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 fact, I would go so far as to say that I am playing emotions and expressing them in a coherent public language called music.
While I recognize in the back of my mind that I am an occasionally brilliant guitar composer and arranger, innovator and player.
Well when I made my first record I thought it would be a good joke to have me on one side, have the lable say John Fahey on one side, and this guy Blind Joe Death on the other side.
See my father knew a lot about music, he played the piano and he would do theory and stuff like that, but I didn't learn anything from him, but I played that for him and he liked it a lot.
I thought I'd be wasting my time to go to commercial record companies and make demos for them, because don't forget, I was doing what I was doing and nobody understood what I was doing.
I also know that I am not a great technician.
How can I be a folk? I'm from the suburbs you know.
From a social perspective, I am looking for friends, not acolytes.
As for fame, it can go to your head and you can become full of yourself.
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.
Well folks, that's about it for the show tonight.
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.
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.
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.