Teenager Leo Kottke, while trying to buttonhole another musician backstage, heard a note that blew his mind and still resonates for him today.
“I can still hear that big bong of a thumb on the E string….It was Fahey. It was Fahey yet to be… which I’m thinking is all we’ll ever know of him.”
Many musicians and listeners would nod their heads in agreement with Kottke’s reaction, which Steve Lowenthal reports in his excellent biography, “Dance of Death: The Life of John Fahey, American Guitarist.” Fahey’s guitar playing knocked people out; his odd personality and self-destructive behavior made them scratch their heads.
Out of elements of classical, country, folk and blues, Fahey (1939-2001) wove a style of acoustic guitar playing that he dubbed “American primitive”; my former guitar teacher John Stropes and other scholars refer to it as finger-style guitar. Fahey played a bass line with his thumb (that big E that Kottke talked about it) while spinning a melody with his other fingers.
Already passionate about guitar, Fahey had a musical conversion experience in 1957 listening to a recording of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Praise God I’m Satisfied.” As Lowenthal describes it, Fahey, a troubled youth from a broken family, connected emotionally to the angst of the blues. He dove into both the guitar technique and emotions of the music, ultimately writing his master’s thesis on mysterious Delta bluesman Charley Patton.
Many white youth have studied country blues with a fervor; the secret to Fahey’s musical artistry, I think, is how he married blues to the rigor and harmonic richness he drew from classical music.
A student of blues mythology, he satirized it — and mythologized himself — early on, releasing some early recordings under the moniker Blind Joe Death. His liner notes were often bizarre, sometimes offensive, and statements about himself couldn’t be taken at face value.
Inspired by Harry Partch and other do-it-yourselfers, Fahey and a friend started their own record label, Takoma, which released his excellent early recordings as well as guitar records by Robbie Basho, Peter Lang and Kottke, whose “6- and 12-String Guitar” album became an enduring hit. Fahey had a surprise hit himself with “The New Possibility,” his first album of Christmas music.
Fahey was popular enough to tour regularly, but suffered from devastating stage fright, probably a factor in his dependence on prescription medications and, later, his alcoholism. Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni tapped him to score his film “Zabriskie Point,” but that ended in disaster. Fahey fibbed in his memoir that a political argument led to him punching Antonioni, but the sadder truth is that Fahey froze up, drank himself into incoherence and couldn’t get the job done.
After his third divorce — he had trouble with intimate relationships, too — Fahey spent some time homeless. In the years before his death at 61, he turned to experimental sounds and electric guitar, confusing some fans.
Lowenthal’s book isn’t long, but he’s talked with the right people in trying to understand Fahey: childhood friends, early business partners, former wives and collaborators including Barret Hansen, known to many as novelty record expert Dr. Demento, who produced some of Fahey’s recordings.
If you have any love for the sound of a guitar and haven’t heard him, hustle to your music source and get “The Best of John Fahey” to listen to while reading Lowenthal’s book. You won’t be disappointed.
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