John Fahey
John Fahey is the man who introduced the stream of consciousness into folk music, and turned folk music into classical music, and then made it cross the boundaries of western and eastern music. The spiritual father of the "american primitive guitar", Fahey turned the guitar solo into a metaphysical exercise.
John Fahey is the man who introduced the stream of consciousness into folk music, and turned folk music into classical music, and then made it cross the boundaries of western and eastern music. The spiritual father of the "american primitive guitar", Fahey turned the guitar solo into a metaphysical exercise.
Proofs & Refutations
2024 small repress! Recorded in 1995 and 1996, mostly in John Fahey's room at a Salem, Oregon boardinghouse, the performances on Proofs and Refutations prefigure the ornery turn of the page that marked Fahey's final years, drawing another enigmatic rabbit from his seemingly bottomless musical hat. Cloaked in the language of dogma, this is Fahey dancing a jig in the Duchampian gap, jester cap bells a-jingling. Right out of the gate, Fahey re-materializes before us, somewhere between Oracle of Del…
Christmas Soli
CD. Remastered edition: John Fahey has made a habit of recording a new album of Christmas music every five or six years, but The New Possibility, which was originally released in 1968, is still his best. One of the best and most influential acoustic guitarists of his generation, John Fahey's music fused past and present, borrowing from the traditions of blues and folk music and filtering them through a modern musical viewpoint. Some of Fahey's most striking (and most popular) work appeared on a …
Fare Forward Voyagers (Soldier's Choice)
Nailed as John Fahey’s ‘non-Christian religious album’, where he ‘found’ Eastern religion and kick-started the New Age movement, Fahey said, in 1990, that it was his greatest guitar record. Considering the often-puzzling self-mythologizing that accompanied earlier albums, Fahey’s sleeve dedication to “my guru, Swami Satchidananda” and booklet extolling the virtues of Yogaville West, “a growing spiritual community in the beautiful mountains of Lake County, Northern California” were shockingly unt…
Volume 3 / The Dance of Death and Other Plantation Favorites
Originally released in 1964, Dance of Death offers a glimpse of an artist in transformation. More than half the album's titles draw from the traditional blues and country repertoire Fahey had spent his teen years and young adulthood collecting, listening to, and learning to play, yet the recordings proved once and for all that his interests lay in musical transfigurations rather than preservation -- John Fahey was not afraid to use these old tunes as raw material.
Volume 1 / Blind Joe Death Volume 1
2016 remastered edition. "For several years major labels had been issuing records in both mono and stereo formats. By 1967 Takoma was doing well enough financially to justify the recording of John Fahey's first and second albums for the burgeoning stereo market. Thus Vol.1: Blind Joe Death, as the record would be titled henceforth, was recorded for the third time and it is probably this release that most people are familiar with today. For the new version Fahey recorded all but one song on the a…
Requia & Other Compositions
*2023 Stock. 180gr LP deluxe heavy paste-on cover * In his liner notes to this release, John Fahey mentions his desire to have an entire world orchestra in his guitar, Western to Eastern, bagpipes to gamelan. Perhaps it's this mental approach that sets his music so deliciously far apart from other so-called folk guitarists. Requia is essentially in two sections. One is a series of blues-based pieces in line with music he had previously recorded. These include the lovely "Requiem for John Hurt" a…
Vampire Vultures
2009 reprint, originally published in 2000. The publication of How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life did a great deal to spread the word of John Fahey's literary talents, though sadly only a year before he died. Vampire Vultures is an unexpected gift and should ease the grief of those who thought they would never hear anything from John Fahey again. Originally a project of his own conception, it was to be an epic work that would expand on many of the characters and experiences he introduced in B…
Live In Sausalito, September 9, 1973
The finger-picking guitarist and blues enthusiast John Fahey enjoyed a long, influential and distinguished career. Born in Washington DC in 1939 and raised in Takoma Park, Maryland, he lauched his own Takoma label to issue self-produced work in the late 1950s and then delivered his master's theses on the blues of Charlie Patton at UCLA. Then, while based in the radical town of Berkeley, California in the San Francisco Bay area, began issuing filed recordings of forgotten blues legends such as Bu…
Guitar Vol. 4 / The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party And ...
500 copies. Orange vinyl Originally released in 1966. John Fahey's never recorded an album that was more thoroughly of its moment. From the groovy flute and twangy sitar accompaniment to the backwards guitar, this Birthday Party is a charmingly trippy 60s time capsule. But it isn't a two dimensional one. The album gains immense depth from the tension between his sweeping, fingerpicked melodies and discordant string-battery. It's the audible battle between yearned for rose colored luminescence a…
Volume 2 / Death Chants, Breakdowns & Military Waltzes
2016 remastered edition, blue color vinyl edition of 500 copies. "Death Chants is John Fahey's second album, following the brilliantly apocryphal Blind Joe Death. As massive as that earlier work was, it represented only a tentative first step towards the fields of hodologic splendor that our hero would go on to create. Death Chants represents a much more fully realized syncretism of the modernist and primitive poles between which John Fahey wobbled. It is also the first album he deigned to relea…
The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death
2016 remastered edition, gold color vinyl edition of 500 copies. Originally released in 1967. The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death is John Fahey's classic fifth album from the mid-1960s and is one of his most influential. This album has an amazing variety of styles, moods, and influences, and John has a compositional and playing style that is totally unique. "A strange man, John Fahey, with an unusual set of guitar styles. This album, originally released on Riverboat Records and later reissued…
Of Rivers and Religion
A deeply innovative musician whose style is credited as the foundation for the minimalist style of American Primitive Guitar, the output of John Fahey is both illustrious, far-reaching in its influence, and difficult to categorize. From the 1960s through the 1990s, Fahey's music frequently leapt between the realms of jazz, folk, world music, blues, country, and avant garde in equal measure, while demonstrating the wide range of flavors to be found in traditional finger-picking guitar techniques…
Volume 6 / Days Have Gone By
2016 remastered edition, gold color vinyl edition of 500 copies. Originally released in 1967. Days Have Gone By continues Fahey's interest in soundscapes, sound effects and experimental music mixed in with more traditional guitar playing of his earlier musical style"Sam Graham once referred to John Fahey as the "curmudgeon of the acoustic guitar," while producer Samuel Charters noted that Fahey "was the only artist I ever worked with whose sales went down after he made public appearances." This …
Death Chants, Breakdowns, and Military Waltzes
180-gram vinyl. "Death Chants is John Fahey's second album, following the brilliantly apocryphal Blind Joe Death. As massive as that earlier work was, it represented only a tentative first step towards the fields of hodologic splendor that our hero would go on to create. Death Chants represents a much more fully realized syncretism of the modernist and primitive poles between which John Fahey wobbled. It is also the first album he deigned to release entirely under his own name and the one …
Record Plant, Sausalito CA, September 9th 1973
Taped for broadcast on KSAN-FM, this remarkable 1973 set at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California, finds John Fahey, the master of American primitive guitar, at the peak of his mesmerizing powers, performing a series of lengthy medleys that incorporate a wide variety of influences and styles. It's presented here with rare images and background notes.
- "There's no shortage of Fahey live material in the hands of collectors, but this 1973 KSAN broadcast is up there with the very best, as t…
Paintings
"The much-revered avant-garde guitarist John Fahey (1939-2001) incorporated influences ranging from folk, blues, and bluegrass to classical music, musique concrete, and noise in his primarily acoustic guitar-based compositions. Considered a legend by many, Fahey released upward of three dozen LPs in his lifetime. Relatively late in life, Fahey extended his so-called 'American Primitive' approach beyond music, and into the creation of a substantial body of paintings. Painting on found post…
The Yellow Princess
Re-mastered from the original analogue master tapes, pressed on 180 gram . Remastered edition, ultralimited and, unfortunately, pricey/ originally released in either 1968 or 1969 depending on your sources, The Yellow Princess saw a post-philosophy degree, subculture-aware John Fahey branching out from his earlier, more traditional work. He earned his name back in 1959 at the age of 20, with his Blind Joe Death debut album. Following that album Fahey engaged in a wide stylistic range, from Appala…
The Voice of the Turtle
The Voice of the Turtle is one of the most beguiling albums from one of America's most legendarily beguiling musicians. Originally released in 1968 on his own Takoma label, Fahey credits some of the compositions and performances to the fictional guitarist Blind Joe Death, and some of the songs are actually rumored to not be Fahey at all but in fact obscure blues 78s. Whatever the case may be, it's one of Fahey's most adventurous and beautiful LPs, with the three lengthy improvisational pie…
Contemporary Guitar
Originally released in 1966 on the Takoma label, Contemporary Guitar is a beautiful compilation of solo acoustic guitar instrumentals from folk and blues legends such as Bukka White, John Fahey, and Robbie Basho as well as lesser knowns like Max Ochs and Harry Taussig. An essential compilation of American guitar soli.
The Transcendental Waterfall: Guitar Excursions 1962-1967
Massive 6xLP box set drawing from John Fahey's best, and most influential, period. Included in the set are Blind Joe Death, Death Chants, Breakdowns, And Military Waltzes, The Dance of Death and Other Plantation Favorites, The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party, The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death, and Days Have Gone By, all reissued on 180 gram vinyl with deluxe tip-on jackets. Limited edition of 2,000. John Fahey (February 28, 1939–February 22, 2001) combined American folk, blues, Indian r…