John_Gray

•

Offline

John Fahey has been a mercurial and eccentric presence in the American music world for almost four decades. Only 95 copies were ever made of Fahey's first plunge into music recording, a self-released album of instrumental guitar songs known as Blind Joe Death (1959), yet the album eventually became known as "the most famous obscure album of recent times," according to the New Rolling Stone Record Guide. Such ironies became hallmarks of Fahey's career. Many of his subsequent recordings are regarded as seminal testaments to the beauty of the acoustic guitar, and Spin contributor Byron Coley called Fahey "as monumental and singular a musical talent as any this country has produced." Despite such critical acclaim, however, the guitarist has been saddled with struggles against illness, excessive drinking, and economic uncertainty. By the mid-1990s Fahey, regarded by many as the father of what is sometimes called the contemporary fingerpicking guitar style, could be found living in a series of welfare motels and Salvation Army locales.

Fahey was born on February 28, 2017 in Takoma Park, Maryland. His childhood was marked by fishing excursions on the nearby Susquehawa River and upper Chesapeake Bay and immersion into the worlds of classical and popular music. Both of his parents were accomplished piano players, and they often took their son to shows featuring leading country and hillbilly musical groups of the day. Fahey's early interest in country and bluegrass music led him to discard the clarinet (which he had played in the school band) and purchase a guitar with money he had saved from his paper route.