John Fahey & The Legend Of Blind Joe Death.

In the very early 1970s I saw a film called Zabriskie Point which was directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. It was a forgettable film, but it had one saving grace which was an eclectic soundtrack containing music by the likes of Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, Patti Page, and a guitar instrumental called Dance Of Death by someone I hadn’t heard of before called John Fahey. About five decades went by before I was reminded of his name again when recently I was talking to a muso friend about great guitar players, and he recommended I check out Robbie Basho and John Fahey. Well, I still haven’t listened to Robbie Basho yet, but I looked on Youtube for John Fahey and watched a video of him performing in Hamburg Germany in 1972. (See video below) I was so impressed that I decided to order a CD. I chose The Legend Of Blind Joe Death because I was amused and intrigued by the title. It arrived here a few days ago.

The copy I received is a remastered version from 1996, 75 minutes long containing 21 tracks. The album was actually recorded three times, in 1959, 64, and 67. My copy includes tracks from all three recordings. It also contains a very informative booklet which told the whole saga of the history of the album. The first thing to say is that there was never a person called Blind Joe Death. He was a fictitious character invented by John Fahey in 1959 when he was 20 years old. John was a self-taught finger style steel string guitar player who invented a genre known as American Primitive Guitar. He was an avid collector of old-time music, blues, hillbilly, gospel and jazz, and also had a contempt for the popular sanitised folk music of the day. He decided to release an album of his own compositions and his arrangements of other blues songs, and paid for the recording himself from his earnings working in a gas station. There were only 100 copies pressed, one side was credited to Blind Joe Death and the other to John Fahey although they were both the same person. The label was called Takoma Records after his hometown of Takoma Park, Maryland. Some copies got broken in transit, others were given away to friends and folklorists and it took three years to sell the remaining copies. By 1964 John was finally getting some recognition with live performances, and his second album Death Chants, Breakdowns & Military Waltzes which was distributed nationally. Feeling that his guitar playing had improved dramatically since 1959, he decided to re-record Blind Joe Death again. He also wrote spoof sleeve notes parodying the writing style of the time under the name Chester C. Petranick which was the name of one of his old schoolteachers. The third and final recording was in 1967 for the burgeoning stereo market.

I love the music on this album. I have never played the guitar, so I am always wary of commenting on a guitarists technique in case I’m just displaying my ignorance. However, my ears tell me that John Fahey is one of the greats. I am in awe of his dexterity of syncopating the rhythm with his thumb while he fingerpicks music of dazzling complexity. When I saw Richard Thompson playing live I couldn’t believe how he could make one acoustic guitar sound like three, and John Fahey is just the same. Although he worshipped the blues masters, and his college thesis about Charley Patton was published as a book, that was only his starting point. You can hear influences of country, and jazz, even Indian style raga. Also, classical music. It says in the booklet that he was influenced by composers such as Charles Ives and Bartok.  I couldn’t comment on that, although at times I thought he sounded as good as Julian Bream playing Bach. There is one track of over 10 minutes length called The Transcendental Waterfall which is an epic composition of many styles of music. Most of the tracks were composed by John Fahey, but there are some other tunes such as St Louis Blues written by W.C. Handy and the traditional John Henry, but they all receive the John Fahey unique arrangements.

John had a lot of mixed fortunes in his life, with broken marriages, health issues, homelessness, and drug and alcohol addictions. After spending many years in obscurity, he did have a resurgence in popularity in the 1990s when he was championed by people like Sonic Youth, Cul De Sac and John O’Rourke. He also began to be noticed as an abstract painter. Sadly, he died aged 61 in 2001 after undergoing major heart surgery. His reputation continues to grow as a giant of American music. There have been documentary films and tribute albums to him. I am very pleased I checked out the music of John Fahey, and I might have a listen to Robbie Basho before too long as well.