Monday, December 28, 2015

John Fahey : Yesterday's Wine (The Holiday Edition)




     Yet again.....my apologies to the readers.  I had to run off on short notice after hearing of the terrible fortunes of the city of Paris.  As you know, I am first a Frenchman.  And so, naturally, I have relatives scattered about France...some being in Paris.   Matter of fact - I am writing this from the other side of the Atlantic, and should return in the New Year...at some point.

     What a holiday it has been!  As I look at a crackling fire here within the comforts of a chateau, I feel a familiar warmth.  That unique temperature provided by those, whom to....we are closest.  So puzzling to realize in the same instant, why I am in fact here at home..... and therefore, what realities lie beyond a few wooden doors.  Why should darkness be visited upon me and mine when I try to walk this earth in grace?
Ahhh,....Christmas is a good time for reflection, non?
What?  Perhaps New Year's then?
Regardless of the season, these are the cards we've been dealt mes amis...
Ahhhh,...aces and spades...horse and cart....chicken and egg......old wine in new bottles...
....................  ....  ...  .. . 
.....I just want a ticket for the bus to Hot Town...that's right....where the sand is hot, the music is hot, the women are warm, and the beer is cold....and the public hibachi runs on natural gas.....
Ahhhh, ...you see how long I've been away....only a few short years ago I would have dreamt of fine wine and cheese, a loaf of bread, and the laughter of children.....should not something significant come from this time as it slides under our feet?
.....Perhaps the only person at the airport who understands where we are going  is the man playing music over the speakers... wait, there is no music in airports...but if there were...I'd like to hear some records by John Fahey - the american modern primitive.  Player of American Primitive Guitar, and assorted jigs and benders.
     Anyone who enjoys folk musics, should find pleasure here.  It is a kind of re-hash of some of the earliest recorded american popular music, mixed with "high art" ideals imported from Europe along with it's modern orchestral workings...along with a sitar...and maybe some dust from Tasmania.
     Regardless of the definition, it feels good to my ears and can be listened to under a variety of situations.          There is simplicity here.  Mastery of the steel-string guitar.  And poetic composition, mixed with meditative rhythm and structure. 

     John Fahey is yet another musician's musician who ended up with a rather short hand at the end of his relatively short life.  Coming of age after the end of WWII, and living in the suburbs of Washington D.C, John Fahey discovered and pursued his music there on the east coast. John was his own Allan Lomax you might say - collecting and learning from old recordings.  Imagine a white boy driving through the backroads of a southern U.S county during a time of turbulent racial relations, and knocking on doors of very humble homes to inquire whether they have any old records for sale.  A man could get shot under such circumstances.  Not surprisingly, John Fahey crossed paths with kindred spirits such as Mr. Joe Bussard.  This fellow was/is a serious collector of '78's.  Maybe the best.  Besides record collecting, Bussard also had a recording studio and made some of the first recordings of Fahey in 1958.  By 1959 though, John had founded his own label, Takoma records.

     Eventually, John ended up at Berkley and then at UCLA in California when the sixties unfolded.  There, he seems to have absorbed what he wanted  from the culture around him, yet struck out on his own to examine music on his terms.  It was during this period that, in addition to recording himself, John spent time searching for, and sometimes finding, long forgotten "recording artists", such as Bukka White, that he had heard via old '78's.... Once found, he would offer to record them once again.

     Fahey's discography is vast, spanning clear up to the year 2000.  As a fair introduction, may I recommend 1965's "The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death". 

  Divorce, drinking problems, health problems, medication, eventual poverty, living in a hotel.....
Pawn guitars, sell rare records...then death.

     This is American Primitive Guitar played by a spiritual detective.  In addition to the many albums John recorded, he wrote several books, and was even taken seriously as he tried his hand at painting.  Not surprisingly, Fahey also became the subject of other creative types, with a documentary film having been made of his life. 

   What more can be said?  Gitcha some.

- Rich




"The young man who had been listening, opened his eyes
and wondered at the dust and took up the guitar to try and find the old man who had disappeared.  
But nowhere was he to be found.  
"The wolves", he said, looking out the door before the stranger came in, "are gone now."








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