Before the advent of online selling and buying, attending record fairs were a big part of my music fandom, and I often attended such fairs in Aberdeen and farther afield in pursuit of what I then perceived as rare or cult albums. The more obscure the better, I thought, but they had to be musical obviously and fit within the parameters of my tastes, which as you know are fairly eclectic.
In the early ’90s, I would attend these fairs and buy LPs by the likes of Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, Hawkwind, and Sun Ra, as well as the blues and folk music which I had developed an avid enthusiasm for ; the likes of Blind Willie Johnson, John Lee Hooker, and Lightning Hopkins, as well as the folk guitarists Bert Jansch, John Renbourn and Davy Graham. This was where the music of John Fahey came into my life. Fahey’s music , to my ears, was an amalgam of folk and blues, not unlike the other aforementioned folk guitarists, but his palette was a bit more eclectic, he also drew from classical music, Episcopal church hymns, as well as jazz and country music.The music was dark and haunting, it drew you in , really grabbed your attention. I bought his first album ‘Volume 1 Blind Joe Death’ in 1993, from a record fair at Aberdeen’s Dee Motel for £5!. I had read about Fahey in ‘Folk Roots’ magazine, and was keen to hear what his playing sounded like. He seemed like an interesting guy, given what I had read about him. He , and friend Ed Denson, had rediscovered Bukka White, in 1963, he also ran the Takoma record label, and had written a thesis on Charlie Patton while at UCLA, which was later published. Fahey’s style of playing, while very much in the ‘fingerstyle’ genre, is known as ‘American Primitive, his playing is seriously good, and I do recall one critic calling him the ‘Jimi Hendrix of the acoustic guitar’.
Anyway, the album ‘Blind Joe Death’ is a great one, it was a great starting point for me, a really stunning set of guitar instrumentals which really showcase his virtuosity, with the hypnotic ‘Sun Gonna Shine on My Back Door Some Day Blues’, (which takes it title from a line in the blues classic ‘Trouble In Mind’), the bluesy ‘Desperate Man Blues’, a real ‘earworm’ for me, a variation on the folk tune ‘John Hardy’, ‘St Louis Blues’, and ‘Poor Boy Long Ways from Home’, are great also , two cover versions from the works of W.C. Handy, and Bukka White respectively, show that this music works well on an acoustic guitar, as it does with a jazz combo, or a electric slide guitar. I have played this album countless times over the years, and it never ceases to please, this album, and his ‘America’ album, which is very much in the same eclectic vein, led to my amassing a huge collection of Fahey albums and cds over the years , ranging from the earlier ‘American Primitive’ acoustic guitar, to the later more avant- garde electric improvisional stuff he recorded in the later ’90s, which I will cover in a future blog article. If you have never heard Fahey’s music before, its well worth checking out. His influence can be heard these days in musicians such as the Welsh guitarist Gwenifer Raymond, whose ‘You Never Were Much of a Dancer’ is absolutely stunning, the guitarist James Blackshaw, who I had the good fortune to see in a gig a few years ago, and the late Jack Rose, whose album, ‘Kensington Blues’ is also very Fahey-esque.
Playlist:
John Fahey- Blind Joe Death- Takoma-(1996)
John Fahey- America- Takoma (1998)
Gwenifer Raymond- You Were Never Much of a Dancer- Tomkins Square -(2018)
Coming Soon- my musings on R.E.M – Fables of the Reconstruction.
The Eclectic Audio Lab 
eddiesrockmusic
/ September 26, 2023Thanks Mark, a nice piece on an underrated guitarist. I don’t know much Fahey – first came across him on the ‘Zabriskie Point’ soundtrack, which includes his ‘Dance Of Death’.