Anyone watch the John Fahey documentary?

[Parlorman]

I saw it in a great little art movie house in Newburyport Massachusetts. I found it very powerful and moving.

[Hasbro]

I gave that a good watch thanks for the rec Can someone tell me what would ee a top 10 list of instrumental John Fahey songs

[Scottj121]

Originally Posted by Hasbro

I gave that a good watch thanks for the rec Can someone tell me what would ee a top 10 list of instrumental John Fahey songs

His album the best of John Fahey 1959-1977 is all really good. It has more than 10 songs. Some of my favorites are
Sunflower river blues
Take a look at that baby
Last steam engine train
Give me cornbread when I'm hungry
Desperate man blues
Revolt of the dyke brigade.
All these are on that album.

[catfish]

A Festival of American Primitive Guitar • Takoma Park, MD • April 13-15, 2018
https://1000rose.org/#schedule
Learned about it from this short article --
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cu...social_twitter

[samcclark]

Amazon has some interesting acoustic music oriented docs - there's one about Club 47 (Club Passim) and the Cambridge music scene called "For the Love of the Music" with interviews with Geoff Muldaur, Tom Rush , Baez, Collins. Then there's the terrific doc about David Bromberg.
For pay there's Greenwich Village:Music That Defined a Generation with a RARE clip of Fred Neil (who every acoustic musician should know about IMHO).

[zmf]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

"In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey" if anyone needs the name.

Thanks, folks. I'm going to check it out. One of my heroes -- played every note like it was the most important note.

[JakeStone]

Cool.. just watched 1/2 of it..
(Don't tell my boss)

[gfirob]

Well, as somebody who knew John Fahey back in the day, the film was pretty disappointing. I don't know if it was because the filmmaker was Canadian and from a different era, or because he talked to the wrong people, but Fahey was a much more complex man than this and the arc of his life had more weight. I don't think it was an accident that Rolling Stone considered him one of the 100 most influential guitarists of all time. He hated the fact that he became popular as a "New Age" musician, something he called elevator music. The whole turtle thing was a joke, like most of what was in the liner notes. His writing on Charley Patton was extremely serious and he was very generous as a teacher and mentor (though he had a temper too, witness the smashed guitars and the enemies he made in his life). He had significant trauma in is life. And I think above all he was entirely authentic. Eccentric, but authentic. The film is perhaps an interesting sidelight to his life, but his music and the material in the various obituaries and articles on the internet are a much better way to understand him.

[Prof_Stack]

I saw him live in Seattle in the 70's at the U of Washington. He never spoke a word, and his playing was deep and complex. Absolutely wonderful concert for a 20-something to imbibe.

I loved his music, and learned some things from his style, and then somehow came to loathe a lot of it, with the "drone" string effect, or whatever it was.

Towards the end of his life, he played in a small venue in Seattle's Ballard district. He borrowed a guitar from a local music store owner, who told me later that Fahey was just horrible in concert, and apparently a somewhat ungrateful person afterwards. That was sad.

But, I'm grateful that Fahey helped bring Leo Kottke into public awareness.

[Placida]

One of my JF favorites.

[Jwills57]

Hello, Guitar Friends--I ran across a couple of old John Fahey records in a bargain bin when I was in college, bought them, studied him and his music. I think Fahey was an American original; an entire genre of guitar music has evolved from his playing, from Kottke to Hedges and on, just a blazing meteor of a persona. But he was a very wounded person, and like many wounded people he was self-destructive, just couldn't quite, it seems, come to grips with his demons. I have a theory about his later music, which is a personal theory, I admit. I just think his acuity and his skills had begun to deteriorate for years before his death. I find a lot of the later music just, how should I say, weird and unpalatable. I know it's fashionable to say "Oh, Fahey was in this unique place and really doing interesting, avant-garde stuff," but what I see and hear is a guy hardly keeping himself together, a guy whose skills and faculties were slipping away from him. It's a similar story to many great American artists, from Hemingway to Williams and on. Alcohol does unhappy things to people's brains; the effect is slow but certain and cumulative. I saw it with my own father, too. The creative spark was still there but the delivery system had atrophied. Fahey's last years were so sad. Maybe that's the way it had to be, but I wish it had been something different. Best, Jack

[F512]

I believe that Fahey’s deterioration began when he struggled with Epstein Barr Syndrome in the eighties. He also began drinking copious amounts of beer (he claimed it was for the ‘energy’ it gave him to play). Then through his divorce and then his derelict years living in weekly hotels and shelters. His refusal to do anything he wasn’t 100% sold on, even when living in poverty and receiving offers that would have considerably helped his financial woes.

I still think his first album ‘Blind Joe Death’ sounds as fresh today as it did then, and is to me a work of musical genius. It breaks my heart to think of such a talented man having such a miserable end to his life.

Although I never knew him, as gfirob did, I also get the feeling that he was much smarter than he got credit for. I think he often pulled people’s legs for his own amusement and ended up being taken seriously by those not in on the joke.

[SoCalSurf]

I appreciate the recommendation and love documentaries like these. I don't want to play contrarian, but I had a hard time connecting to or liking John Fahey. I know others have expressed a great love for his music and his story but I didn't find him to be anything but, well, different. I wasn't compelled to connect to him at all.

[zmf]

Originally Posted by SoCalSurf

I know others have expressed a great love for his music and his story but I didn't find him to be anything but, well, different.

That's understandable. He was definitely at the edge of the spectrum, and he took no prisoners.

Can't say I'd wish the hard parts of his life on anyone, but, personally, I felt there was a unique purity to his playing, and an intelligent synthesis to his guitar compositions.

[SoCalSurf]

Originally Posted by zmf

That's understandable. He was definitely at the edge of the spectrum, and he took no prisoners.

Can't say I'd wish the hard parts of his life on anyone, but, personally, I felt there was a unique purity to his playing, and an intelligent synthesis to his guitar compositions.

I'll admit that it may be my OWN lack of skill or understanding that makes me under-appreciate what he did. Thanks for your perspective.