John Fahey
John Fahey
John Aloysius Faheywas an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who played the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitive Guitar, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the self-taught nature of the music and its minimalist style. Fahey borrowed from the folk and blues traditions in American roots music, having compiled many forgotten early recordings in these genres. He would later incorporate...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth28 February 1939
CountryUnited States of America
In the music I was composing I was trying to express my emotions, my so called negative emotions, which were depression, anger and so forth.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that I am playing emotions and expressing them in a coherent public language called music.
Geographic illiteracy impacts our economic well-being, our relationships with other nations and the environment, and isolates us from the world.
I do not even laugh at this like others do because the relationship between entertainers and groupies is pathological.
They are missing a component that is very important and should be one of the skill sets for the 21st century that every kid has when they graduate from high school.
They are too focused on the audience rather than on their own emotions, or they are too focused on technique or perhaps on both.
The other thing in composition is opening up the unconscious.
Being worshipped is a horrible experience.
More American young people can tell you where an island that the 'Survivor' TV series came from is located than can identify Afghanistan or Iraq. Ironically a TV show seems more real or at least more meaningful interesting or relevant than reality.
But I say these things in an objective dispassionate manner because, you know, and I can't explain why, but being one of the greatest guitarists in the world simply is not very important to me.
I had a big background in listening to classical music and I started trying to compose, like I was playing the guitar but I heard an orchestra in my head.
Well folks, that's about it for the show tonight.
Well I was on the one hand, the more I played the guitar the more I began to really love the guitar and to love virtually any kind of music that anybody played well on guitar.
So I learnt a few country western songs, I bought a chord book, and right away I started writing my own stuff, which nobody else did that, I don't know why.