhythm https://youtu.be/f64cX5vn0mc?si=dKMREM0W356ge4Yy
Excellent recommendations. It had been way too long since listening to some Fahey so thank God for You tube today (TGFYTT) and this live concert from Hamburg in 1978: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPKS_JCK6ok
Talk about a performer being in the zone! In an Interview from the same year Fahey talks about liking to practice 6-8 hrs. a day and working with a psychologist to consciously enter a trance state through just touching the guitar.
Also worth mentioning as a devoted practitioner of Fahey's ethos around the acoustic guitar is Jim O'Rourke. Aside from engineering or producing hundreds (thousands?) of records, O'Rourke's handful of albums (90s-present) under his own name somehow combine his unabashed version of Fahey style acoustic guitar with large-scale production values and lots of 70s pop and rock sensibilities (Bacharach, Wings, et.al) for highly artistically successful results. (*"Bad Timing" and "The Visitor" are probably the best ones to start with, then "Insignificance", "Eureka", and most recently "Simple Songs" are very good as well.*)
When I was first learning about “American Primitive Guitar”, I mentioned Leo Kotke to a practitioner and he said, “Nah - listen to Fahey”. The overview you offered is a good one.
You knew that "perhaps the tune is mirrored or in retrograde inversion or something" would pull me out of the woodwork... sounds like in the second verse he's playing the melody straight but he's raised the third and fourth so that instead of E Dorian the tune is now in some sort of E Lydian (but with a flat seventh). Creepy!
He starts the song with another cool twist in the other direction - the original song studiously avoids using any Vs, but he brazenly throws in a couple right in the intro.
Stefan Grossman has done so much good work behind the scenes in promoting fingerstyle guitar: his books on Blind Blake, Rev Gary Davis, Lonnie Johnson, and other masters is so inspiring. Charlie Hunter has been posting a lot of Blind Blake recently, what a genius he was.
As most of the respondents here have noted, Fahey is one of the most important 20th century eccentric American musicians, and this is a fine introductory appraisal. Fahey’s early recordings can be read as a commentary on (and perhaps a parody of) the blues rediscovery phase of the Great Folk Scare of the 1960s that Shuja Haider refers to. The liner notes on the earliest pressings of the Takoma album’s playfully take the piss out of the annotation booklets inserted into Folkways and other contemporary esoteric folk brands, while also building a goofy mythology around Fahey’s creations. Likewise some unsettling graphics that showed up on later Takomas. Most of this stuff was ditched in subsequent editions, and I always regretted that this aspect of his art wasn’t further developed. Although I bought my first—now extremely rare—copy of Death Chants, Breakdowns, etc., at the tender age of fourteen, in 1965, I only saw him in person once a few years later. It was a bizarre experience. Fahey spent the set downing what seemed like a case of 7-Up and spitting enormous loogies into a plastic bucket. I remember nothing of the music he played. He compiled a predictably strange and (imo) fascinating book of stories which is easily found, and there’s a good biography of him by Steve Lowenthal, also a documentary that’s worth watching if somewhat unsatisfying to a fan of almost six decades like me. To me, the closest comparison to Fahey’s mixture of blended music and esoteric world building through word and image is Sun Ra, although Mr. Blount’s voyage went a fair piece further out there. Cheers!
I should add that a reasonably accomplished amateur guitar player I knew told me Robbie Basho couldn’t play for shit! He might be right, but there is something about some of his music. Fahey released a number of Basho albums on his Takoma label.
There was a third guitarist associated with Fahey (in addition to Leo Kottke - or at least Kottke’s first ‘Tacoma’ album) named Robbie Basho. As an adolescent I saw all three at different times at a little folk club outside Philadelphia called “The Main Point”. I was eventually able to get a record store to order the Basho album ‘The Falconer’s Arm’ for me. A few Basho compilation albums are available on the streaming services. Some of the music might be of interest.
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.
> 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!
You might enjoy this article.
https://magnetmagazine.com/2022/01/11/the-strength-of-strings-leo-kottke-john-fahey-and-the-illustrious-armadillo-album/
It repeats something I read elsewhere long ago - that Kottke mailed a demo tape to John Fahey and that’s what led to his making that first album for Takoma Records.
John Fahey, the father of the American primitive guitar style, who died at 61, was a creative force to be reckoned with. During his lifetime he recorded 40 albums, participated in the rediscovery of Bukka White and Skip James academically (he was a scholar), started two labels, one of which - Takoma - was the first artist-owned label ever and one of the most successful independent labels of its day. He started the careers of Leo Kottke, Peter Lang, Al Wilson, George Winston, and influenced hordes of others from Bob Dylan to Pete Townshend to Jerry Garcia to Thurston Moore. He wrote four books and contributed liner notes to many, many records. He canvassed for records throughout the South, did field recordings, looked for people who recorded these 78s, lived on the two coasts and Hawaii, was married and divorced three times. Most importantly, he was the first person to create an audience for steel-guitar music without vocals. In that way he’s hugely influential, even for people who might not know he influenced them by creating a market for it in the exact same way that Segovia created a market for classical guitar music in the 1920s. John Fahey had "genius" written all over him. Just listen to him here talking about speed and rhythm https://youtu.be/f64cX5vn0mc?si=dKMREM0W356ge4Yy
Excellent recommendations. It had been way too long since listening to some Fahey so thank God for You tube today (TGFYTT) and this live concert from Hamburg in 1978: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPKS_JCK6ok
Talk about a performer being in the zone! In an Interview from the same year Fahey talks about liking to practice 6-8 hrs. a day and working with a psychologist to consciously enter a trance state through just touching the guitar.
Also worth mentioning as a devoted practitioner of Fahey's ethos around the acoustic guitar is Jim O'Rourke. Aside from engineering or producing hundreds (thousands?) of records, O'Rourke's handful of albums (90s-present) under his own name somehow combine his unabashed version of Fahey style acoustic guitar with large-scale production values and lots of 70s pop and rock sensibilities (Bacharach, Wings, et.al) for highly artistically successful results. (*"Bad Timing" and "The Visitor" are probably the best ones to start with, then "Insignificance", "Eureka", and most recently "Simple Songs" are very good as well.*)
When I was first learning about “American Primitive Guitar”, I mentioned Leo Kotke to a practitioner and he said, “Nah - listen to Fahey”. The overview you offered is a good one.
You knew that "perhaps the tune is mirrored or in retrograde inversion or something" would pull me out of the woodwork... sounds like in the second verse he's playing the melody straight but he's raised the third and fourth so that instead of E Dorian the tune is now in some sort of E Lydian (but with a flat seventh). Creepy!
He starts the song with another cool twist in the other direction - the original song studiously avoids using any Vs, but he brazenly throws in a couple right in the intro.
Thanks for pointing me to these!
Stefan Grossman has done so much good work behind the scenes in promoting fingerstyle guitar: his books on Blind Blake, Rev Gary Davis, Lonnie Johnson, and other masters is so inspiring. Charlie Hunter has been posting a lot of Blind Blake recently, what a genius he was.
As most of the respondents here have noted, Fahey is one of the most important 20th century eccentric American musicians, and this is a fine introductory appraisal. Fahey’s early recordings can be read as a commentary on (and perhaps a parody of) the blues rediscovery phase of the Great Folk Scare of the 1960s that Shuja Haider refers to. The liner notes on the earliest pressings of the Takoma album’s playfully take the piss out of the annotation booklets inserted into Folkways and other contemporary esoteric folk brands, while also building a goofy mythology around Fahey’s creations. Likewise some unsettling graphics that showed up on later Takomas. Most of this stuff was ditched in subsequent editions, and I always regretted that this aspect of his art wasn’t further developed. Although I bought my first—now extremely rare—copy of Death Chants, Breakdowns, etc., at the tender age of fourteen, in 1965, I only saw him in person once a few years later. It was a bizarre experience. Fahey spent the set downing what seemed like a case of 7-Up and spitting enormous loogies into a plastic bucket. I remember nothing of the music he played. He compiled a predictably strange and (imo) fascinating book of stories which is easily found, and there’s a good biography of him by Steve Lowenthal, also a documentary that’s worth watching if somewhat unsatisfying to a fan of almost six decades like me. To me, the closest comparison to Fahey’s mixture of blended music and esoteric world building through word and image is Sun Ra, although Mr. Blount’s voyage went a fair piece further out there. Cheers!
Beautiful! Never heard/heard of Billingsley before.
I should add that a reasonably accomplished amateur guitar player I knew told me Robbie Basho couldn’t play for shit! He might be right, but there is something about some of his music. Fahey released a number of Basho albums on his Takoma label.
There was a third guitarist associated with Fahey (in addition to Leo Kottke - or at least Kottke’s first ‘Tacoma’ album) named Robbie Basho. As an adolescent I saw all three at different times at a little folk club outside Philadelphia called “The Main Point”. I was eventually able to get a record store to order the Basho album ‘The Falconer’s Arm’ for me. A few Basho compilation albums are available on the streaming services. Some of the music might be of interest.
Nice! John Fahey needs to be more celebrated - thanks
One other thought: one of my favorite finger style guitarists and certainly the best of my generation doesn’t play anymore; his best work is incredible. Good read here: https://longreads.com/2020/03/12/i-miss-my-body-when-it-was-ferocious-the-transfiguration-of-paul-curreri/