All posts tagged John Fahey

Musical Musing: The Road to Blind Willie Johnson.

Back in 1985, in the job I was working in , I was often sent to training courses in Glasgow or Edinburgh, and back in those days, you had to find your own accommodation by looking up the telephone directory of the time, and checking with colleagues whichever B&B, or hotel they had stayed in, did they recommend it and how much did it cost.

We were allocated a certain amount of expenses , and if you stayed in somewhere cheap, you had some spare cash to yourself to do what you wanted with. Some colleagues would frivolously spend this money on alcohol and cigarettes, others were sensible, buying books, or records. I was one of the sensible ones, in my opinion.

This was , I suppose, a small recompense to being away from home in a strange city, not knowing anyone or your way around the place, you made your own entertainment, maybe went to the cinema, or a concert, something along those lines, maybe a rock band would be playing at the Glasgow Apollo, or the Edinburgh Playhouse, if you were lucky.

On one of those trips, to what seemed to me , the vast teeming metropolis of ’80s Glasgow, I often visited Tower Records on my lunchbreaks , and discovered that in addition to the widest selection of music I had ever seen, they also sold books! I dived in there, books about The Doors, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, you name it, they had it in stock. There was a selection of ‘cult classics : ‘, ‘On The Road’, ‘Brave New World’, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, ‘The Master and the Margarita’ , stuff like that.

I bought ‘No-one Here Gets Out Alive’ by Danny Sugerman, his memoir of his time with the Doors, ‘Kodak’, poetry by Patti Smith, whose music I was really getting into, and ‘Motel Chronicles and Hawkmoon’ by Sam Shepard. Sam Shepard had also written the screenplay for ‘Paris , Texas’, a film which came out in that year, directed by Wim Wenders and soundtracked by Ry Cooder, who was providing me with a window into the world of country blues, which subsequently led me to the music of Blind Willie Johnson, whose ‘Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground’, provided the theme to the movie. I played the soundtrack to ‘Paris Texas’ constantly during the long hot summer of 1985, as I started getting more eclectic in my musical taste (as mentioned in my review of Thurston Moore’s ‘A Sonic Life’, at the tail end of last year). Somehow, Robert Johnson seemed to be more of a thing for me at the time, as opposed to Blind Willie Johnson, but I bought an LP of Blind Willie’s music later on in the 90’s at a record fair in Aberdeen , for the princely sum of £10, it wasn’t bad, and also the cassette ‘Sweeter As The Years Go By’, on the Yazoo Label. I had read about his music and was intrigued to find out that John Fahey, the legendary guitarist, and a favourite of mine , was moved to tears the first time he heard Blind Willie Johnson’s music, and had referred to this as a religious experience when describing it later in his life. Blind Willie Johnson’s music is quite unique, his vocals guttural and intense, reminscent of those who came after him, like Howling Wolf, or Captain Beefheart. The slide guitar punctuates the vocals in a sort of call-and -response way.

Blind Willie sang of religious, biblical themes, his voice was far from angelic, but countered by the voice of Willie B. Harris, it works really well, gospel blues at its finest, with the slide guitar to the fore in most of the pieces.’ Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning’ , ‘ John the Revelator’, ‘City of Refuge’ and more.

So Blind Willie Johnson’s music led me to discover many great blues musicians, such as Ry Cooder, through the ‘Paris, Texas’ soundtrack and his eponymous debut album from 1970, also Missisippi Fred McDowell, Howling Wolf, and newer blues players like Corey Harris, Alvin ‘Youngblood’ Hart and the tremendous Tedeschi/Trucks band.

Worth a look also is the film ‘The Soul of a Man’ directed also by Wim Wenders

This film came out in 2003, and explores the lives and music of three of Wenders’ favourite blues musicians, namely Blind Willie Johnson , Skip James and J.B Lenoir, with stunning performances by the likes of Lucinda Williams, Nick Cave, Cassandra Wilson, and Marc Ribot exploring and interpreting the works of these talented musicians. Definitely worth watching.

Playlist:

Ry Cooder- ‘Dark Was The Night’ from ‘Ry Cooder’ -1970

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band- ‘Tarotplane’ from ‘The MirrorMan Sessions- 1999

Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi- ‘Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning’ from ‘God Don’t Never Change’ (The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson) -2016

Tom Waits -‘The Soul of a Man’, also from ‘God Don’t Never Change’ (The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson) -2016

Book Review :’A Sonic Life’- Thurston Moore

My last blog , R.E.M: Reconstructing the Pageant (1985-86), mentioned my so-called ‘USA of the Mind’, where US authors and music combined in this imaginary place, to conjure up an imagined version of somewhere I have never visited. In my mind’s eye, Sonic Youth (along with the Velvet Underground and Television) were one of the bands who made up my imagined version of New York, a place of clubs like Max’s Kansas City, CBGB’s, and so on and so forth.

I thought rightly or wrongly , that Sonic Youth were effectively an update of the Velvet Underground, a band who were not afraid to experiment with songs outwith the ‘normal’ structure, using unusual guitar tunings, and other musical instruments , objects and devices in their compositions.

My first encounter with the music of Sonic Youth was blasting from a stereo in Aberdeen’s 1-Up Records, at the time their ‘EVOL’ album was released, wow , what was this ‘Noise as Art’, as I then called it?. I really enjoyed ‘Death Valley 69’, with Lydia Lunch, its doomy sounding guitar lines, and pummelling basslines. ‘Expressway to yr Skull’ was something else, quite unlike anything I had heard before or since. I recall speaking to a friend, one boozy night, in the Venue, Aberdeen , a favourite music venue of the ’80s, saying that I thought ‘Expressway….’, would provide a good soundtrack to the Clive Barker story, ‘The Midnight Meat Train’, were it to be filmed. I said I would contribute an article the said friend’s fanzine , the name of which escapes me, about the song and its soundtrack potential, but only drafted the said article in a long gone notebook, and the final version never saw the light of day. As often in those days, I was pointed in the direction of SY by the reviews in Sounds and NME, particularly one of which by my go-to critic of the day, Edwin Pouncey. My diary of the time noted that I had bought several albums & cassette tapes, that month, June of 1986, the eclecticism had really kicked in at that time, and I had the Dream Syndicate’s ‘ Medicine Show’, Blue Oyster Cult’s ‘Club Ninja’, John Fogerty’s ‘Centrefield’,a mini -album by The Thirteenth Floor Elevators’ Roky Erickson called ‘Clear Night for Love’, and Sonic Youth’s ‘Evol’! .

It was reading ‘A Sonic Life’, by Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore that revived the above memory for me, as the book conveys Moore’s passion for the music he plays and has listened to and collected over the years

Almost forty years after I first heard SY, my own passion for eclecticism in music ( and books about music) is undimmed, and I have recently read Moore’s memoir which chronicles his life and music from his early days up until the present day, and documents the music and evokes the periods in time exceedingly well from the U.S rock of the mid ’70s, through the ‘No Wave’ era of the late ’70s,punk rock , ’80s alt-rock, and the ’90s when Nirvana came along . All this and various detours into his encounters and collaborations with musos as diverse as avant jazz pianist Sun Ra, eclectic guitarist John Fahey, and rock legends Paul McCartney, and Patti Smith. It all adds up to strongly recommended musical memoir!

Musical Musing: John Fahey: Volume 1:Blind Joe Death

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.

1 Comment

by markdavidpithie on September 25, 2023 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Blind Joe Death, John Fahey, Slide Guitar

Posted by markdavidpithie on September 25, 2023

https://markdavidpithie.wordpress.com/2023/09/25/john-fahey-volume-1-blind-joe-death/

The Eclectic Audio Lab

All posts tagged John Fahey

Musical Musing: The Road to Blind Willie Johnson.

Book Review :’A Sonic Life’- Thurston Moore

Musical Musing: John Fahey: Volume 1:Blind Joe Death

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