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Is there any love for John Fahey in the house?


Rosewoody

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Posted

He is playing a Bacon & Day, which I understand, is being reissued, don't know by whom. Very ornate. Fahey was great stylist, started the Tacoma label which signed early Leo Kottke. Swampy Americana, esoteric song titles, very melancholy and mysterious cat who died broke and was probably too smart for his own well being.

Posted

Don't feel like the Lone Ranger. Soul has been replaced by $oul and it makes you want to hang your head and cry. I am listening to Karla Bonoff at the moment, another individual with too much soul and not enough 'commercial' appeal. There's a train a coming and we are going to be riding...

 

Pic

Posted

Thanks for that Rosewoody. I was not familiar, but I am now. Nice.

While digging thru some of his stuff, I also found this:

 

 

Don't know who the kid is, but the word prodigy comes to mind. I especially love the way he scratches his face about the 1:25 mark, without missing a beat.

Posted

Heard him play in a small cafe in Urbana years ago. Great lap slide. Plus helped rediscovered country bluesmen and recorded Leo Kottke. Check him and other great primitives: Paul Geremia, Steve James, KJ Phelps....

 

ps Cunk, your avatars are killing me!

Posted

Put me in the 'maudlin' camp! A woman I now play with hung with him a lot when they both lived in Portland, Or. She has a lot of stories-- he was one of the special ones. I worked through a number of his arrangements a few years ago; love that stuff. But I've never cared for the 'primitive' label--

Posted

So Hoss, that makes you one degree removed from John Fahey, right? Or is it 2 degrees? Very cool, whichever. BTW, for so long people tried to categorize JF into "folk," "then "new age," "experimental," "free-form," "middle eastern raga jazz" that he himself preferred just to call his thing"American Primitive" as a handle. This according to his publisher, but I suspect Fahey resisted labels generally.

Posted

Adored the man - one of the most influential guitarists in my early playing years (1962 onwards). First introduced to him by my high-school art teacher, who was himself a pretty hot blues player (Mr Cohen, Owen's Boys - if you read this, you were the man.....).

 

Through Fahey and his management/recording I discovered the likes of Leo Kottke, Mike Bloomfield, Canned Heat, Bukka White, The Fabulous Thunderbirds and the quite gorgeous Maria Muldaur (forgive me if her name is mis-spelled).

 

He dropped off the radar with some illness or drink problems, or both, and I hear he died a while back, which is a shame. Last saw him in London at some posh venue in the late nineties and he WAS hard work to listen to, and didn't seem to care about his audience - but some of us forgave and listened anyway.....

Posted

Fahey was one of my early influences at least in the area of fingerstyle kind of stuff. Truely a trailblazer although a really odd bird. My favorite Fahey story was from my younger brother who was an on-the-road folk musician and one time at a festival somewhere he encountered Fahey in a restroom reaching into the toilet saying something about dropping his cars keys.

His playing, though, was a revelation. Along with Sandy Bull I realized that one could just play the guitar as a solo instrument for more than just the classical stuff like Segovia.

Posted

I listened to a lot of Fahey back in my formative years, but always preferred **** Rosmini, who predated him, as a guitarist.

Rosmini was light years ahead of his time. I still have this record....which still blows me away.

 

Adventures%20for%2012%20String,%206%20String%20and%20Banjo%201.jpg

Posted

By way of a shameless BUMP

 

Dug this out from the vinyl. Hard work listening, but rewarding.....

 

The Voice of the Turtle:-

 

Bottleneck Blues

Bill Cheatum

Lewisdale Blues

Bean Vine Blues

Bean Vine Blues #2

A Raga Called Pat, Part III

A Raga Called Pat, Part IV

Train

Je Ne Me Suis Reveillais Matin Pas En May

The Story Of Dorothy Gooch, Part I

Nine-Pound Hammer

Lonesome Valley

  • 4 months later...
Posted

It's nice to hear artists name mostly of which have not heard since the 60's. There was a local Radio station here KSAN and the DJ's had pretty much free reign to play many different artists. All these names mentioned and then some, Michael Bloomfield for me tops the list, that is because I met him around 69'-70' I was a junior in high school and had just turned 18. At a local park where everybody gathered to party on weekends.

We, that in myself Mike and another guy ended up talking over a period of a couple of weekends. The hands down best conversations I ever had.

We talked about just about everything but when was finally wiling, we talked Music and Michael just lit up, he was in his element, it was a who , what, where and why of music structure, form and history of American "Primitive" traditional, oh let's not forget Jazz.

Posted

When I started playing - I started in '62 - he was about the only solo player around who wasn't a classical player. Huge influence on me and a lot of players I knew back then. He was quite a character. My brother was a folk musician and he had played at a festival where Fahey was also. My brother's main contact with him was in a bathroom where Fahey was fishing around in a toilet grumbling about dropping his keys in the toilet. But his music was fabulous.

Posted

Love what he did! And've learned a couple of 'em: "Sligo River Blues" (one of the two or three pieces that really inspired me to get into fingerstyle playing), and "Uncloudy Day." That piece posted up above -- "Red Pony" -- is really nice, too. Just wonderful stuff!

 

All kina info + tabs here:

http://www.johnfahey.com/

 

Yowsa!

Posted

**** Rosmini, another "primative", must certainly have been an influence upon Kottke. His albums are rare, but they are well worth seeking out. He could play a little,too. Check out this clip. 1964.

 

Posted

I don't log into here often, but yes, I remember John Fahey - still have all the Blind Joe Death albums on vinyl. Great stuff - still listenable after all these years.

 

jdg

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