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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.
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