John Fahey was born in 1939 and is an American icon, woven into the musical fabric of our great nation as much as Billie Holiday or Iggy Pop. I don't know how much more plainly to say it, nor do I know how much more sincere I can be in saying it. Fahey is famous as an innovative acoustic fingerpicking folk/blues musician, and made records, albeit sporadically, between the years of 1959 and 1991. After ten or so years of hibernation and seclusion, he became an underground guitar hero in the 1990s and was regularly name-dropped in many publications, with musicians ranging from Sonic Youth to M. Ward citing him as an influence. Fahey battled alcoholism and the Epstein-Barr virus in the 1980s, and had sextuple-bypass heart surgery two days before his death, on February 22, 2001, at the age of 61.The three mp3s posted here are some of the most beautiful and exciting pieces I've ever heard in my life. The first two are typical of the sound Fahey is noted for, and the third is taken from his last album, Red Cross, released in 2001. In the final track, Red Cross, Disciple of Christ Today, you can hear the guitar as a direct voice, the moans and contemplative musings of a man knowingly near the end of his life.
MP3: John Fahey - In Christ There Is No East or West (1964)
MP3: John Fahey - Steamboat Gwine'Round De Bend (1968)
MP3: John Fahey - Red Cross, Disciple of Christ Today (2001)
YouTube: John Fahey - On The Sunny Side Of The Ocean
YouTube: John Fahey - Beverly (aka Indian Pacific Railroad Blues)
Buy the CD: The Legend of Blind Joe Death
Buy the CD: Of Rivers And Religion
Buy the CD: Red Cross
2 comments:
Cool stuff. The slide on this is awesome. This is music I really appreciate and starve for!
-NRM
red cross is haunting and sad...reflections of life lived clawing for more.
he deserves to be an icon...though I don't know that he is - mainstream hasn't stolen him yet.
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