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Blind Joe Death (1965)
TrackList
01. Beautiful Linda Getchell
02. Orinda-Moraga
03. I Am The Resurrection
04. On The Sunny Side Of The Ocean
05. Tell Her To Come Back Home
06. My Station Will Be Changed After While
07. 101 Is A Hard Road To Travel
08. How Green Was My Valley
09. Bicycle Built For Two
10. The Death Of The Clayton Peacock
11. Brenda's Blues
12. Old Southern Medley
13. Come Back Baby
14. Poor Boy
15. Saint Patrick's Hymn
@320 kb/s
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Days Have Gone By Vol.6. (1967)
01. The Revolt Of The Dyke Brigade
02. Impressions Of Susan
03. Joe Kirby Blues
04. Night Train Of Valhalla
05. The Portland Cement Factory At Monolith California
06. A Raga Called Pat - Part One
07. A Raga Called Pat - Part Two
08. My Shepherd Will Supply My Needs
09. My Grandfather's Clock
10. Days Have Gone By
11. We Would Be Building
@192 kb/s
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The Voice Of The Turtle (1968)
TrackList:
01. Bottleneck Blues [3:03]
02. Bill Cheatum [1:52]
03. Lewisdale Blues [2:13]
04. Bean Vine Blues [2:42]
05. Bean Vine Blues #2 [2:47]
06. A Raga Called Pat - Part 3 [9:03]
07. A Raga Called Pat - Part 4 [4:25]
08. Train [1:44]
09. Je Ne Me Suis Reveilais Matin Pas En May [2:19]
10. The Story Of Dorothy Gooch, Part 1 [5:23]
11. Nine Pound Hammer [1:57]
12. Lonesome Valley [1:41]
@192 kb/s
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Christmas Album !!!
TrackList:
01. Joy To The World 1:53
02. What Child Is This 3:01
03. Medley: Hark, The Herald Angels Sing / O Come All Ye Faithful 3:10
04. Auld Lang Syne 2:02
05. The Bells Of St. Mary's 2:11
06. Good King Wencelas 1:09
07. We Three Kings Of Orient Are 1:49
08. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen 2:42
09. The First Noel 2:11
10. Christ's Saints Of God Fantasy 10:17
11. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear 1:28
12. Go I Will Send Thee 3:00
13. Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming 3:45
14. Silent Night, Holy Night 1:12
15. Oh Holy Night 3:28
16. Christmas Medley 3:30
17. Russian Christmas Overture 6:46
18. White Christmas 4:59
19. Carol of the Bells 2:37
20. Christmas Fantasy 3:30
107mb
320kbps
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Old Girlfriends & Other Horrible Memories {1992}
John Fahey is to the steel string acoustic guitar what Chuck Berry was to rock `n roll, what the Sex Pistols and The Clash were to punk and what Robert Johnson was to the blues. He began recording in 1958, and some 25 albums later delivers Old Girlfriends And Other Horrible Memories, on which he recalls old memories with Fats Domino's "Blueberry Hill," the Platters' "Twilight Time" and Phil Battiste's "Sea Of Love." Old Girlfriends is a solo acoustic album, and the performance on this record flows and ebbs with folk, blues and classical impulses in mind. Though the title would suggest a more moribund attitude, the mood on Old Girlfriends is one that finds comfort in a certain melancholia and longing spirit rather than dwelling on darker hues. That Fahey can evoke all these emotions with just an acoustic guitar proves the power possible behind simplicity, how one insturment can captivate with only feeling, and in this case memories, providing the motivation. In addition to the covers mentioned above, also try the originals "The Thing At The End Of New Hampshire Avenue" and "View." ~ CMJ New Music Report Issue: 274 - Mar 06, 1992
Tracklist:
01. Twilight Time 2:32
02. The Sea Of Love 2:08
03. In Darkest Night: 4:05
04. Blueberry Hill 2:42
05. A Rose & A Baby Ruth 2:07
06. Claire 3:16
07. The Thing At The End Of New Hampshire Avenue 3:33
08. Don't 3:10
09. View 4:14
10. Dianne Kelly 7:45
11. Fear & Loathing At 4th & Butternut 3:34
12. Twilight On Prince Georges Avenue 4:06
@224kbps
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Sea Changes & Coelacanths: A Young Persons Guide To John Fahey {2006}
A 2 CD anthology collection of the now out of print Table Of The Elements releases, Womblife (1997), Georgia Stomps, Atlanta Struts, & Other Contemporary Dance Favorites (1998, recorded live) and the limited posthumously released suite, Hard Time Empty Bottle Blues (2003).
Playing with versatility and a fierce imagination, Fahey expanded the boundaries of the guitar, and his contribution to American music is immense. Here is his trademark American Primitive sound at its most harrowing and resolute. Featuring Skip James-influenced vignettes, deep-sea string bendings, sonic collages, oaken reverberations, and lengthy, impressionistic suites, these recordings, made between 1996 and 1998, comprise a major portion of Fahey's canon. Undiluted, uncompromised, starkly honest, pure of vision and innovative.
TrackList:
CD 1:
01. Sharks 9:20
02. Planaria 9:54
03. Eels 6:14
04. Coelacanths 7:31
05. Juana 12:35
06. Hard Time Empty Bottle Blues I 2:18
07. Hard Time Empty Bottle Blues II 3:05
08. Hard Time Empty Bottle Blues III 1:34
09. Hard Time Empty Bottle Blues IV 2:24
CD 2:
01. House of the Rising Sun/Nightmare[live] 19:08
02. Juana/Guitar Lamento [live] 17:05
03. Red Rocking Chair [live] 9:25
04. Song For Sara [live] 6:19
05. Son House/Marilyn/My Prayer/Mood Indigo [live] 21:04
@256 - 2 x 95.78MB + 41.97MB
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In Concert & Interviews 1969 & 1996
DVD Audio Rip
I'll try & Post the DVD Video in a few months when I'm not so busy.
Tracks 1-8 are taken from the television program 'Guitar, Guitar,' 1969.
Tracks 9-26 are taken from a live concert in California, 1996.
John Fahey (a.k.a. Blind Joe Death) has been called the father of American Primitive Guitar. He brought a force and inventiveness to his compositions and playing that is firmly rooted in country blues and folk traditions. We open this DVD with a 1969 appearance on Laura Weber's 'Guitar, Guitar' TV show. John talks about his sources of inspiration, guitar styles and techniques and general thoughts on playing. We then jump thirty years to a concert John gave at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, California. His physical appearance has changed but his approach and guitar style are still the same. John performs his "hits" but he is not afraid to explore and extend these compositions to new areas and boundaries. Together with his audience he travels the musical highways that have influenced his playing and composing. This is the magic of John Fahey.
"I try to keep changing my pieces each performance. If I get to having fun changing it, especially the syncopation and dynamics, then the audience really gets off on it, and it sounds like an orchestra."
Tracklist:
01 - Guitar, Guitar Part 1
02 - Red Pony
03 - Guitar, Guitar Part 2
04 - Death Of The Clayton Peacock
05 - Guitar, Guitar Part 3
06 - Farther Along - In Christ There Is No East Or West
07 - Guitar, Guitar Part 4
08 - Untitled Medley
09 - City Of Refuge [live]
10 - On Learning Guitar [live]
11 - Mexico [live]
12 - On Composing [live]
13 - Discarded [live]
14 - On Sylvester Weaver [live]
15 - Guitar Rag [live]
16 - On Solo Guitar Concerts [live]
17 - Who Will Rock The Cradle [live]
18 - 50's Intro [live]
19 - 50's Medley [live]
20 - On Composing 'On The Sunnyside Of The Ocean' [live]
21 - On The Sunnyside Of The Ocean [live]
22 - On Canvasing For Old Blues Records [live]
23 - St. Vitus Dance [live]
24 - On Playing Gothic Industrial Ambience [live]
25 - Dorothy [live]
26 - Evening Not Night [live]
@320 - 2 x 95.78MB + 23.69MB
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City Of Refuge {1997}
Tracklist:
01 - Fanfare
02 - Mill Pond, the
03 - Chelsey Silver, Please Come Home
04 - City Of Refuge I
05 - City Of Refuge III
06 - Hope Slumbers Eternal
07 - On The Death & Disembowelment Of The New Age
@320 - 143.08MB
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Let Go {1987}
Tracklist:
01 - Let Go
02 - Black Mommy
03 - Dvorak
04 - World Is Waiting For The Sunrise, the
05 - Deep River - Old Man River
06 - Lights Out
07 - Pretty Afternoon
08 - Sunset On Prince George's County
09 - Layla
10 - Old Country Rock
@320 - 98.57MB
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Rain Forests, Oceans & Other Themes {2002}
Tracklist:
01 Melody Ocean
02 Layla
03 Rain Forest
04 World Is Waiting For The Sunrise, the
05 Lullaby
06 Atlantic High
07 Samba De Orfeo
08 Theme & Variations
09 May This Be Love - Casey Jones
10 Intro To Ocean Waves - Ocean Waves
11 Juroscho Ascopi
12 St. Patrick's Hymn
@320 - 118.54MB
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Requia & Other Compositions for Guitar Solo {1967}
John Fahey's extended experimentations decades later with avant-garde's music elite is foreshadowed on 1967's adventurous Requia. These moody, contemplative instrumental works (all featuring Fahey at his guitar-playing peak) resonate with passion, artistry, and--most of all--soul. "When the Catfish Is in Bloom" gradually crescendoes with Fahey's increasing, breakneck tempo, which--around the six-minute mark--becomes a blur of impossible fingerpicking that is both awe-inspiring and swinging. In the first part of "Requiem for Molly," the listener is bombarded by sound samples and tape loops, with Fahey slowly finding his chords. But the guitarist doesn't just noodle; he lets the composition slowly unfold, with humorous found-sound samples abounding and enough familiar guitar themes creeping up to keep you on guard. By part 3 Fahey reaches his most melancholy moment, letting out a methodical rendition of "California Dreaming" on top of lion roars and human screams. Though Fahey's playing influenced an entire generation of talented young guitar pickers, including Leo Kottke, his conceptual prowess goes unmatched here. A truly seminal recording.
JF in 1968: “Requia stinks. I was drunk during the recording sessions and they put the splices in the wrong places. Don’t buy it. It’s bad news.”
I quickly found that I can temper the guitar as I like. I can play my own tunings. I can do whatever I like with it. I am quite free with my guitar. But I am not free of it. For some remunerative neck-strap has strung me to it. I myself am no freer that one of the strings on it. And in what does that freedom consist but to be tuned up and down - or to break. But a broken string is thrown away even if it was "dead" before, being no longer of any use to anyone at all. No not that.
Tracklist:
01 Requiem For John Hurt [5:05]
02 Requiem For Russell Blaine Cooper [8:51]
03 When The Catfish Is In Bloom [7:37]
04 Requiem For Molly, Part 1 [7:35]
05 Requiem For Molly, Part 2 [7:41]
06 Requiem For Molly, Part 3 [2:28]
07 Requiem For Molly, Part 4 [2:55]
08 Fight On Christians, Fight On [1:55]
@320 - 97.99MB
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Georgia Stomps, Atlanta Struts & Other Contemporary Dance Favorites {1998}
Tracklist:
01 - House Of The Rising Sun - Nightmare
02 - Juana - Guitar Lamento
03 - Red Rocking Chair
04 - Song For Sara
05 - Son House - Marilyn My Prayer Mood Indigo
@320 - 166.06MB
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Yes! Jesus Loves Me: Guitar Hymns
Label: Takoma
Year: 1980
Review by Mark Allan
Fahey transforms traditional hymns and assorted Christian music into gorgeous, crystal-clear music that even non-believers can appreciate. Remarkably, amid all the Christian melodies is the Wild West Hero theme by Jeff Lynne. Alone in a Santa Monica studio with his steel-stringed guitar, Fahey weaves a spell with his precise picking and odd tunings. These musical snippets -- none longer than 2:38 -- are unlikely to convert anyone to Christianity. But if you unplug the phone, turn off the TV and give it the chance, this music might briefly remove you from your everyday existence.
Tracks
01. Yes! Jesus Loves Me
02. Stand Up, Stand Up For Jesus
03. Medley: Lord Of All Hopefulness/All Through The Night
04. Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel
05. Two American Folk Hymns real audio
06. For All The Beauty Of The Earth
07. St. Patrick's
08. Holy, Holy, Holy
09. Come Labour On
10. St. Clements
11. For All The Saints
12. At The Name Of Jesus
13. Medley: Come Thou Almighty King/Wild Western Hero
14. Praise To The Lord
15. Lord, I Want To Be A Christian In My Heart
16. Faith Of Our Fathers
17. Just As I Am
18. Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
19. Jesus Christ Is Risen Today
20. Yes! Jesus Loves Me (reprise)
mp3 256 kbps | with cover | 71mb
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A Tribute to John Fahey
Label: Kicking Mule
Year: 1979
never released on cd
like most kicking mule projects, the musicianship is excellent, though they don't really explore many new directions.
Artist/Tracklist:
Bob Hadley
- Revelation On The Bank Of The Pantuxent
Arvid Smith
- Joe Kirby Blues
Stephen Connolly
- Desperate Man Blues
Woddy Harris
-When The Springtime Comes Again
Arvid Smith
- Sail AwayLadies
Woody Harris
- Sunflower River Blues
Arvid Smith
- The Death Of Clayton Peacock
Stephen Connolly
- Sligo River Blues
Arvid Smith
- The Yellow Princess
- In Christ There Is No East Or West
from vinyl rip | mp3 220+vbr | 59mb
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After the Ball
Year: 1973
Label: Collector's Choice
Review by Jeff Schwachter
Pairing Fahey with what appears to be a Dixieland revival band, After the Ball, Fahey's second and last Reprise release, stands as one of the stranger recordings of his enigmatic career. With Fahey performing solo and in duet with mandolin, banjo, and uke player Allen Reuse, or with an entire "orchestra" backing him, the album suffers from too many mood swings. Individually, however, the tunes are strong and the arrangements very accessible and light. This may have to do with the fact that it was Fahey's first step (along with his 1972 release, Of Rivers and Religion) into the mainstream. Notably, the major label album release would help gather momentum for crossover solo acoustic steel string instrumentalists such as Alex De Grassi and William Ackerman in years to come. Although the "orchestra" featured on the album tends to squash out Fahey entirely, his solo guitar is featured on nearly every tune. The several solo and duet pieces include originals like the very pretty "Beverly," the eventual concert staple "Hawaiian Two Step," the obscure Dixieland piece "New Orleans Shuffle," and Reverend Gary Davis' "Candy Man." As is the norm with Fahey, the album is like a very serious joke. The album cover and even the selected tunes and titles are cuttingly funny, but the songs themselves are played warmly and delivered with care, heartfelt arrangements, and a slightly satirical sentimentality. As with previous humorous stunts such as Fahey's 1968 album The Voice of the Turtle and his early releases under the pseudonym of Blind Joe Death, After the Ball shows listeners another side of the world Fahey habituated. The title track, done up in pure 1930s fashion, proves that -- along with his intuitive guitar playing, unhinged sense of timing, and strange humor -- Fahey's nostalgia lay beyond the Delta blues players he admired and stretched into all musical forms.
Tracks:
01 Horses - Fahey - 2:07
02 New Orleans Shuffle - Whitmore - 3:17
03 Beverly - Fahey - 4:48
04 Om Shanthi Norris - Fahey - 5:49
05 I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free - Dallas, Fahey, Taylor - 2:35
06 When You Wore a Tulip (And I Wore a Big Red Rose) - Mahoney, Wenrich - 2:33
07 Hawaiian Two-Step - Fahey - 2:39
08 Bucktown Stomp - Fahey - 2:14
09 Candy Man - Davis - 1:26
10 After the Ball - Hammerstein, Kern - 3:39
mp3 192kbps | w/ cover
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Fare Forward Voyagers (Soldier's Choice)
Year: 1974/2007
Label: Takoma/Shanachie
Product Description
2007 reissue for John Fahey's 1973 Takoma release, his only non-Christian religious recording. Released for the first time with its original sleeve, the packaging also includes facsimiles of the "Yogaville West" leaflet that accompanied the first pressings. The album consists of three long tracks recorded in tribute to Swami Satchidananda. Fahey later said 'Probably the primary reason I got involved with them was that I fell in love with Swami Satchidananda's secretary Shanti Norris. So I was doing benefits for them, hoping to score points with her, and along the way I learned a lot of hatha yoga.' Takoma. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.
Throughout each track, Fahey changes tempo constantly. A single phrase may accelerate to a gallop and slow to a crawl within seconds, to hypnotic effect. - Aegri Somnia Vana, Chicago
Review by Tom Mobbs, Dirty Linen
February/March 1993
Fare Forward Voyagers, a precursor to the New Age Guitar sound released in 1973, consists of three ethereal compositions. Fahey has captured wisps of smoke and presented them in musical form. It doesn't have a strict melody line; as the music floats past, a hint of melody will become sharply defined for a few moments, then melt back into the mist, leaving one anxious for the next treasure. His notes ring clear and true wherever the melody takes him.
Notes on the Songs:
This is Fahey’s non-Christian religious album. On the reverse of the sleeve there is this: “I respectfully dedicate this album to my guru, Swami Satchidananda”. Inside the first issue of the album there was a 4 page pamphlet entitled “Yogaville West”, which, we were informed, was “a growing spiritual community in the beautiful mountains of Lake County, Northern California”. Surmounting three pictures of the community was the following message:
“I would like to introduce you to this healthy, spiritually based concept of living. The 46 people living here follow the ideals of Integral Yoga as taught by Swami Satchidananda. To the extent that I have practised these techniques, they really seem to work. – John Fahey.”
JF in 1994: Probably the primary reason I got involved with them was that I fell in love with Swami Satchidananda’s secretary Shanti Norris. So I was doing benefits for them, hoping to score points with her, and along the way I learned a lot of hatha yoga.
JF in 1990 said that this record was in his opinion, his greatest guitar record, adding that it contained only one edit. He gave up playing the three songs as they were too demanding.
When the Fire and the Rose are One
Phrases from Requiem for Russell Blaine Cooper included right at the end.
Thus Krishna on the Battlefield
Includes a lot of When the Catfish is in Bloom. Note: I don’t think so. However the following track does.
Fare Forward Voyagers
This 23:42 song finishes with a slight return of Dalhart, Texas, 1967; Fahey’s interpretation of Jess Morris’ Goodbye, Old Paint. See America.
.
JOHN FAHEY AND T S ELIOT: A LITERARY NOTE
The titles on this record are from Eliot’s Four Quartets.
Fare forward
O voyagers, O seamen
You who came to port, and you whose bodies
Will suffer the trial and the judgement of the sea
Or whatever event, this is your real destination.
So Krishna, as when he admonished Arjuna
On the field of battle.
Not fare well,
But fare forward, voyagers.
All manner of things shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
A Customer Said:
John Fahey recorded one free-form album. And this is it.
Fare Forward Voyagers is Fahey's mystical album. It dives deep, and then swoops upward into complex reveries of cadences and rhythms. Although he occasionally anchors his compositions in delta blues hooks, the music pushes ever forward, as the title suggests.
Fare Forward Voyagers is one of the most sophisticated acoustic guitar albums ever recorded. However, it didn't sell as well as Fahey's more accessible albums, and he never again revisited this approach.
Fahey himself had warned against what he called "orientalism." And yet, here he is, flaunting his own rule. Again, according to Fahey, for the love of a Yogi's secretary.
But don't let this endearing story distract from the intent of the compositions. This album is a serious excursion.
If you are a Fahey follower, Fare Forward Voyagers is essential. If you are a guitar player or guitar music fan, it's a rare journey to the heights of solo acoustic guitar.
TrackList:
01. When the Fire and the Rose are One [13:55]
02. Thus Krishna on the Battlefield [6:36]
03. Fare Forward Voyagers [23:42]
mp3 192 | w/ cover
I Remember Blind Joe Death
Year: 1988
Label: Varrick
"Cats by nature
Nature by God
God by God."
Dedicated to the lovely Leslie Alexander and the Oregon Art Fart Commission
produced by Tinh (quang) Mahoney
This is not the type of record we have come to expect from the incredibly gifted guitar player John Fahey. It sounds like it could have been recorded by the Library of Congress-long lost recordings of Blind Joe Death or something like that (check out the liner notes here-they're a real howl). Fahey is presented completely alone, just him and his Laguna guitar. The record is rooted in a deep delta blues sound-but that's certainly not where it ends. "The Evening Mysteries Of Ferry Street" and "You'll Find Her Name Written There" lead off on a fairly straight blues tack, with bent steel twang and plenty of slide. Ah, dem blues. Then things start to get interesting. "A Minor Blues" (like "Improv In E Minor") uses its different modality to add a Spanish feel (bluegrass in the case of "Improv"). "Steel Guitar Rag" is just that, reminiscent of "The Ballad Of Jesse James." Side two leads off with our favorite, "Nightmare/Summertime," a spooky rendering of Gershwin's "Summertime." "Lava On Waikiki" is another slide blues, but embellished with Hawaiian overtones. Topping off the record is a soft and contemplative rendering of Bola Sete's "Gaucho." Fabulous.
- CMJ New Music Report Issue: 137 - Feb 12, 1988
TrackList:
01 The Evening Mysteries of Ferry Street - Fahey - 3:28
02 You'll Find Her Name Written There - Hensley - 1:36
03 The Minutes Seem Like Hours, The Hours Seem Like Days - Fahey - 4:02
04 Are You from Dixie? - traditional - 2:45
05 A Minor Blues - traditional - 4:42
06 Steel Guitar Rag - traditional - 2:26
07 Nightmare/Summertime - Gershwin, Gershwin, Heyward ... - 5:25
08 Let Me Call You Sweetheart - Bernstein, Friedman, Press ... - 2:12
09 Unknown Tango - traditional - 3:54
10 Improv in E Minor - Fahey - 7:31
11 Lava on Waikiki - Fahey - 2:18
12 Gaucho - Sete - 6:00
mp3 192 | w/ cover
Notes on the Songs:
You’ll Find Her Name Written There
By Bill Monroe
On and on she’ll walk this earth
Her face like a beautiful flower
But all alone is a marble stone
You’ll find her name written there
Her new voice rings where the angels sing
Her voice so pure and so fair
And if you’ll look in the Heavenly book
You’ll find her name written there
I’m all alone since the call of fate
Left me in deepest despair
And if you’ll wait at the pearly gate
You’ll find her name written there
I’ll breathe her name into the air
It goes and I know not where
But if you look in the heart of a friend
You’ll find her name written there
The Minutes Seem Like Hours, The Hours Seem Like Days
Title (at least) from Willie Brown’s Future Blues (1930).
Can’t tell my future, and I can’t tell my past
Can’t tell my future, and I can’t tell my past
Lord, it seems like every minute sure gonna be my last
The minutes seems like hours and hours seems like days
The minutes seems like hours and hours seems like days
And it seems like my woman oughta stop her lowdown ways.
The woman I love now, she’s five feet from the ground.
I said, the woman I love now, Lordy, five feet from the ground.
And she’s tailor made, ain’t no hand me down
Are You From Dixie?
trad. arr. John Fahey/Tortoise Music
Hello there neighbour, how do you do
There’s something I’d like to say of you
You’re from my own land, my sunny homeland
Tell me is it true?
Are you from Dixie? I said from Dixie
Where the fields of cotton beckon to me
Hello how do you feel, I’m glad to see you
Here’s the friends I waited to see
If you’re from Alabama, Tennessee or Caroline
Anyplace below that Mason Dixon line
Then you’re from Dixie, hurray for Dixie
Cause I’m from Dixie too
Cf versions by the Blue Sky Boys, Grandpa Jones, the Prairie Ramblers, and so on.
A Minor Blues
trad. arr. John Fahey/Tortoise Music
Steel Guitar Rag
trad. arr. John Fahey/Tortoise Music
Many people have recorded versions of this one, originally committed to vinyl by Sylvester Weaver – Spade Cooley, Merle Travis, Jimmie Tarlton, Bob Wills, and so forth.
Nightmare/Summertime
Artie Shaw & George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Du Bose Heyward/Chappell & Co. & Gershwin Publ. Corp.
Eli Siegel, American poet and critic, recalls:
"The composition Nightmare by the late Artie Shaw wowed me when I first heard it as a teenager living in the Bronx. It was on a big band radio show. The announcer would come on and say, 'Now, live from the Blue Room of the Hotel Lincoln, the music of Artie Shaw and his orchestra' – and the band would come in with the opening bars of Nightmare. Hearing that intense, heavy, unrelenting beat, and Shaw on the clarinet seeming to cry out, I would get goose bumps – and I still do!."
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
Leo Friedman, Beth Slater Whitson/Shapiro-Bernstein & Shawnee Press, arr. John Fahey/Tortoise Music
Longing for you all the while, more and more
Longing for the sunny smile, I adore;
Birds are singing far and near, roses blooming ev’rywhere
You, alone, my heart can cheer; you, just you
No more! That’s enough of that!
Unknown Tango
Bola Sete’s title for this, which he plays on Ocean Vol 2, is Jogada.
Gaucho
By Bola Sete (from the incomparable Ocean) Elements of this composition were introduced into “Christmas Fantasy” on JF’s 1975 Xmas album.
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John Fahey & His Orchestra - Old Fashioned Love
Though his abiding affection for music glad or sad is obvious here, be not deceived that he has joined the nostalgia craze. Any overly sentimental hand he extends has a buzzer in it.
Guitar Player
Recorded at Blue Rock Studio, NYC & United/Western Recorders, Hollywood
Review by Richard Foss
If anyone doubts the degree to which John Fahey was stereotyped as a folk guitarist, the reception of this album should be instructive. Old Fashioned Love is a wonderful release, a celebration of early 20th century musical styles. Every track is played with charm and wit, from the solo guitar pieces to the full orchestral works. Indeed, on the first half of the CD we hear not just John Fahey the guitarist, but also John Fahey the arranger and orchestra leader. The delicate guitar solos on the classical "In a Persian Market" are framed by lively ensemble work by Fahey's ten-person "orchestra," a group which proves adept at ragtime and blues styles. This was Fahey's second album with this band, and the chemistry is obvious -- he later remarked that this was the most sympathetic and understanding group of musicians he had ever worked with. Nevertheless, this is not a complete break with the solo guitar albums, as the last three cuts on the album are 100% pure Fahey. They are, however, not folkie pieces. Two are firmly in the old-time style, and one is a guitar transcription of a Hindu chant. All three are fine, delicately contemplative works that equal anything he was doing in the previous decade. Alas, most of the people who bought John Fahey albums wanted pretty folk guitar tracks, and they weren't interested in anything else regardless of how excellent it sounded. Old Fashioned Love was acclaimed by many critics but was rejected by the folk crowd that Fahey himself was coming to detest.
Pitchfork Review:
John Fahey was a lover, first picking up the guitar in a gas station as a means of picking up chicks. So a good way to become enamored with Fahey's catalog is to just pick any track fixated on a woman, and go from there: "Impressions of Susan", "A Raga Called Pat", "Requiem for Molly", "Beverly", "Juana", or on this particular disc, "Marilyn". Each lady is lovely, dark, ultimately unknowable. Is Juana really a waitress in Oregon? Was Molly really out on Knott's Berry Farm? Who was this Marilyn?
She is lush yet sad, and that might even be her squinched up on the cover, painfully reclining and staring out into space. When Fahey is playing her, it's at a much slower pace than the rest of the first side of this 1974 reissue. Second guitarist Woodrow Mann's second guitar glistens across Fahey's lead, each taking their sweet time in waving goodbye to her. The small diversions they take along every line are as exceptionally awkward as any of Thelonious Monk's irregularly melodic spurs, yet for all the unhurried and dissonant playing, the quickly picked finale shines a brighter hue on this lovely figure.
Apart from the ladies, this particular session shows how Fahey's talents took him much further afield of the blues path than most people will credit him for. Here he tackles in succession "In a Persian Market" and the Hindu chant "Jaya Shiva Shankarah", the two guitars twining around their Byzantine themes with a heck of a lot of flange, giving the fluctuating fingerpicked patterns a secondary weaving of soundwaves.
"Old Fashioned Love" is prime Fahey playing in its own right, but with the midway appearance of the old timey orchestra consisting of jug, banjo, clarinet, tuba, trumpet, trombone, piano, and drums, the ditty goes to a place seldom heard elsewhere in the man's catalog. The affected cymbal crash at the end also gives it an odd modern spin that confounds them ornery notions of time and nostalgia. John was never that easy to glean. "Boodle Am Shake" sounds straight off the shellac itself, Fahey blending into the background of the ensemble perfectly and sending up that wonderfully ridiculous refrain-- it's the one of the few instances of standard singing in his oeuvre.
Fred McDowell's standard "Keep Your Light Trimmed and Burning" is recast here as a 1920s big band number to excellent effect, the Fahey arrangement a particular surprise. Very rarely would he work with so many attuned musicians before or after this point. The set closes with one of his truly magical works, "Dry Bones in the Valley (I Saw the Light Coming Shining 'Round and 'Round)", which was a gateway for many through the cover version exacted with Tony Conrad on Gastr del Sol's Upgrade and Afterlife set. The effects are off, the session musicians sent home, and it's a beatific example of Fahey's opened steel strings resonating into the infinite, droning yet with numerous emotional contours unfurling in the chiming notes. It may have aged 28 years, but Old Fashioned Love remains a consistently surprising collection of Fahey's many loves.
— Andy Beta, June 2, 2003
TrackList:
01. In a Persian Market
02. Jaya Shiva Shankarah
03. Marilyn
04. The Assassination of Stephan Grossman
05. Old Fashioned Love
06. Boodle-Am-Shake
07. Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning
08. Dry Bones in the Valley
mp3 256 | w/ cover
Notes on the Songs:
In a Persian Market
Composed 1920 by Albert Ketelbey (1875-1959). Fahey adds the song Chinatown, My Chinatown into the mix. He would have known versions of that song by the Mills Brothers, Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra, and Red Nichols.
Jaya Shiva Shankarah
JF: “A duet with Woody Mann. I was in open C; don’t know what Woody was in. I lived in a Hindu monastery in India for a while, and that was the first song we’d sing in the morning before meditation, 4am Traditional Hindu.”
(from the notes to Return of the Repressed)
Marilyn
The name of Fahey’s girlfriend at the time.
The Assassination of Stephan Grossman
He responded with The Assassination of John Fahey (released on the album Thunder on the Run). Grossman's name is mis-spelled in the title.
Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning
We believe the source for this one to be the Rev. Gary Davis but Fahey has transposed the melody into an easier fingering, oddly bringing it into the orbit of Willie the Weeper, aka Winnie the Wailer. Other versions of Keep Your Lamps were by Mississippi Fred MacDowell and Blind Willie Johnson.
Dry Bones in the Valley
The title comes from the lyrics of Dry Bones by Bascom Lamar Lunsford (on AAFM). No discernable melodic connection. The title reference is to Ezekiel 37.1-14.
Interested parties may wish to seek out Upgrade and Afterlife (1996) by that post-everything group Gastr del Sol, featuring the youthful Jim O’Rourke, which contains a fairly stunning 15-minute version of Dry Bones.
Note on the three orchestra records:
in 1990 Fahey remarked that he had never worked with such sympathetic, understanding musicians.
Download:
Hitomi
"Fahey often takes an awkward, stumbling gait, pursuing the road not taken; his deliberate, firmly scribed, honest playing drawing you towards him, despite the unforgiving glare of his harsh-toned acoustic." ******-motion
Produced by John Fahey
All selections composed and performed by John Fahey except for A History of Tokyo Rail Traction which is composed by John Fahey/Tim Knight/Rob Scrivener, and performed by them in trio.
Tracks:
01. Delta Flight 53
02. Despair
03. Hitomi
04. Tanaka Jun**
05. East Meets West
06. Hitomi Smiles
07. The Dance of the Cat People
08. A History of Tokyo Rail Traction
09. Delta Flight 54
mp3 192 | w/ cover
Download:
John Fahey Trio Vol. One
Year: 2002
Label: Jazzoo Records
Originally issued as
One Hit Records 0002
"Judge us not on how weird we are,
but on how weird the world we live in is."
Performers:
John Fahey - guitar
Tim Knight - organ, bass, guitar
Rob Scrivner - guitar, guitar, guitar
Notes on the Songs
The Trio work is Fahey at his most noisy, tuneless and experimental. Some of it just sounds like roadworks outside your house. Guitar, keyboard and a ton of effects, plus at times JF intoning very funny parts of liner notes to previous albums. It’s fairly excruciating to my shell-like ears, but I’m aware that some folks LIKE this kind of thing – there are dozens of noise bands out there. Fahey’s favourites were Einsturzende Neubauten – so if you like those bad boys, this is for you. But if you love Sunflower River Blues or The Death of the Clayton Peacock then invest in a pack of Anadin Extra before pressing Play. You have been warned.
Literary allusions:
The Second Coming by W B Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Intro/She/ Things Fall Apart.
In the intro the m/c says Fahey is just back from Japan, which would probably mean spring/summer 99.
This third album, which was more officially released than the first two, features two new tracks, one alternate version and the rest from Good Luck.
Tracks/Credits:
01. Intro
John - guitar and EFX
02. She
John - 7 string guitar,
Tim - bells and seagulls
Rob - guitar and EFX
Things Fall Apart[/b]
John - guitar, Tim - bass, Rob - guitar
03. Hitomi Cries
John - acoustic guitar, Tim - EFX and horn
04. The Center Will Not Hold
John Fahey - organ, Tim - melowbar, Rob - guitar
05. Scherzo
John, Tim, Rob - guitar
06. Oregon Capitol Inn
John - guitar/story, Tim - organ, Rob - guitar
07. A Drunken Tale to Hide
John - guitar, Tim - piano, Rob - EFX
08. Like Being Reborn Again
John - guitar synthesizer, Tim - EFX
09. Final Song Live
John - 7 string guitar, Rob - guitar, Tim - keyboards, John Flaming - alto sax
10. Tina In The Rain
John & Rob - guitar, Tim - organ
mp3 160 | w/ cover
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The Legend Of Blind Joe Death
Year: 2006
Label: Fantasy
Review by Richie Unterberger
The saga of Blind Joe Death is an extremely confusing one, for those listeners who haven't been following Fahey's career from the beginning. In short: Fahey originally recorded Blind Joe Death in 1959, in an extremely rare, self-released edition of less than 100 copies. Though few heard it, his debut album was a groundbreaker on the acoustic folk scene in its unusually experimental approach to blues and folk styles, though its innovations sound relatively tame when compared to the best of Fahey's subsequent work. Fahey reissued the album in 1964 on Takoma, re-recording some of the cuts, and dropping one selection ("West Coast Blues"). In 1967, when the album was issued for the stereo market, Fahey re-recorded the entire album from scratch, resulting in performances of the exact same new material, but with improved fidelity and technique. This reissue does us all a mammoth favor by combining the 1964 and 1967 editions of the album (which, to make matters more confusing, bore the exact same catalog number, Takoma 1002) onto one 75-minute disc. A previously unreleased 1964 version of "West Coast Blues," a song which had been on the 1959 edition of Blind Joe Death but was left off subsequent configurations, is added as a bonus cut. Completists should note that this is not the final word in the Blind Joe Death saga. Several of the versions originally presented on the 1959 album that were re-recorded for both the 1964 and 1967 remakes are still absent, for space reasons and because the compilers themselves feel that the later renditions are notably superior. Still, it's a near-definitive package of the important Blind Joe Death material, with extensive historical liner notes explaining the circumstances that gave rise to its various incarnations.
Some customers said:
This record should be required listening for anyone interested in playing acoustic blues, and it is a magnificent place for an interested listener seeking an introduction to the genre. This disc collects incarnations of Blind Joe Death, John Fahey's fictional and representative blues guitar master in varied modes and recording sessions. The two incarnations here are from 1963 and 1967--two sets of Blind Joe's songs--all instrumentals, by the way--two versions each of nine songs. Then there are additional tracks, including Fahey's "Trannscendental Waterfall" and Blind Blake's "West Coast Blues." For some that might be too much, but this is the legend after all. And this is a good place to hear the development of Fahey's special guitar voice. Fahey began by recreating and like all original voices, found that he was creating indeed. This is a collection of blues with a spiritual or rag thrown in when the spirit strikes. You're never sure who you are going to hear--Skip James, Gary Davis, John Hurt, Pink Anderson, Robert Johnson--Delta blues, some Piedmont--a potpourri of styles. First Fahey commanded the idiom. His technique is a panoply of flat and finger picking styles, including the pattern picking with open tunings that he learned from Skip James and John Hurt. But his uses of the techniques are sometimes surprising. Once he learned the licks, the patterns, the fingerings, he expanded for his own purposes. As the fictional Blind Joe, Fahey played some blues standards, interpreting them to suit his tastes and voice. Fahey's versions of W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" are distinctive. I say "versions" because there are two forms here, and the two sessions allow you to hear how Fahey grew between 1963 and 1967. The later recordings are clearer and more confident in their attack and accents. But they aren't necessarily "better," just different. The collection includes original songs such as "On Doing an Evil Deed Blues," "Poor Boy Long Ways from Town," "Desperate Man Blues," and some arrangements of known songs like "John Henry." This last owes some debt to John Hurt's "Spike Driver's Blues" although the second version is more experimental. When he is covering old blues songs, his recreations of the standards are convincingly authentic. In the original songs, Fahey uses the techniques, the methods of legendary figures and blends them in such a way that his originals are almost indistinguishable in style from the genuine article. This is the early John Fahey, before he diversified completely to blend the folk/blues idiom with eastern music and sonic experiments in texture and time. It is, nevertheless, a wonderful collection.
Now that John Fahey has left to contemplate the Void from the other side, it's time to consider his achievement. Ignore the peripheral--Fahey's rediscovery of legendary Delta blues players, his influence on other musicians, his cult-like status as enfant terrible/genius, the tragic path of his life--and listen to the music here. (An aside to those who complain that Fahey lacks the authenticity of his predecessors: get real. Fahey is no more a blues guitarist than James Joyce is an ancient epic poet because he alludes to Homer. The comparison is pointless.)
Cerebral, delicate, irrascible, wistful, earthy, contemplative, laconic, spiritual, desolate, joyous: these are the songs of an artist angry at the world because he loved it so much. All is unreconciled, all is reconciled; In Christ There Is No East or West. Through his original works, Fahey contributed some of the century's most remarkable songs:
"Sun Gonna Shine in My Back Door Someday Blues" leaps from raga to ragtime and back in what seems to be a simple conversation, until you realize the two sides are yin and yang, the same because the opposite.
"Sligo River Blues" opens with a pensive, circular phrase, then melds the uptempo rhythm of a nineteenth-century parlor song (e.g. Bicycle Built for Two) with nostalgic, melancholy chord changes--a mutually enobling sadness and beauty, a' la early Yeats.
"The Transcendental Waterfall," here in its original 10-minute length, anticipates the course of Fahey's work and life: restless, complex, dissatisfied; yearning for transcendence, finding it within the quest, not at its abrupt end; memorializing forever the young boy who, entranced by the score of the movie Thief of Baghdad, took up the guitar to recapture that lost magic.
The earlier takes here (tracks 1-9) are not merely for the scholar obsessed with footnotes; comparing the 1964 versions with those from 1967, you can better understand the architectural feat of the latter masterworks. If you own the 1967 original, buy the compilation, if only for the Transcendental Waterfall and the liner notes. If you're new to Fahey, ignore the samples here and beg, borrow, or buy this cd. Life's too short for lesser music.
TrackList:
01 On Doing an Evil Deed Blues - Fahey - 5:07
02 St. Louis Blues - Handy - 4:53
03 Poor Boy, Long Ways from Home - Fahey - 3:12
04 Uncloudy Day - Traditional - 3:23
05 John Henry - Traditional - 3:20
06 In Christ There Is No East or West - Burleigh, Dunkerly, Oxenham ... - 2:21
07 Desperate Man Blues - Fahey, Traditional - 4:05
08 Sun Gonna Shine in My Back Door Someday Blues - Fahey - 3:32
09 Sligo River Blues - Fahey - 3:05
10 On Doing an Evil Deed Blues - Fahey - 3:56
11 St. Louis Blues - Handy - 3:15
12 Poor Boy, Long Ways from Home - Fahey - 2:23
13 Uncloudy Day - Traditional - 2:22
14 John Henry - Traditional - 2:05
15 In Christ There Is No East or West - Blurleigh, Burleigh ... - 2:43
16 Desperate Man Blues - Fahey, Traditional - 3:58
17 Sun Gonna Shine in My Back Door Someday Blues - Fahey - 4:39
18 Sligo River Blues - Fahey - 2:33
19 I'm Gonna Do All I Can for My Lord - Fahey - 1:24
20 The Transcendental Waterfall - Fahey - 10:36
21 West Coast Blues - Fahey - 1:25
mp3 vbr | w/ cover
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The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick: Live at The Matrix San Francisco, California 1968/1969
Year: 2004
Label: Water
Pitchfork Review:
John Fahey is a tough nut to crack. What was his deal? How did people relate to his music during his heyday? In the 60s he was a "folky," sorta, but read his funny and weird liner notes from those records and he seems cut from a different cloth. Fahey later crossed paths with pianist George Winston (producing Winston's first album for his Takoma label) and and Windham Hill founder William Ackerman, and thus came dangerously close to being branded New Age. His best-selling record (and the only way most people would know his name) was a Christmas album. Then in the 90s we knew him through his Drag City association, working backwards from Jim O'Rourke's Bad Timing to see where it all started, and Fahey was canonized the patron saint of avant-garde folk. With all the new weird stuff from the past couple of years, he casts a longer shadow than ever.
It took me a long time to warm to the man's music. Years before I actually heard him, I would notice him being mentioned by other musicians, usually acoustic guitarists driving the road Fahey paved. In my mind Fahey developed an aura as a musician's musician, the dude with the chops and the idiosyncratic style that needed years of training to appreciate. Once I started becoming familiar with his records, the icy "musician's music" layer that had kept me from fully appreciating what he was doing began to thaw, and I began to understand the towering strength of his compositions. The songwriting hooked me.
Fahey was hitting on all cylinders throughout the 60s, stuffing great songs into more than a dozen albums. This prime era is well represented on this CD of previously unreleased live recordings, pulled from two shows in 1968 and 1969. It's only his third official live album, and the first from the 60s, so obviously The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick is an important release. Glenn Jones of Cul de Sac oversaw the preparation of the old tapes for release and contributes witty and personal liner notes, and the sharp packaging is a suitably tactile experience in honor of the man who founded the Revenant label.
Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Fahey's songs. "Requiem for Mississippi John Hurt" finds the pivot point between country blues and bluegrass, moving between a light, bouncing verse and sheets of furious picking on the chorus that manage to evoke both the hills of Kentucky and 20th Century minimalism. The stately "When the Catfish are in Bloom" sounds about 200 years old and parts of it probably are, as references to marching spirituals slowly pile up into a ringing cluster of notes. The slow opening of "In Christ There is No East or West" shows how easily melodic Fahey could be when so inclined, and "The Death of the Clayton Peacock," with its graceful slide notes hanging in the air like long curls of smoke, is pure atmosphere. With its strong selection of songs and impressive fidelity, The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick is a worthy summary of where Fahey was at this high point.
Musicians complain that critics like to pigeonhole. We're always straining to "stick you into a box" by scene, sound, or genre, summing up a life's passion in a single turn of phrase. Is it a fair complaint? Possibly. It's sort of an OCD thing, where we slip into thinking of music as a field of discrete categories, and expect artists to come to rest in their allotted slot (the record collection as coin sorting machine). It's normally a subconscious process, but it happens. There are exceptions, though, these initially puzzling artists that demand a more determined approach and, not coincidentally, rarely grow tiresome. Guys like John Fahey.
— Mark Richardson, February 13, 2005
Review by Richie Unterberger
Most of this 76-minute CD of previously unreleased live performances was recorded at the Matrix in San Francisco on February 14, 1968; it's uncertain when the rest was done, but the liner notes guess they were recorded a year later, in 1969. The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick is a solid addition to the John Fahey canon, as the sound is clear and excellent, if drier than much of his studio work. (It also has its share of dead air between songs, punctuated by detached and laconic announcements from the guitarist, though these don't detract from its listenability.) Most of the material presents concert versions of songs that appeared on various Fahey LPs in the '60s, performed with his usual eclectic taste and virtuosity. And as is customary for much of Fahey's work, it mixes the blues, Americana, and some experimental ideas without leaning too heavily on any one of those poles. For dedicated Fahey fans, the big find is the six-minute title track, the only one of these songs not to be included on any of his '60s records, though it contains portions of two compositions ("Requiem for Russell Blaine Cooper" and "Voice of the Turtle") that appeared on his 1967 album Requia & Other Compositions for Guitar Solo and his 1971 album America, respectively. "Dance of the Inhabitants of the Palace of King Philip XIV of Spain" lasts three minutes longer than the original Fahey version, too, with some interesting slide guitar work. Otherwise it's more a testament to Fahey's mastery of the tunes (and the guitar) than it is an exposure of unsuspected hidden sides of his art, but it's no less worthy for that.
A customer said:
I just bought this album, and I should probably listen to it and study
it for a decade or two, like I did with almost all the rest of Fahey's
amazing production, before pronouncing a verdict like this, but.... here
it comes. This could be the one Fahey CD to have if for some cruel and
unusual reason you were condemned to only have one. He was at the top
of his game in terms of creativity (though some of his early eighties live
guitar playing remains unmatched technically and is better recorded) and
chose a marvelous (marvelous!) set of compositions for these concerts,
including some of the more ambitious and complex symphony-like pieces,
as well as a handful of the more folksy and gospely arrangements that
made him a favorite of fingepicking gymnasts.
Live albums are my favorite of his, and this is inevitable, after seeing
him in concert. Live, he was shyer with kitch and gratuitous
experimentalism than he was on vinyl, but still visionary and
uncompromising. He communicated an energy, and a sense of complete
sincerity and meaning that where overwhelming and emotionally
exhausting. He also had a sound that was out of this world. I once hung
out with him for a couple of hours while he was warming up before a
concert. For him a warm-up was much like that of an athlete, because he
played strings that would have pulled a cable car and used picks that
could have been made out of the rails (ok, slight exhaggeration). But out of
all of that metal he managed to negotiate a rich, complex and
surprisingly warm range of tones, as well as a massive volume and
harmonic inhertia (check out the requiem for John Hurt). Most everyone
else on the same gear would sound like an old metal bridge swaying in
the wind.
So, listen to the beautifuly simple and profound melody of Joe Kirby
Blues. It is an elementary piece to play. If it does not get you to a
guitar store buying metal picks and steel strings (and the wood to go
with it) I don't know what else will.
TrackList:
01 Introduction - Fahey - :12
02 When the Springtime Comes Again - Fahey - 9:48
03 Joe Kirby Blues - Fahey - 3:45
04 Requiem for Mississippi John Hurt - Fahey - 4:19
05 When the Catfish Is in Bloom - Fahey - 7:56
06 Fahey Blows His Nose - Traditional - :46
07 Lion (Intro)/Challenges to Quitting Cigarettes - Fahey - 1:02
08 Lion - Fahey - 5:15
09 Dance of the Inhabitants of the Palace of King Philip XIV of Spain - Fahey - 5:32
10 View East from the B&O Railroad Viaduct and the Riggs Road ... - Fahey - 5:38
11 On the Sunny Side of the Ocean - Fahey - 3:31
12 The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick - Fahey - 6:37
13 In Christ There Is No East or West - P.D. - 2:48
14 Announcement - Fahey - :40
15 The Death of the Clayton Peacock - Fahey - 4:35
16 The Revolt of the Dyke Brigade - Fahey - 4:01
17 Magruder Park - Fahey - 9:52
mp3 >192kbps vbr | w/ cover
Download:
On Air
Year: 2005 (released)
Label: Tradition & Moderne
Customers said:
Given the vast catalog of John Fahey recordings now available in wonderful CD reissues, it's hard to believe I'm the first reviewer for this, but it was released relatively recently (2005).
The recording quality is fine. The performances are generally stellar, and John Fahey is absolutely in top form-as he is on the other live recordings now available from that time in his life. (His much-later, live electric excursions are another thing entirely!!). These include "Live in Tasmania" from the same tour as this set, according to the liner notes here by Henry Kaiser, and "The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick", from an earlier time, I believe.
In the On Air concert, occasionally the pace of a piece feels hurried but this also produces some stunning cascades of beautifully articulated playing. The titles are not entirely accurate, and there are a few medleys not described by the titles. The track titled 'In Christ There Is No East Or West' begins with that song, done thoroughly and beautifully- but then he segues somewhat abruptly into Beverly (elsewhere, Fahey titled this: Indian Pacific Railroad Blues). These are standard-tuning songs. Incidentally, this live recording of Beverly (Indian Pacific Railroad Blues) is the only one I know of apart from the [...] film clip of Fahey at the Rockpalast, which is a stunner.
On the "Live in Tasmania" CD, what is presented as if it were a live Beverly, and part of the Tasmania show (complete with applause) ISN'T; it's the same studio track from one of his recordings, with applause dubbed in. (The liner notes on the Tasmania CD indicate this in less direct terms.)
Back to On Air: the following track is titled 'Beverly' but is really a slide medley, in an open tuning, which includes 'Dance of the Inhabitants of the Palace of King Phillip XIV of Spain'. On Air offers many opportunities for Fahey to stretch and tweak the timing and feel of some songs, particularly Beverly, and this is quite exciting to me. If you already are quite familiar with Fahey's earlier studio recordings, you'll be highly aware of and appreciative of these improvisations.
I often read customer reviews which suggest that "if you had only one record..." and I'll throw in that if you had only one John Fahey recording, this would be a wonderful selection. Also, it is absolutely 'value for money', if that is a consideration- a very long record.
Briliant stuff. And thanks to Henry Kaiser for his notes. He emailed back to me to indicate that the track-labeling error re: Beverly, noted above, wasn't presented to him to review and correct- and he didn't even get a final copy of the recording from the issuing company!
The Tasmania recording is excellent as well, but several songs shorter, despite the 'fake-live' Beverly.
The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick another must-have, also a long CD with many selections. Which would be a favorite is a personal choice. I'd have guitar players interested in hearing or learning Fahey's music hear On Air, especially.
This is a must have release for any avid Fahey listener who is familiar with his early and middle work and can appreciate his meandering improvisations. I am not sure of the date, but this sounds like a late 70's/early 80's release. This comes from a point in his career where Fahey is still in great form and good health. Save for an isolated few gems, all of his subsequent material would be spotty, but here his improvisational abilities are stunning and he clearly has explored these tunes inside and out for years.
This is like one last great trip with an old friend that you know well... it's not really a good starting point for a new Fahey listener. Here Fahey is no longer on fire and all of his best material is behind him. It's not that this isn't great stuff... it's more that to approach and enjoy it fully and in context you really are best off by first immersing yourself in Vol 1-6 and his orchestrial efforts (Of Rivers & Religion, After the Ball, Old Fashioned Love). For a listener who has digested these and will recognize departures from the originals, this is essential listening. If you are not that listener and you want to listen to a younger Fahey - still on fire, and improvising more directly then you should grab "The Great San Bernadino Oil Slick" instead. But each are equally great in their own way and San Bernadino would be a great first step to this release. Don't get one of the weaker rerecordings of his stuff such as "God, Time and Causality".
For me, the high point was the improvisation throughout the incredible "Stomping Tonight on the Pennsylvania/Alabama Border". I listened to the mind bending take of this on "Death Chants, Breakdowns and Military Waltzes" for nearly 20 years and never knew that it was a rerecording. Then, Bill Bellmont of Fantasy stunned me with a rerelease of it on CD alongside of an eerily edgy prehistoric first take. Now, a decade later, we get to hear this alternate improvisational version with such unexpected rhythmic and melodic quirks. It is a treat beyond anything that I ever expected.
Review by Thom Jurek
John Fahey's On Air was recorded for Radio Bremen in Germany in 1978. The material is very similar to the Live in Tasmania release from 1980. As such, On Air explodes the myth that Fahey got drunk on an airplane on his way to Tasmania and decided to record a live album there and wrote the material precisely for that venture. No matter. Henry Kaiser -- who produced the Takoma re-release of Live in Tasmania as well -- has carefully and painstakingly assembled these tapes to offer a concert that is edgier, more adventurous, and altogether more fluid. The tunes reflect a concentration and free flow of ideas that capture the guitarist in top form, and he's clearly enjoying his audience. This set is longer, a full concert with fine sound. From old faves like "In Christ There Is No East or West" through to his stunning read of Gary Davis' "Candy Man" and the utterly magical "Steamboat Gwine 'Round de Bend," to the haunting "Beverly" and "Requiem for John Hurt," that closes the show, Fahey spins out a musical universe that straddles musical worlds, dips into them, and carries the detritus somewhere else to make something entirely new yet rooted in time immemorial. This document is a welcome addition to the Fahey shelf and a must for fans.
TrackList:
01 On the Sunny Side of the Ocean - Fahey - 3:52
02 Spanish Two-Step - Fahey - 2:09
03 Lion - Fahey - 6:28
04 Poor Boy a Long Way from Home - Fahey - 5:02
05 Wine & Roses - Fahey - 4:17
06 Steamboat Gwine 'Round de Bend - Fahey - 4:07
07 Worried Blues - Fahey - 2:10
08 Some Summer Day - Fahey - 3:26
09 Candy Man - Davis - 4:05
10 Stomping Tonight on the Pennsylvania/Alabama Border - Fahey - 8:16
11 In Christ There Is No East or West - Traditional - 8:05
12 Beverly - Fahey - 11:42
13 Requiem for John Hurt (Funeral Song for Mississippi John Hurt) - Fahey - 4:12
mp3 192 | w/ cover
Download:
I Am The Resurrection: A Tribute to John Fahey
Year: 2006
Label: Vanguard
Pitchfork Review:
The Bottom Line:
John Fahey is one of the greatest guitar players ever. His career has spanned several decades and has showcased an impressive cannon of innovative guitar work. His influence has been felt not only by all the artists on this record, but also that of other great guitar innovators.
This CD encompasses some of Fahey's best work and his strongest influences, and is one of the best tribute recordings I've heard in some time.
Pros:
• One of the best tribute CDs released in a long time
• Incredible covers by some of the best artists around
• Calexico, Sufjan Stevens, M Ward, Lee Ranaldo
Cons:
• Not a bad song on the disc
Description:
• There's not a slow moment on the disc.
• A well-deserved, well-paid tribute to one of the best players around.
• The line-up of artists really speaks for itself.
Guide Review
How can you possibly go wrong when you get artists like Calexico, Sufjan Stevens, Cul De Sac, Grandaddy, and M Ward together to pay tribute to one of the greatest guitar players around?
Much like Fahey's work itself, this CD will draw your attention from the very first implication of a note, and will retain your interest until the last note has echoed off into silence.
Fahey has managed to master the art of not only playing notes, but of telling stories without using words. Like any great storyteller, his compositions say as much in the spaces between notes and songs as they do during the loudest, most intricate arpeggios.
The artists included on this CD are some of the best players around, and they don't hold back a thing in paying tribute to Fahey's best work. It's rare anymore to hear a CD that holds you from beginning to end, without even one song that falls short of the rest. But this tribute recording does just that. Definitely a must-have.
A customer said:
As much as I dislike tribute albums, I've had to make an exception for this one, on two accounts. First, John was a friend of mine, long ago, in my childhood and early adolescence, and then again, late in his life, after we had reconnected; Second, this is a remarkable album, and I generally dislike "tribute" albums. The very notion of trying to create a tribute to John struck me as ambitious at least, if not downright hubris-driven. I was of course right on the first count, but definitely wrong on the second, and the ambition is largely fulfilled here: it is a tribute, and a nice one. The artists involved seem, without exception, to understand what they were undertaking, even if it was a Mission Impossible. Some come close. A few clearly fall far short of the mark, but all do so with love and a genuine understanding, I think, of what this project was about. It's something any of us who ever knew John would have liked to try, but never had the nerve. Thank god some good volk got up the nerve. Peter case is probably the most eerily accurate in his rendering of "When the Catfish Is In Bloom", which has always taken me back to those early days when I was an awestruck teen who would listen to John noodle, compose and play as he and the other older guys sat around on the grassy slope at the edge of the Takoma Park rec center ballfield across the street from my house, at night. This is almost time travel, something John managed to introduce me to, first in theory, and later from beyond the grave with his recordings. Sufjan Stevens seems also to have captured the spirit, if not the precise duplication of notes, on his lovely "Commemorative Transfiguration and Communion at Magruder Park." This actually works very well for me, especially because I was there at Magruder Park on the 4th of July in question, and it has always stood out for me as the definitive Independence Day, even the careening arrival of John and company in his '57 Chevy, nearly taking out the brick wall flanking one side of the entrance, which was the only way one of his caliber should have arrived, and which occasioned much alarm and screaming among the attendees as well as the occupants of his car. Stevens seems to have somehow understood the meaning underlying this work and treated it with the spiritual respect it demands.
Cul de Sac, who actually played with John on an album (the recording of which was clearly traumatic for leader Glen Jones and which strained John's peculiar notion of patience)do an admirable job with "Portland Cement Factory", mainly by cranking up the noise level some, which I believe will gratify John, wherever he may be. Late in the game John was looking for noises - sounds - which helped define the spirit of place in which the music was set (listen to his "City of Refuge" album for the approximation of the B&O railroad snowplow sound of our youth - John's and mine - to get a feel for what this means to his later music).
Nothing here is bad, much of it is quite good, and it is clearly friends and admirers who have done what they felt was appropriate, whether it be attempted note-for-note reproduction (Sligo River Blues) or simply a personal translation (Calexico's turn on "Dance of Death", a piece that deserves a special place in American music outside the soundtrack of "Zabriske Point") and gets to become a standard here. Where John was composing for something he believed to be onerous and evil (the title can be misleading, but the story behind it is abundantly clear), Calexico has taken this personal horror story and turned it into something one can recognize yet listen to without one's teeth being set on edge, which was how John was feeling at the time he laid it down.
I could go on, but there are many excellent reviews here by others equally familiar with John's work, and so I'll leave it at this: I hate tribute albums, but I bought this one, and I love it. I also love the cover art, and feel the title was absolutely inspired. I knew I was going to like this in spite of myself, when at first sighting I felt a lump in my throat. This is a remarkable album and a work of love.
Review - by Alex Henderson
The late John Fahey was to fingerpickers (or simply "pickers") what Jimmy Smith was to soul-jazz/hard bop organ -- Fahey, in other words, wrote the book on fingerpicking, an earthy, rootsy, instrumental style of folk-rock acoustic guitar playing. And just as Smith influenced countless organists, the seminal Fahey was a musical guru for Leo Kottke, Robbie Basho, Stefan Grossman, Duck Baker, Peter Lang, Michael Gulezian, and many other acoustic guitar-playing instrumentalists who surfaced in the '60s and '70s. Given his impact on folk-rock, Fahey is well deserving of a tribute -- especially from fingerpickers. But the interesting thing about this Fahey tribute compilation, I Am the Resurrection: A Tribute to John Fahey, is the fact that it isn't dominated by fingerpickers and Fahey disciples. The songs are familiar -- at least if one is heavily into Fahey's work -- but what the artists do to them are not. Hearing Peter Case (formerly of the Plimsouls) on "When the Catfish Is in Bloom," Lee Ranaldo (of Sonic Youth fame) on "The Singing Bridge of Memphis, Brooklyn Bridge Version: The Coelcanth," or the Fruit Bats on "Death of the Clayton Peacock" is a lot like hearing rock en español artists saluting Mexican norteño legends los Tigres del Norte on the Fonovisa compilation El Mas Grande Homenaje a los Tigres del Norte -- it isn't the first thing you would expect, but it generally works. And the fact that most of these artists interpret Fahey's material instead of offering carbon copies of the original versions keeps the intrigue factor high. Some purists will inevitably insist that a Fahey tribute should adhere to an all-pickers-all-the-time policy, but clearly, this compilation wasn't assembled with purists in mind. And while the disc is a bit uneven, I Am the Resurrection is full of pleasant surprises and is a memorable demonstration of the fact that Fahey's compositions can be useful well beyond the fingerpicker field.
TrackList:
01 Death of the Clayton Peacock - Fruit Bats - 3:01
02 Sunflower River Blues - Pelt - 3:18
03 Variation on 'Commemorative Transfiguration & Communion at ... - Sufjan Stevens - 4:18
04 Sligo River Blues - Devendra Banhart - 3:11
05 Dance of Death - Calexico - 6:36
06 The Singing Bridge of Memphis, Tennessee (Brooklyn Bridge Version: The ...) - Lazy & Chorale ... - 2:50
07 Bean Vine Blues, No. 2 - M. Ward - 1:45
08 The Portland Cement Factory at Monolith, CA - Cul De Sac - 4:34
09 Dance of the Inhabitants of the Palace of King Phillip XIV of Spain - Grandaddy, Jason Lytle ... - 2:41
10 Joe Kirby Blues - David Immergluck ... - 5:03
11 Medley: John Hurt Shiva Shankarah - Currituck County - 7:31
12 When the Catfish Is in Bloom - Peter Case - 7:30
13 My Grandfather's Clock - Howe Gelb - 2:03
mp3 192 | w/ cover
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American Primitive Guitar {2002}
Audio @128 - 56 Page PDF Booklet - 122.07MB + 110.74MB
Book + 3CD's
American Primitivism is a musical style originated by guitarist John Fahey in the late 1950s. By blending avant-garde & neo-classical compositions with traditional country blues fingerpicking techniques, the primitive guitar style was a major component of Fahey's Takoma Records label.
In this series for the intermediate guitarist, John Fahey teaches a wide variety of instrumental solos. Critics have called John's style American Primitive Guitar. The book includes tablature & notation with three compact discs featuring note-by-note, phrase-by-phrase instruction.
LESSON ONE: A general discussion of pattern picking & the use of the alternate bass. In Christ There Is No East Or West, Take A Look At That Baby & Some Summer Day.
LESSON TWO: One of John's most requested multi-sectioned composition is Indian Pacific Railroad Blues, also known as Beverley. This tune demonstrates how John composes in the fingerpicking idiom. Also taught is another very requested & imitated instrumental, John's The Last Steam Engine Train.
LESSON THREE: When The Springtime Comes Again & The Approaching Of The Disco Void, also known as Red Pony & also known as Wine & Roses. A discussion of improvisational ideas in relationship to fingerstyle compositions concludes this lesson.
Also included is the article "Blood On The Frets" which first appeared in the August 1998 issue #174, of the British music magazine The Wire.
For the intermediate guitarist. 56 page Tab/Notation book with three compact discs.
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Donator
John Fahey - Death Chants, Breakdowns & Military Waltzes
Genres: Folk
Country : USA
Year : 1999 (1963, 1967)
Audio codec: MP3
Bitrate: 320 kbps CBR / 44100
Size: 197 MB
Tracklist :
01. Sunflower River Blues (02:35:45)
02. When the Springtime Comes Again (03:52:07)
03. Stomping Tonight on the Pennsylvania-Alabama Border (06:58:55)
04. Some Summer Day (03:22:60)
05. On the Beach at Waikiki (02:57:58)
06. Spanish Dance (01:55:70)
07. John Henry Variations (05:41:72)
08. The Downfall of the Adelphi Rolling Grist Mill (03:37:73)
09. Take a Look at That Baby (01:26:12)
10. Dance of the Inhabitants of the Palace of King Philip XIV of Spain (02:30:48)
11. America (07:53:25)
12. Episcopal Hymn (01:13:40)
13. Sunflower River Blues (03:21:62)
14. When the Springtime Comes Again (04:54:30)
15. Stomping Tonight on the Pennsylvania-Alabama Border (05:35:33)
16. Some Summer Day (03:26:55)
17. On the Beach at Waikiki (02:40:02)
18. Spanish Dance (02:06:15)
19. John Henry Variations (05:13:55)
20. Take a Look at That Baby (01:26:20)
21. America (05:00:10)
22. Episcopal Hymn (01:22:40)
Personnel
John Fahey – guitar
Nancy McLean – flute ("The Downfall of the Adelphi Rolling Grist Mill")
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