John Fahey
 

I cannot get enough of this guy, any fans here? Days Have Gone By has become one of my favorite records of all time and everybody here should buy/download it. The other albums I've heard are abit hit or miss but theres enough of them to still get another shit load of good songs.

I recently started trying to play his songs but they're fucking hard to get used to. The open C tuning is beautiful though, I can just sit and play around with it for hours.

Are there any other 'American Primitive' artists I should check out?

You need to check out Peter Walker pronto.

http://grown-so-ugly.blogspot.com/search?q=peter+walker

I recently acquired 'Days Have Gone By', I can anticipate a great album just from the two song I've sat through.

i love fahey so much.
transfiguration of blind joe death is my favorite. but death chants... and america are also great.
i need to hear moer of his stuff tho.
you should definatly check out leo kottke. he is fantastic. and also robbie basho...

I LOVE John Fahey, yes. Very much.

Funnily enough, the first I ever experienced of Fahey (when I was about 14?) was the Rockpalast '78 video that Thurston had on his TV schedule at ATP.

Portland Cement Factory at Monolith, CA is my favorite song from it, maybe my favorite song ever but the rest are still amazing. I love how weird the Raga Called Pat songs are, theres parts 3 and 4 on 'The Voice of the Turtle' which are even more fucked up.

Anyway thank you all for your recommendations, I'll try and check them out today.

Katy: I wish I had known that Fahey preformance was on at ATP, I got it from dime a while ago and wow.

John Fahey blows my fucking mind. This is seriously some of the best stuff I've ever heard in my life. I'm downloading all of his work and have went ahead and bought a few used off of amazon and thats pretty much all I've listened to for the past 3 weeks. I've heard the following (with a little review):

1959 Blind Joe Death
Amazing! Essential!

1963 Death Chants, Breakdowns and Military Waltzes
Amazing! Essential! The third song on this is one of my favorite Fahey songs.

1964 The Dance of Death and Other Plantation Favorites
There is a long, dark song on here that's great...

1965 The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death
It's really difficult to reccomend one Fahey album, but this one gets mentioned a lot and with good reason. Probably has a lot of his best songs on it.

1966 The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party and Other Excursions
Typically great.

1967 Days Have Gone By
This is EXCELLENT. One of my favorites. Sounds a bit darker than usual.

1967 Requia
See above.

1968 The Yellow Princess
This is another popular one. I'm realizing it's hard to write descriptions of these albums. I mainly jsut wanted to list the ones I've heard for my own reference. But to make it relevant to this board, I might as well post these little thoughts too.

1968 The Voice of the Turtle
Really good but not one of my favorites.

1968 The New Possibility
See above. This is a Christmas album.. Christmas songs on guitar.


1971 America
Great. One of my most-listened to of Fahey's works.

1972 Of Rivers and Religion
This one's great!

1973 After the Ball
A bit sparser and more minimal than before, if that's possible. Sounds lonelier and quieter.

1973 Fare Forward Voyagers (Soldier's Choice)
This one is 3 really long Fahey songs. Just amazing. I love the songs he does where he just stretches out and plays...

1974 Old Fashioned Love
This one is AMAZING. Has "Dry Bones in the Valley", which Gastr Del Sol covered.

1975 Christmas with John Fahey Vol. 2
A bit unessential.

1981 Railroad
Just got this one, haven't listened yet.

1983 Popular Songs For Christmas and the New Year

This one.. I guess the covers of Christmas songs and stuff don't really do anything for me. Is that so bad?

1985 Rain Forests, Oceans and Other Themes
There's a wonderful cover of "Layla" on here, a song I always hated.

1987 I Remember Blind Joe Death
Another one of my favorites. Basically, any with "Blind Joe Death" in the title is worth checking out.

1989 God, Time and Causality
This one only has 6 tracks. 2 are medleys of his best songs and the last track is AMAZING; like 18 minutes long and never repeats.. probably his best song.. definitely his best album.

1990 Old Girlfriends and Other Horrible Memories
His best album in years.

1997 City of Refuge
YES! This is the Fahey album to get!!! There's tons of noise on here but also some of the most fucked-up stuff Fahey's ever played. There's a 21 minute song on here that is just my favorite Fahey song.

1997 Womblife
See above. Darker and more eccentric. Didn't O'Rourke produce this one? Lots of effects. Great.

1997 The Epiphany of Glenn Jones
With Cul De Sac. Noisey... there's a song called "Gamelan guitar" that's great.

2000 Hitomi
Just got this one, haven't listened yet.

2003 Red Cross
See above.

2004 The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick
THIS is another album to get. "Just" a live recording... but... wow. This is almost like a greatest hits album, and it's just ridiculous how well he plays all this stuff.

2005 On Air
The last song on this live recording is one of my favorite Fahey songs.

So, I need to hear the following:
1969 Memphis Swamp Jam (Three guitar duets by John Fahey, and Bill Barth
using the pseudonyms of R L Watson and Josiah Jones.)
1979 John Fahey Visits Washington D.C.
1980 Yes! Jesus Loves Me
1980 Live in Tasmania
1996 Double 78
1997 The Mill Pond (Double EP)
1998 Georgia Stomps, Atlanta Struts and Other Contemporary Dance Favorites

There's also an album I saw on soulseek called "american primitive guitar lessons" which I'm going to attempt to download.


and I'm done.

I gotta say, listening to all this stuff for the past few weeks, there are so many moments that blow my mind. Like.. music rarely blows my mind, but this shit just blows my mind all over the place. I've burned a bunch of these albums for my friend Booe and he likes it but doesn't see what the big deal is. I guess Fahey isn't as interesting to people who don't play guitar?

What's interesting to me is that I think he pretty much got better as he went along. I know a lot of people will prefer his early stuff and might get bored that so much of his stuff sounds the same, but I hear so many things in his music that are constantly evolving. "How much further can you take minimal fingerpicked acoustic guitar" was a question I kept asking myself as I listened to his work, but he was constantly inventing. Very unorthodox but brilliant. His slide guitar work blows my mind. I can't quit gushing.

I've also been listening to a lot of similiar artists which you all might like, a lot of these are part of the American Primitive Guitar movement, a lot aren't (a few reccomended to me by Everyneurotic and fugazifan and a few I found myself -- thanks guys!!):
- Sandy Bull (there's a 20 minute song he did that is just unbelievable)
- Robbie Basho (was surprised by the singing on some of songs; really great.. more "folky" than any of these artists but still really technical acoustic guitar stuff)
- Marc Ribot (only got his new album called "Exercises in Futility" and it's mindblowing; the description from Tzadik reads "Conceived as impossible etudes and exercises on a variety of finger busting guitar techniques, this astonishing suite will forever change your concept of what the guitar is capable of.")
- James Blackshaw (otherwordly guitar playing with some pianos as well)
- Leo Kottke (very Fahey-like at times, more bluesy at other times)
- Jack Rose (unreal; very Fahey-like but a bit more interested in droning at times)
- Peter Lang (amazing, very Fahey-like)
- Ry Cooder (more straight-ahead blues/slide guitar stuff but definitely worth checking out for fans of their stuff)
- Seiichi Yamamoto (only the album "Baptism" fits this description from the Omoide Hatoba/former Boredoms guitarist; super-quiet and lonely clean electric guitar plinkering; classic)
- Mori Chioko (don't really know anything about this artist, but I have an album called "Jumping Rabbits" from Tzadik that is all acoustic stuff in a very traditional Japanese-music-sounding way.. great..)
- Loren Mazzacane Connors (couldn't believe some of the sounds he makes; great)
- Taku Sugimoto (VERY sparse and dark guitar explorations; very quiet and almost nonexistent at times)
- Sonny Landreth (inventive and mindblowing slide guitar work)
- Leo Kotte (the album "6- and 12-string guitar" is just excellent, better than almost anything Fahey ever did)
- Derek Bailey (sounds nothing like any of these other artists.. and though I'm mainly trying to list acoustic guitar stuff, he is primarily an electric guitarist with a volume pedal... still, he does some acoustic stuff.. uhh... having heard about 20 of his albums, I have grown bored of his music but can't deny that it's all really interesting; would reccomend his solo stuff and "topography of the lungs"... not bad by any means.. just don't try to listen to all of his work at once!)
- Six Organs of Admittance (you all know this band... tons of acoustic guitar stuff mixed with drones and Native American/folk influences... amazingly consistent.. a lot of it sounds the same, but it's all really good... he has also apparently recently grown sick of acoustic guitar.. interesting. One of the best bands around right now.)
- Max Ochs
- Bukka White
- Harry Taussig
- Sir Richard Bishop (the former Sun City Girls guitarist doing Middle Eastern-sounding stuff on acoustic guitar, very rarely but occassionally using electric guitar, piano, and a few other things on his albums. Just mindblowing stuff. Another one of the best artists around right now.. lightning fast runs all over the fretboard... just... I mean, I dunno... faultless music, basically)

Also, on the subject of Sir Richard Bishop, does anyone know how to get the sound he gets? Is there certain scales to practice or tunings to practice? How do you get a "Middle Eastern" sound out of an acoustic guitar?

Any other reccomendations are welcome on this thread...

Also, I just wanted to say, I almost started a new thread for this but then searched a few pages back on the search function and found this thread. I'm very proud of myself for not starting another thread for the same exact thing when one thread will suffice. I hope people will learn from me. Sigh.

Yes Fahey is a fucking genious. Blind Joe Death, The Dance of Death and Other Plantation Favorites are a couple of my favorites.

Has anyone heard, Yes! Jesus Loves Me? It's Fahey doing guitar renditions of hymnal music.

important issued the mill pond thing on cd with a bunch of extra tracks recently.


yeah, it's different scales, i forgot the names, it's mostly from intervals though, like when you play a note in one string then another on the next fret and then for the thrid note you play it two frets above, all in the same string; try it and you'll hear that sound. i've come up with some great oud riffs on the guitar.

---

anyhoo, james blackshaw is also worth the mention.

Thanks, I actually answered my own question: http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum.../t-529256.html

Also, this article is excellent: http://josh.flagrancy.net/fahey/info.html .. Kind of an essay about writing american primitive music... Fahey practiced 6-8 hours a day... with no lessons...

Also, every-n, don't feel like PM'ing this, Bubblegum Octopus is apparently doing 3 songs for this split.. its still on.. haha.. he's covering me on one song, that's what's taking so long.. but he's done one song.. his voice got fucked up recently.. but he's all better now. So, I'm just waiting on him, but he's still working on it. My side is 3 songs and 11 minutes, and his side will be 3 songs so the whole thing will probably be right around 15-20 minutes. Should be a good 3" CD if you can issue it like that. Haha, so sorry it's taking so long, but it'll be sweet. Also, you get to release the first official bubblegum octopus physical product...

ohh don't worry at all, i'm kinda behind on my release schedule anyway so no hurry at all, i just really want to listen to it and yeah, i love 3" even if they are a bit more expensive than 5", so no problem man.

I can almost PROMISE you it'll sell out quickly though. That's the plus side.

From http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/...p/oct-07/32097 :

Haha, yeah, I've seen that. Doesn't help much, but thanks :) THe idea Everyneurotic suggested actually works quite well!

thanks for that long post ASP
i tried finding a blog with city of refuge but so far no luck (will accept p,s with links if anyone has)
but i did find this
its an unreleased track from the COR sessions
http://us.f13.yahoofs.com/bc/46e9e13...KqX9HBGTK.lXlW


about sirr richard bishop sound. i usually play in an open tuining and trem pick string using more middle easternish intervals, usually on an open string the frets that sound best for that are
0-1-4-5-7-8-11-12 and fuck around with those, then transose that to the other strings. usie the string that you are not playing with for drones, thats why its best to use open tunings for that because the drones on lets say an open d chord will keep that tonal center while you inmprovise on the higher strings. kinda like a raga....

woah, interstingly enough my girlfriend and I were listening to Fahey today at lunch. Man, such a good guitarist!

awesome!

cool fugazifan, you're awesome...

Okay, I heard most of the rest.. still haven't been able to find "memphis swamp jam"... and I heard a few tribute comps that were okay..

1979 John Fahey Visits Washington D.C.
This is fucking great!!

1980 Yes! Jesus Loves Me
So is this!

1980 Live in Tasmania
This is probably his best live album besides "On Air". Probably the best version of "Beverly" ever (on here titled "Indian Pacific Railroad Highway Blues" or something).

1996 Double 78
Haven't heard this but I think I have all the songs on other albums. It also should be noted that in 74 there was a split between Fahey, Peter Lang, and Leo Kottke that didn't have any new Fahey compositions but it was still considered a "new release". Also worth noting is Fahey Best Of Vol. 2 which are songs handpicked by Henry Kaiser with liners by Thurston Moore; it has a few songs from the still-unreleased azalea city memories and other toxic memorabilia ...

1997 The Mill Pond (Double EP)
This is insane! Nothing but weird guitar effects.. almost sounds like Stars of the Lid. This was limited to like 100 copies...

1998 Georgia Stomps, Atlanta Struts and Other Contemporary Dance Favorites
This is a live album of nothing but new songs and improvisations, released on Table of Elements records. If you want to hear albums where John just stretches out and does whatever he feels like, here you go. Lots of echo and delay too...

I also heard something called "John on Canadian TV" which was him being interviewed and giving some guitar lessons to some snoody woman who said slide guitars were too limited. Also, there is something on soulseek that is just the audio ripped from a DVD called "american primitive guitar lessons".. I really think I need to pick up the dvd though.. it's just 3 hours or so of John doing interviews, talking about Open C tuning and showing you how to play his songs... really great... I saw a few clips on youtube, and the audio is kinda worthless without the DVD but still.

I've seen some other live shows and I still need to get the rest of azalea city memories and other toxic memorabilia and I'll have everything.

My favorite by far is GOD, TIME, AND CASUALTY. It's about an hour long.. six songs.. 2 songs are 12 minute medleys of his best songs, including a slide guitar-only medley.. but the last song, a brand new composition, which is 18 minutes or so in length, is jaw dropping.. it seriously has about 150 riffs in it.. it's just amazing. This album was apparently recorded all in one sitting as well.. it serves as both a "greatest hits" album and with his best new songs. Probably my favorite album of all time and I'll devote a separate post to it eventually. The ultimate guitar album.

favorite fahey records in my collection:

blind joe death
the transfiguration of blind joe death
the voice of the turtle
the city of refuge

Ah, I'm glad this thread is around. As much as love Fahey's guitar, I only have Transfiguration and Yellow Princess.

listening to deathchants breakdown and military waltzes as we speak.
nothing is better than fahey

oh and atsonic, is there any chance that you could upload
GOD, TIME, AND CASUALTY
i cant seem to find it on blogs
thanks

http://grapewrath.blogspot.com/2008/...causality.html

enjoy.

thanks!

I just uploaded 3 peter lang albums. They were pretty difficult to find actually. Very similiar sound to Fahey and Kotke, of course... definitely worth a listen. This file is 170mb:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/377l92

Enjoy!

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to atsonicpark again.


i think i decided that fahey's song dallhart texas 1967 is my favorite of his and one of my favorite in general

one of the greatest guitarists around.

his collaboration with cul de sac is worth checking out too.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't own anywhere as much Fahey stuff as I should. I'm going to look over this thread and jot down some recommendations later.

good idea melly.

fahey's music is seriously a contender for some of the best music ever created period. and definitley the best guitar music ever made, period. just brilliant, beautiful, engaging, influential, finger picking excellence, dissonance as melody and melody as dissonance, and just plain fucking awesome tunes.

i just started listening to the peter lang. im ten seconds into
the thing at the nursery room window and it is already fantastic

:) indeed.

Wine and Roses(red pony) is one of my favorite songs.

i love me some Fahey
On The Banks of the Owchita is one of my favorite pieces of recorded music.
(and i just realized that Nels Cline covered it, haha)

although.. I haven't listened to him as much as I should have by now.
amazing guitarist

anyone else read this?



i don't know his music too well (but what i've heard is wow) but i've read this and it's absolutely bonkers.

i need to get that. i read a crazy excerpt from it a while back.

adam and the rest of you who care.
this is off topic and going about two months backwards but i might as well share. about sir richard bishop. another style that he utilizes alot, in songs like rasheed starting from about (1:10)and mahavidya is in an open tuning on the string thats tuned to the 3rd ofg the chord. so in an open d it will be the F#, 3rd string, open C it will be 1st string E. he plays really quickly and goes up and around the phyrgian mode
0-1-3-5-7-8-10-12. i think the emphasis is on the 8th fret. and of couse the other string should be used as drones
just thought i'd share...

Thanks fugazifan!

Man, I love minimal acoustic stuff.

Fare Forward Voyagers is the shit.

I picked up a copy a while ago, think i might give it a re-read,it's got an intro by Mr O'Rourke if i rember rightly.I've only got a few tracks of his but will check out some of these.