BLIND JOE DEATH

John Fahey - Wine and Roses



It's sunday morning, a little gray outside, and I'm feeling comfortably rough from that Northern Soul dance party last night. John Fahey is playing on the stereo. John Fahey (1931-2001) preferred to label himself as an American Primitive guitarist. His music is comprised of solo guitar, no additional instruments, no obtrusive vocals. He borrowed heavily from the past - inspired by Bill Monroe and Blind Willie Johnson, and influenced by Indian ragas and classical melodies. His winding compositions conjure the ghosts of dusty old vinyl, and yet they still sound fresh and novel today. Fahey concocted an elaborate persona for the public, sometimes exchanging his given name for the alias Blind Joe Death and supplying copious album linear notes that blended autobiographical fact and fiction.

"Was he the drunk that people saw piss against a mountain in front of an entire audience of folk festival goers? He was once. Was he the man who wrote an impenetrably abstruse column in Guitar Player that was half in German? Yes, he was. Was he a legend, an enigma, a man whose contribution will grow and be felt as long as we have ears to hear? Emphatically, yes. His solo music, his D.I.Y. independence, his musical scholarship, were all, dare I say it, ahead of their time." - From Nelscline.com

Read this great piece from Perfect Sound Forever: The Persecutions & Resurrections of Blind Joe Death (revised) by Byron Coley.