At Quiet Music Night, (Tuesday) I’ll be performing music written by American Primitive fingerstyle guitarist John Fahey. I first discovered Fahey on Thurston Moore’s list of top ten favorite guitarists. Fahey attempted to translate american blues and bluegrass music into serious “little symphonies” composed for solo acoustic guitar. He felt that blues and bluegrass should be elevated to the high-art status of European classical music, and thought the best way to do this was to present it as “serious” instrumental music. He also became inspired by Indian ragas and melded drone-heavy raga imitations with his folk music in long abstract and atonal guitar improvisations. He inspired a movement of solo acoustic guitarists known as the American primitives (Peter Lang, Leo Kottke, Robbie Basho) and Takoma Records was the label that released their records. In the sixties Fahey was discovered and co-opted by the nascent psychedelia/counter culture scene, and he leveraged this financial success into creating takoma park, maryland-based “Takoma Records”. Please check out this lovely tune, and come here me play a short set of Fahey tunes Tuesday night at the Shop! https://youtube/watch?v=YSh-YsyjpXk
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 18:32:26 +0000
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