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PREMESSA: LA SUPERIORITA’ DELLA MUSICA SU VINILE E’ ANCOR OGGI SANCITA, NOTORIA ED EVIDENTE. NON TANTO DA UN PUNTO DI VISTA DI RESA, QUALITA’ E PULIZIA DEL SUONO, TANTOMENO DA QUELLO DEL RIMPIANTO RETROSPETTIVO E NOSTALGICO , MA SOPRATTUTTO DA QUELLO PIU’ PALPABILE ED INOPPUGNABILE DELL’ ESSENZA, DELL’ ANIMA E DELLA SUBLIMAZIONE CREATIVA. IL DISCO IN VINILE HA PULSAZIONE ARTISTICA, PASSIONE ARMONICA E SPLENDORE GRAFICO , E’ PIACEVOLE DA OSSERVARE E DA TENERE IN MANO, RISPLENDE, PROFUMA E VIBRA DI VITA, DI EMOZIONE E  DI SENSIBILITA’. E’ TUTTO QUELLO CHE NON E’ E NON POTRA’ MAI ESSERE IL CD, CHE AL CONTRARIO E’ SOLO UN OGGETTO MERAMENTE COMMERCIALE, POVERO, ARIDO, CINICO, STERILE ED ORWELLIANO,  UNA DEGENERAZIONE INDUSTRIALE SCHIZOFRENICA E NECROFILA, LA DESOLANTE SOLUZIONE FINALE DELL’ AVIDITA’ DEL MERCATO E DELL’ ARROGANZA DEI DISCOGRAFICI .

JOHN FAHEY
John Fahey visits Washington, D.C.

Disco LP 33 giri , 1979, Takoma Records ,TAK 7069, USA

CONDIZIONI BUONISSIME,  vinyl ex++/NM,  cover ex-, light ring shade / lieve impressione di anello

John Fahey (28 febbraio 1939 – 22
febbraio 2001)
è stato un chitarrista e compositore
statunitense.

Ha innalzato la chitarra folk con le corde in acciaio a
strumento solista, scrivendone pagine musicali memorabili. Il suo stile è
stato influente su tanta musica a lui contemporanea e viene definito
come American
Primitive, un termine preso in prestito dalla pittura e che si
riferisce principalmente al suo approccio autodidattico alla musica.
Fahey ha fatto proprie le tradizionali musiche americane (il folk e il blues) ma
incorporando nel proprio vocabolario musicale anche elementi di musica
classica, brasiliana, indiana. Muore il 22 febbraio 2001, solo alcuni
giorni prima di quello che sarebbe stato il suo 62° compleanno al Salem
Hospital, dopo avere subito un’operazione di sestuplo by-pass. Nel 2003
la rivista Rolling Stone
l’ha inserito 35° nella sua classifica dei “Migliori cento chitarristi
di sempre”.

John Fahey Visits Washington D.C. is an album by American
fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released in 1979.

John Fahey Visits Washington D.C. was Fahey’s first album in
four years. The same year, he sold Takoma to Chrysalis Records.
Chrysalis eventually sold the rights to the albums, and Takoma was in
limbo until bought by Fantasy Records in 1995.
He cited the strain of running the label and its lack of direction as
reasons for selling it to the UK-based company.
Other sources refer to Fahey’s disinterest in the business side of
running Takoma, the companies debt, and the current poor business
climate of the record industry.

He covers two songs by other guitarists – “Guitar Lamento” is
by Brazilian
guitarist
Bola
Sete from his album Ocean and “Death by Reputation” by Leo
Kottke from his eponymous 1977 album.

It was rumored that an entire album known as the Nuthouse sessions
was rejected, leading to the release of John Fahey Visits Washington
D.C. instead.

Reception

Music critic Richie Unterberger praised the album, noting the
“stellar picking and an eclectic range of influences… Some of his
characteristic moodiness emerges in passages from ‘Ann Arbor’ and
‘Melody McBad’.”

From his review for the UK-based Record Collector, critic Sid Smith gave the album 4
stars, stating “… although the landscape may look and sound familiar,
nothing is quite what it seems. Circuitous, complex lines are unfurled
into rare, blooming chords in much the way a magician pulls flowers out
of his pocket. However, it’s the gothic rumbles of “Guitar Lamento” that
remind us how Fahey’s use of space and haunting repetition created
glorious epic moods tempered with a bleak intensity that still
resonates.”

• Etichetta: Takoma
• Catalogo:  TAK 7069
  
• Data di pubblicazione: 1979

• Supporto:vinile 33 giri
• Tipo audio: stereo
• Dimensioni: 30 cm.
• Facciate: 2
• White paper inner sleeve, barcode on back sleeve

Track listing

1. “Medley: Silver Bell/Cheyenne” (Fahey, Doc
   Watson, Bill Monroe) – 4:27
2. “Ann Arbor/Death by Reputation” (Fahey, Leo
   Kottke) – 8:04
3. “The Discovery of the Sylvia Scott” (Fahey) – 7:43

1. “Guitar Lamento” (Bola Sete) – 5:30
2. “Melody McBad” (Fahey) – 10:08
3. “The Grand Finale” (Fahey) – 6:30

Personnel

• John Fahey – guitar
• Richard Ruskin – 2nd guitar on “Silver Bell”

Silver Bell/Cheyenne

JF: “I can’t explain why I wanted to put those two songs
together except that I think they work real good. Richard Ruskin plays
on this. Silver Bell was a big hit for
Doc Watson & His Border Riders, from Wheeling, West Virginia. A DJ
in Arlington, Virginia, used it for his theme song, and I heard it every
day. Cheyenne is from Bill Monroe.
Standard tuning.”

Another famous version of Silver Bells
(That Ring in the Night) is by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.

Death by Reputation

By Leo Kottke, from his self-titled 1977 album.

The Discovery of the Sylvia Scott

A retitled new version of Vol 5’s Old Southern Medley.

Guitar Lamento

Bola Sete’s original version is on Ocean, his Fahey-produced
solo issued by Takoma (which every Fahey fan ought to have).

Melody McBad

Reworking of the unreleased Elder-Z-Travels
from 1977.

The Grand Finale

Reworking of Dalhart, Texas, 1967
(on America)

John Fahey’s final album of the 1970s was also his first studio album in
nearly five years, his prolific pace in the first dozen years or so of
his recording career slowing notably by the middle of the decade. He
pretty much just picked up where he left off on Visits Washington DC,
however, offering another set of acoustic guitar instrumentals with
stellar picking and an eclectic range of influences. A good share of the
material this time around came from other sources, as he put together a
medley of Doc
Watson‘s “Silver Bell” and Bill
Monroe‘s “Cheyenne” for the first track; incorporated Leo
Kottke‘s “Death by Reputation” into the second, and also covered Bola
Sete‘s “Guitar Lamento.” On his originals (and to some degree even
his interpretations), echoes of Appalachian folk, bluegrass, blues,
ragtime, and flotsam and jetsam of Americana (with Stephen
Foster liberally quoted in Fahey’s composition “The Discovery of
the Sylvia Scott”) blend and merge. Some of his characteristic moodiness
emerges in passages from “Ann Arbor” and “Melody McBad,” and Richard
Ruskin, another artist on the Takoma label, adds second guitar to
“Silver Bell.”

From his self-financed recording debut in 1959, until his death in
2001, John Fahey remained an enigmatic and maverick figure on the
margins of American guitar music. Via his Takoma label he documented old
rural and once-popular picking tunes which had been scattered to the
wind like so much chaff, as well as his own often eccentric
compositions.

A passionate if idiosyncratic musicologist (he
championed the young Leo Kottke), the guiding principle with most Fahey
releases is that, although the landscape may look and sound familiar,
nothing is quite what it seems. With this 1979 album he continues to
layer popular melodies, such as Goodnight Ladies and Camptown Races,
with discursive preludes, meandering off into unexpected swirling
abstraction that often has more in common with 20th Century serialists
than any notional folk picking style. Circuitous, complex lines are
unfurled into rare, blooming chords in much the way a magician pulls
flowers out of his pocket. However, it’s the gothic rumbles of Guitar
Lamento (written by Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete) that remind us how
Fahey’s use of space and haunting repetition created glorious epic moods
tempered with a bleak intensity that still resonates.

John Fahey / Visits Washington D.C.

Takoma TAK7069 (Chrysalis)

Originally reviewed for week
ending 12/8/79

If you avoid the lengthy and meaningless liner
notes, you may enjoy the six cuts

which Fahey serves up on guitar. The weakness is
that all of Fahey’s tunes are

unknown. But for guitarists this is an album to
savor. Best cuts: “Guitar Lamento,”

“Ann Arbor.”

Eremita del folk, guru del primitivismo, menestrello del raga
occidentale,
John Fahey edifico` sull’etnologia populista una nuova arte del sound,
l’equivalente del flusso di coscienza di William James o della scrittura
automatica surrealista.

Fahey è
il padre spirituale dell'”american primitive guitar”,
lo stile folk che privilegia l’assolo metafisico di chitarra acustica
(soprattutto se rigorosamente solista e strumentale).
Fahey aveva due modelli a cui ispirarsi,
il Pete Seeger di Goofing Off Suite (1955)
e
il Sandy Bull di Fantasia For Guitar & Banjo (1963),
ma il risultato fu una musica introspettiva e personale che aveva poco
in
comune con quei modelli (puramente tecnico il primo, e trascendentale il
secondo).

John Fahey, originario del Maryland (nato a Takoma Park), si era formato
musicalmente in California verso la fine degli anni ’50.
La sua formazione avvenne nel mondo del
blues, genere del quale acquisira` una conoscenza quasi enciclopedica.
Ai tempi del college divideva la camera con Al Wilson (Canned Heat) e in

sua compagnia riscopriva i classici del genere.
Si laureò con una tesi su Charley Patton.

Nel 1958 registro` il suo primo disco,
Blind Joe Death (Takoma, 1959),
dedicato a un bluesman inesistente.
L’album venne stampato in sole 95
copie, ma, a lungo andare, lancio` su scala nazionale il
fenomeno del primitivismo.
Fra tanti brani tradizionali spiccavano due sue composizioni originali,
Transcendental Waterfall
e On Doing An Evil Deed Blues, che avevano poco in comune
con il folk revival di quegli anni.

Death Chants (Takoma, 1963) contiene dieci brani, fra cui
alcune vignette surreali
(Stomping Tonight On The Pennsylvania-Alabama Border,
The Downfall Of The Adelphi Rolling Grist Mill real audio,
Dance Of The Inhabitants Of The Palace Of King Phillip XIV).

Dovettero comunque passare altri sei anni prima che Fahey decidesse di
intraprendere seriamente la carriera di musicista,
Dance Of Death (Takoma, 1964).
Per avere mano libera
nella sua “trasfigurazione” del folk Fahey fondò una sua etichetta
discografica, battezzata Takoma in omaggio al suo paese d’origine.
L’album contiene due lunghe improvvisazioni, Dance Of Death e
What The Sun Said, che anticipano i capolavori dell’eta` matura.

In questi anni di apprendistato Fahey si rivela discepolo dei
chitarristi
di colore, dai quali apprende la tecnica che porterà ai massimi
estremi, ma anche curioso rivisitatore e adattatore di stili eterodossi
che si ispirano tanto ai poemi sinfonici del romanticismo quanto
alle colonne sonore dei film muti.

I primi risultati maturi si trovano in
Great San Bernardino Party (Takoma, 1966),
soprattutto la lunga Birthday Party, e in
Requia (Vanguard, 1967), in particolare
quello per Molly in quattro parti (che porta sovraincisi rumori
di guerra e inni nazisti).

Transfiguration Of Blind Joe Death (Riverboat, 1965),
che miniaturizza
quella concezione profana di musica sacra a ritmo honky-tonk (Oringa-Moraga)
e blues
(Death Of Clayton Peacock) introducendo elementi delle religioni
orientali (I Am The
Resurrection) per definire un nuovo tipo di litania estatica (On
The Sunny Side);
Days Have Gone By (Takoma, 1967), che contiene uno dei primi
collage
di rumori, Raga Called Pat, e altre miniature eccentriche
(Night Train Of Valhalla,
The Portland Cement Factory At Monolith California,
My Shepherd Will Supply My Needs);
e
Yellow Princess (Vanguard, 1968),
che si lascia trasportare dagli umori hippie del tempo (il raga Dance
Of The
Inhabitants Of The Invisible City Of Bladensburg, la psichedelia
orrifica di Singing Bridge Of
Memphis Tennessee, il madrigale di Yellow Princess)
testimoniano della stessa
maturità espressiva su un piano più umile.

In questi dischi Fahey distilla una mole sterminata di idee. Ogni album
è un mosaico di monologhi strumentali mai petulanti, retorici o
marziali, sempre cristallini e
delicati. Fahey rifugge dal sensazionalismo e dalle acrobazie mozzafiato
dei virtuosi di bluegrass: il suo
è un “picking” molto più raccolto, composto e dimesso.

Gli ingredienti del suo stile sono ancora riconoscibili: il
blues, il gospel, il
country, le danze irlandesi, la musica da chiesa, la psichedelia. Ad
amalgamarli in un continuum unico e
renderli irriconoscibili è la musica classica indiana.

Su Voice Of The Turtle (Takoma, 1968)
Fahey sperimenta una fusione di chitarrismo occidentale e scale indiane
(A Raga Called Pat Part 3 and 4) e da quel momento
matura la sua concezione metafisico-primitivista.
Fahey mette a punto uno stile chitarristico che è
l’equivalente folk del flusso di coscienza.

The Voice Of The Turtle
è il primo dei tre capolavori
solisti e strumentali di Fahey, seguito da
America (Takoma, 1971 – Fantasy, 1999 –
4 Men With Beards, 2009)
e
Fare Forward Voyagers (Takoma, 1973).
I brani si
allungano, si distendono, si rincorrono in cieli e vallate senza fine e
senza tempo, nel trascorrere di albe e
di tramonti, si inalberano come tappeti magici, vanno alla deriva
trascinati dalla corrente dei ricordi e dei
sogni. Fahey sposta l’enfasi verso il misticismo, la trascendenza, la
metafisica.

In dissertazioni come Mark 1:15 e The Voice Of The Turtle
(su
America), When the Fire and the Rose are One e soprattutto
Fare Forward Voyagers le intense atmosfere blues/raga
dell'”uomo-tartaruga” trasfigurano l’esistenza in una sorta di viaggio
interno/eterno nella mente.

I lenti tintinnii della chitarra, lasciata andare alla deriva da sola,
cullano i
sogni dei pionieri, le ansie degli avventurieri solitari, le speranze
delle carovane; attraversano paesaggi di
praterie sconfinate, di montagne inesplorate, di fiumi maestosi, di
oceani terribili. Quello di Fahey
è un flusso di coscienza collettivo, è il flusso di coscienza di
un’umanità intera che
si riconosce nelle odissee di tutti i “viaggiatori lontano in avanti”,
tutti i grandi piccoli Ulisse che
navigarono, cavalcarono o camminarono, verso l’ignoto.

E’ questo il messaggio del “raga occidentale” da lui fondato: di
quell’ipnotico e
occulto frangersi degli accordi su cadenze pacate e anemiche, lontano da
qualsiasi tentazione di
descrittivismo o di imitazione della tradizione. La musica che ne
risulta, criptica e oscura, è
nondimeno pregna di un umanesimo ricco e caloroso.

Voyagers è in assoluto la sua composizione più
lirica, complessa e maestosa. Laddove Voice rimane ancora legata a
un mondo favolistico, alla
cadenza del racconto, Voyagers si innalza in uno spettacolare
tourbillon di visioni celestiali, di
mandala pudichi e ascetici.

A quel punto, in corrispondenza con il generale rallentamento delle
istanze
alternative degli anni ’60, subentra un periodo di rilassamento, di
imborghesimento, in cui Fahey si accontenta spesso di sfogliare con
erudita
nonchalance le pagine del passato americano:
Of Rivers And Religion (Reprise, 1972), arranged in a more
professional
way (dobro, mandolin, trumpet, clarinet, piano, double bass) and echoing
Dixieland music, but less
“personal” and unique than other albums of this period, and
After The Ball (Reprise, 1973),
e alcuni album natalizi.

La migliore di queste nostalgiche
rivisitazioni della musica dei primi del secolo è forse
Old Fashioned Love (Takoma, 1975), sulla quale
è accompagnato da una banda con tuba, tromba, trombone, jug, banjo, e
piano e dove, divagando
fra blues e ragtime, finisce per pervenire a un altro dei suoi mantra
estatici, Dry Bones In The
Valley.

La curiosità patologica per gli arcaici 78 giri rimarrà comunque una
costante
della sua carriera, una febbre che lo assalirà a intervalli regolari.

La stanchezza creativa è però compensata da una
suggestiva fantasia tematica e da una dolcezza, una bonarietà, un
ottimismo che mancavano nei
capolavori.
Fahey dispensa esuberanti impressioni di viaggio, su
Visits Washington D.C. (Takoma, 1979),
con il mozzafiato Grand Finale;
una raccolta di “imitazioni” di treni,
Railroad I (Takoma, 1983);
le romanze cortesi su temi della musica rock di
Old Girlfriends And Other Horrible Memories (Varrick, 1990);
variazioni folk su brani celebri di musica
rock e classica, su
Let Go (Varrick, 1984) and Rain Forests (Varrick, 1985).
Sono album un po’ distratti.

Yes Jesus Loves Me (Takoma, 1980), una collezione di musica sacra, e I
Remember
Blind Joe Death (Rounder, 1987) sono gli altri album del periodo. God
Time
And Causality (Shanachie, 1990) e’ forse l’apice della sua tecnica
chitarristica
benche` contenga principalmente materiale dei ’60.
The Return Of The Repressed (Rhino, 1994) e’ un’antologia.
Una grave malattia che lo afflisse dal 1986 lo costrinse al ritiro.
Fahey
torno’ pero’ con un doppio 78 giri, Morning/ Evening Not Night (Perfect,
1996).
City of Refuge (Tim Kerr, 1997) segna il ritorno in modo
contraddittorio.
Fahey aveva abbandonato il progressive-folk in favore della moderna
tecnologia.
City of Refuge e’ una lunga ed epica esplorazione delle possibilita’
testuali,
e On the Death and Disembowelment of the New Age e’ di fatto una
manipolazione
di nastri (20 minuti). Il Fahey musicista prevale sul poeta.
Womblife (Table Of The Elements, 1997), ambience psichedelica, contiene
cinque lunghi pezzi: Sharks (9:20), Planaria (9:54), Eels (6:13),
Coelacanths
(7:28), Juana (12:34). Tra i capolavori del periodo figura il pezzo da
incubo
Planaria.
L’EP The Mill Pond (Little Brother, 1997) e’ ben piu’ avventuroso del
precedente:
Ghosts, Garbage e Mill Pond sono ottima musica elettronica e dissonante.

The Epiphany Of Glenn Jones (Thirsty Ear, 1997) e’ una collaborazione
con
i Cul De Sac. Alcuni pezzi sono suggestivi (Gamelan Collage, New Red
Pony,
Our Puppet Selves, Magic Mountain, Tuff) ma la musica perde in
personalita’
ed emozione e suona come una lezione universitaria.
Georgia Stomps Atlanta Struts (Table of the Elements, 1998) e’ la sua
prima
registrazione totalmente elettronica, con un repertorio di quasi sole
covers.

Hitomi (Livhouse, 2000) ha ben poco di rivoluzionario nonostante la
splendente
Delta Flight 53.
John Fahey mori’ nel Febbraio 2001 a 62 anni.

Album Notes from TAK 7069

John Fahey Visits Washington, D.C.

This album is dedicated with fondest remembrance to Mac Weisman, Kenneth
Fisher, Joey Sror, Gilbert Purvis, Louise Livings, Anna Caluzzi, Caroll
Mc—-, Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, Greg Eldridge, Jim Hensen, Tim
Wright, Sylvia Scott, Carl Storey, George Kerrick and Fr’s Don Seaton,
Dick Gary, and Don Shaw.

Call me V-. It’s probably true this time of year. When I was a youth I
did my ontology prior to my epistemology, and so you see, I have always
seen things, “differently.” Not much I can do about it.

Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no
money in my purse (purse?) and nothing particular to interest me in the
interminable 12 bar West coast triplets. I thought I would go back home
to find some answers to questions I had been formulating for some time.
Nothing new really, for me to make such trips. I have to do it every
once and a while to drive off the electronic transposition and decontrol
the decontrollers. There’s an enemy in that machine.

Landing on I-495, I decided to drive in the back way through Virginia
and D.C. I passed in the dark through the muddy streets of the suburbs
of Copraemia, Kantonligeist, the towns of Zoophilia and as I approached
Coprophagy. Stopping by the holy river to make my oblation. I had to
kick several pi dogs aside as I commenced to disrobe on one of the
Ashram’s steps and entered the swirling waters of the Sacred River, thus
cleansing myself from any karmic impurities before entering the holy
city.

Crossing the 10th st. bridge I entered the forbidden city and stopped at
the George Unheimlische monument for a few moments of silent prayer and
meditation before this imposing oedipus. I thought about the pilgrims
who had landed near by at Potomac rock. The Puritans, the African slaves
and the dravidians, who had founded out theocracy. All those names from
history, Ben Franklin, Cromwell, Miles Standish, the early Swami
missionaries. Nearby George Washington had been born and Abe Lincoln,
Martin Luther and so many other of our founding fathers. Above all I
thought of Squanto. “Om Shree, Jai Shree Washington aya Namah.” I
chanted with the throngs of orthodox worshippers there in the Haupstadt
of the Free world.

In tears I followed these pilgrims and worshipped with them at the World
Trade Center, the Champs Elyesees, Hershey Park, The John Hancock
Tower. O’Hare International Airport and the Henry Ford Astrodome.
Ultimately I found myself at the White House where I hoped to catch a
view of the present Shankaracharya.

But secretly, beneath my orthodox exterior I was and had been since the
age of 12 a believer and pracicer of the illegal Takoma Park seperatist
Rite. WE wanted no truck with Swamis, or Pujas, or 55 speedlimits;
nothing to do with organized state materialistic Hinduism, born again or
not.

The problem was, about all I could remember of our Rite was what we were
opposed to – not why. Nor could I remember what it was we stood for or
believed in.

As I passed on down Xenophobia street a curious figure approached me
with a sadistic grin. “John, John, remember me?”

“No, I can’t say I do,” said I searching his face.

“Don Catudell.”

“Oh,” I said, “how unfortunate,” as I observed the signs of incipient
Ozmatroidism.

“Wie Geht’s, ” inquired this sceptre.

The small talk continued for a while and then he took me into the new
building where he was curator, of
The-National-Institute-of-Restorative-Memory-in-the-Present. Here, he
told m, we could see, unseen, what out olf friends were doing.

First we saw Kenneth fisher, going about his rounds squeezing pennies
from poor Finno-Ugric slum dwellers.

“He’s been transposed,” Katudell told me. The wrong key and lam cracks
and label discoloration.

“Yeah,” I said, “and he’s Dolby encoded too. Too orthodox to buy a DBX.

“Squelch Box, eh”? I asked.

“Yeah.”

“And how’s his Eschatology”?

“13 gauge,” replied the Catudell.

A

“Ah, well, what can you do, said I.

“But Kenny’s very smart.” He said.

“I know, I know.”

“Werks and all.”

“Right,” I said. He’ll be OK.

Walking further down the corridor we espied Timmy Wright, grandson of
Frank Lloyd.

“He’s split off his reality from his shadow,” Katudell told me.

Ah. And I’ll bet he uses extra lights too! said I.

“Yeah,” and he hasn’t even done his Epistemology yet!

“Ah,” I sighed.

Then I saw Louise Livings. I immediately passed out. I hadn’t changed,
much – neither had she. Katudall, revived me with some brandy, and we
went on.

“There’s Marry Hostettlerascope,” he continued.

“Yeah, her father invented the Florascope,” I recalled.

“Floristan too!” katudall elaborated.

“Ya gern.”

Joe Hotleosphere, always a spontaneous demonstration.

“Yeah, his father invented the Ionisphere.”

“And the Biosphere, I added.

Billy Unkundbar, generally speaking a guy who was never where he was.

“Was his father ever where he was?” I asked.

“Np, he was different. He was always where he wasn’t.”

“Oh,” I said.

“his old man invented the principle of reality.”

“Let’s kill him,” I said. “Things really have been getting entirely too
consistant lately.”

“Yeah, and not only that but public, stratified codified. Nothing but
categories. Terribly borring.”

“It’s all his fault. Kill him.”

“No,” said Katudell, “I’ll just shift him over into the squelch
chamber.”

“Hup” he ejaculated as he pressed a red button.

“SSSS^QQ_QQQQQ^QQQQ_Q^UU_UU^UU_UU^U

^UU_UUEEEE^EE_EE^EGG_HJ^KL^VC_U^EE_TI^BB_BB^B

^BN_MCCCCCC^HHHHHHHHHHH

“That’ll fix him,” I said admiringly. “He only had one trick anyway.
Never be the same.”

There was Sylvia Scott. But she was my friend. I was happy to see her.
Very happy. Only she couldn’t see me. I passed out again.

After revivation, we saw Beety Fatliosphere.

“Her father invented the human being. Katudall intoned.”

“L’ Cheim”

But I couldn’t see Dorothy Gooch.

After an exhausting sojurn I took my leave of Donald Katudall, a poor
ozmatroid like myself, a guy who had never learned to spell his own name
correctly.

Approaching doomtown in the shower of the McSpank monument I saw Blind
Willie Dung, a pseudonymn for Eddie Lang on the OK duets with Lonnie
Johnson (see Dixon Godrich, p. 370, 71) “No time now” I thought but in
the rescent future I’ll go down and check him out.

Driving further, I saw Elder Lightfoot Samon Micheaux’s* famous church
near the old 7th st. ballpark which still stood, its neon lit sky sign
blinking.

“Keep your Lamps Trimmed and Burning” to uncomprehending passerby

A cop stopped me as I sped past Galludet hospital which was no longer
there.

“Let’s see your chronology kid.”

I pulled out my papers. My chronology, I knew, was about to expire, in
fact I was beginning to lose it. Of course he noted this.

“What’s your eschatdogy kid?”

“78 RPM”

“Oh well that’s pretty orthodox. Got anything to prove it?”

“Yeah, here,” I showed him my mantras and business liscences.”

“Well, looks ok kid but better get that chronology fixed soon.”

“I will sir. I will.”

“You from around here kid. You talk like it.”

“Yeah, Takoma Park.”

“Oh, that’s in the past.”

“I know – all too well.”

“All gone,” he went on.

“Please don’t rub it in sir.”

“OK, OK sorry, he apologized, and let me go.”

I threw in the throttle and started up the long grade towards the next
top at Catholic University. Passing by the shrine of the Immaculate
Conception I swung onto New Hampshire Ave., and turned left at Eastern
Ave., skillfully avoiding the no left turn sign.

From the land of Death into the land of Ambiguity I drove directly into
“Hell’s Bottom” as it was called when I was a youth. It was dsk and the
sun cast a pall on the Electric works and the electric cranes, the
trunks and the jaws erected into the Batheosphere snapping and cursing
at the creation and casting lurid lascivious glances at the high tension
wires which ran North and South from the electric werks as they wound
down for the evening – waiting – always waiting for the nightly charge.

At this time of day I always hit desolation – all my life. Indeed, I
litterally did just that every day of my life. Hitting ARIDITY I quickly
drove up to Elmer William’s house on Sligo Mill Road to ask for some
food. Food helped when the void came around but – –

Living on the crest of the Sligo Mill Road, between two worlds with a
good view of each, Williams was a man of great wisdom, humility and
fortitude living all his life right there in the middle of the Edge. It
was he who had founded the Takoma Park seperatists in 1932 and he who
had taught me to play guitar and about religion – which I had forgotten.
Stop Now it gets serious.

“It looks different,” I said. “Is it in the past?”

“No, it’s the same,” Elmer said.

“You mean it’s still real?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t know if it ever was real around here. As I’m sure you
know ‘reality’ in this vicinity is a very problematic concept – as are
all concepts here in the edge.”

“Well look,” I continued, “if I’m on one side of the Edge – say Silver
Spring – where I can’t see far enough to see the other side of the edge –
I still know it’s there. And it’s the same if I’m over in Paradise
(local name for Hyattesville and Bladenburg and many other places to the
East of the Edge). It won’t stop. It just won’t stop.

“No, it won’t,” Elmer went on, “But you know there’s an edge even over
there in, or near Paradise. Once I went over there on a job to the
Riverdale cemetary near the reform school. I saw an Edge there too,
similiar, but my references points aren’t established there. I never had
another chance to investigate it. It’s similiar in that the Edge
roughly approximates the D.C. line over there too. But of course that
isn’t what started it. The edge was there first. Like the Underground
railroad that follows all those old Indian trails. Most people think
that the Indians made the path. But they’re wrong. The path, I think, is
somewhat eternal; the Indians and later the railroad were purely
passive developments, although everyone thinks they were active
developments.

“Is it God?”

“I don’t know. It all seems, rather, a bit infernal.

“Well is the Edge really eternal?” I asked.

“I don’t know that either. How could I when I live right in the middle
of it. No perspective here. Only the outside-the-edge on both sides, and
that’s just as confusing because if you look outside pf the edge, or go
outside, like you said, the outsides of the edge – no matter which side
you’re on, they merely refer back to the Edge. It won’t stop. There’s
nothing you can do about it.”

“Do you think,” I went on, “that it might have something to do with the
electricity? The trains and cranes and the werks over there?”

“Well yes,” he went on, “they are all related somehow to the edge in a
very special manner but I think the edge was there all the time anyway
and the Edge just attracted all these other abominations. And if that is
the way it is, which I think it is, the other, obvious abmoniations
simply make the Edge more obvious, more explicit.

“Yeah.”

“And there are other edges! What about that?” he asked.

“I just can’t understand it,” I said.

“Yeah, I know. Boy do I know.”

“What about in the up-North? Is it the same?” I asked.

“I think it’s about the same up there. The locations are different and
you don’t know the surrounding – the “Encompassing” as Jaspers calls it –
if that is what he is talking about – but i’ve seen Edges up there too.
In all probability the entire earth is criss-crossed with edges, death
zones. Ambiguity places, limbos, Abomination zones and paradises. But if
you’re not brought up there, you can’t feel where they all are and
where they go. And never, never will you know why God made them, if he
made them.”

“Do they move?”

“No. Only you move. Or me. What’s it like out west?”

“Just like you described the up-North,” I said, “Sometimes I know I’m
seeing part of an edge, or I’m approaching one but I can’t tell. I don’t
know the lay of the land. So, I think you’re right. You have to be born
in a place and grow up there – to know.

“But still” he continued “even if we know where they are and what’s on
each side – we still don’t know what they are or why they are or what
they mean. I don’t think we’ll ever know.

“Yes,” I said, “but maybe God -.”

“But we know God and He doesn’t tell us. Even people like you and I who
know that we know God.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But maybe He doesn’t see them or know about them -“

“No,” Elmer went on. “You see He knows us.” We know that.”

“I wonder why He doesn’t explain these things,” I queried.

“I assure you, you’re not alone in that wondering.” Elmer said. “Maybe
when the Alltogether happens – maybe then we’ll know.”

“Or maybe these things will go away. God, I sure hope so. They still
scare me,” I said.

“Me too,” said Williams.

That night I had a dream. I took a train west from Takoma Park, past the
Gueen’s Chapel Abomination area and therupon into Hyattesville. I got
off at the Pennsylvania RR station which was no longer there and went
down to look at the canal looking for turtles. My mother came and helped
me but we couldn’t find any. The canal was too muddy, and we couldn’t
see through the murky water. And then nightfall began to come on anyway.
It was too late. Fortunately we were in the past so I din’t hit
desolation, not even aridity.

In the semi-darkness and thick humidity my mother and I walked down the
carefully terraced levies by the clean white housing structures, the
beautiful oak trees, the gardens and the terraces of new moan grass –
where neither of us, unfortunately, could ever live.

“It’s paradise,” I said.

“Yes, Johnny, it is paradise,” she said in wonderment.

“It’s good to know there is some place like this, even tho–.

“Yes, I know,” she replied to my half spoken thoughts. She knew what I
meant.

Then we walked back through the business section and window-shopped. I
was happy. Very happy. Paradise. But then we saw something we didn’t
expect. Right there in the middle of Paradise someone had built another
Transamerica pyramid.

“Oh God,” I said, “they’ve done it again.”

“Here?” she murmured, her voice trembeling “Even here?”

It was terrible.

“I guess they can do it anywhere. Nobody can stop them.”

“Here?” she seemed stunned.

Suddenly I hit desolation and just as suddenly my mother was gone., and I
found myself on another kind of train headed West. And there was my
wife. We were together again and headed home. Desolation was gone. You
don’t feel so bad when you’re headed home. Desolation was gone. You
don’t feel so bad when you’re headed towards a place that was ruined a
long time ago – as when your headed towards a good place where they are
just beginning the abomination and you know it won’t stop until it’s all
gone. I didn’t want to see the process. But we were escaping, so I felt
better. WE could never live in Paradise, Md., but it wouldn’t be there
very long anyway. Nobody could stay.

My friends, have we considered during this short time, that the
salvation of every one of us may depend upon whether Tommy Flynn
forgives all of us – or doesn’t. Have we considered that we are, all of
us, responsible for his “death.”

Tommy was “different” as we say. “there was something wrong with him.”
He wanted friends and we denied him friendship. He was very lonely but
none of us wanted to be associated with him in any manner. To be seen
with Tommy Flynn would threaten anyone’s social standing.

So we shunned him and denied his very existence. We made him into a
cipher. Perhaps, we did not ourselves know very much love, but that
which we did know we refused him. We killed him.

I have not heard anyone – anyone at all – mention his name since he
“died.” I learned about it in the newspaper. And now it is as though he
never existed. He and his “death” an unpleasant, completely avoided,
nonesixtant topic of conversation, so unpleasant (Do any of us feel the
least bit of remorse – guilt?) that his connection with us is, as if, it
never were, and is not now.

But i have come to avenge him, and to tell you that his connection with
us is not now, never was and never will be severed. I have come to
recall his name to this polite assembly that we may reflect upon our
responsibility in this, unspoken, hopefully forgotten matter. I thought
of him the same way we all did. I claim no exemption from my own
accusation. And I cannot and will not leave this so very cival occasion
without calling to mind his existence.

Because Tommy Flynn won’t graduate tonight. He’s not here. Only his
blood. And there’s a much more important graduation somming to each of
us someday. It may seem far off. It may be far off. Then again, for some
of us, it might not be so very far away. And when that time comes, each
of us by himself – completely alone – is going to have to answer to
Tommy Flynn and for Tommy Flynn. We won’t all be together at that time
comforting one another, striving against one another, loving and hating
one another. Keeping busy so we don’t remember.

No, each of us shall be utterly alone, and everything will suddenly be
absolutely transparent, when we are asked:

But I tell you he who, at this point, remembers Tommy and cares – that
is a great thing. And he who reflects on his own responsibility in the
“matter” – admits his own culpability and repents – that is an even
greater thing. And he who prays for him, that is still greater. But he
who can hope and pray that Tommy Flynn will forgive and love him – He
who can learn to love Tommy Flynn and hope to see him again – that is
the greatest thing.

And I say great things still happen.

Suddenly the gymnasium disappeared – Northwestern High School
disappeared Hyattesville, Prince Georges County disappeared, and I saw
Miss. Hardy way up in the sky. She was smiling down on me, on us, my
friends, and we were all together again – I say ALL of us and we were
dancing in a ring around her all smiling and happy.

You know, I think Miss. Hardy loved us all very much, and we never knew
it. She loves us now and I believe she always will. I saw her in the
sky!

Shall we not then, chillun, rejoice and love one another?

John Fahey (February 28, 1939 – February 22, 2001) was an American
fingerstyle guitarist and composer who
pioneered the steel-string guitar as a solo
instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been
described as the foundation of American Primitivism, 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 of music in these genres himself. He would later
incorporate classical, Portuguese, Brazilian, and Indian music into his
œuvre.
Fahey wrote a largely apocryphal autobiography and was known for his
coarseness, aloof demeanor and dry humour. He spent his latter years in
poverty and poor health and died in 2001. In 2003, he was ranked 35th in
Rolling Stone‘s “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”.

Career

John Aloysius Fahey was born in Washington, DC into a musical household—both
his parents played the piano. In 1945, the family moved to the Washington
suburb of Takoma Park, Maryland to a house on
New York Avenue that Fahey’s father Al lived in until his death in 1994.
On weekends, the family often attended performances of top country
and bluegrass groups of the day, but it was
hearing Bill Monroe‘s version of Jimmie Rodgers‘ “Blue Yodel
No. 7” on the radio that ignited the young Fahey’s passion for music.

In 1952, after being impressed by guitarist Frank Hovington, whom he met while on a fishing trip, he
purchased his first guitar for $17 from the Sears-Roebuck
catalogue. Along with his budding interest in guitar, Fahey was
attracted to record collecting. While his tastes ran
mainly in the bluegrass and country vein, Fahey discovered his love of
early blues upon hearing Blind Willie Johnson‘s “Praise God I’m Satisfied” on
a record-collecting trip to Baltimore with his
friend and mentor, the musicologist Richard K. Spottswood. Much later, Fahey compared
the experience to a religious conversion and remained a devout blues
disciple until his death.

As his guitar playing and composing progressed, Fahey developed a
style that blended the picking patterns he discovered on old blues 78s
with the dissonance of contemporary classical composers he loved, such
as Charles Ives and Béla Bartók. In 1958, Fahey made his first recordings. These
were for his friend Joe Bussard‘s amateur Fonotone label. He
recorded under the pseudonym Blind Thomas.

The following year, having no idea how to approach professional record companies and being convinced
they would be uninterested, Fahey decided to issue his first album
himself, using some cash saved from his gas station attendant job and
some borrowed from an Episcopal priest. So Takoma Records was born, named in honor of his hometown.
One hundred copies of this first album were pressed .
On one side of the album sleeve was the name “John Fahey” and on the
other, “Blind Joe Death”—this latter was a humorous nickname given to
him by his fellow blues fans. He attempted to sell these albums himself.
Some he gave away, some he sneaked into thrift stores and blues
sections of local record shops, and some he sent to folk music scholars,
a few of whom were fooled into thinking that there really was a living
old blues singer called Blind Joe Death. It took three years for Fahey
to sell the remainder.

After graduating from American University with a degree in philosophy and
religion, Fahey moved to California
in 1963 to study philosophy at the University of California at
Berkeley. Arriving on campus, Fahey—ever the outsider—began to feel
dissatisfied with the program’s curriculum (he later suggested that
studying philosophy had been a mistake and that what he
had wanted to understand was really psychology)
and was equally unimpressed with Berkeley’s (hippie)
music scene. Fahey loathed the polite Pete
Seeger-inspired revivalists he found himself classed with. The
following year, Fahey moved south to Los
Angeles to join the folklore master’s program at UCLA at the invitation of department head D.K.
Wilgus. Fahey’s UCLA master’s thesis on the music of Charley Patton was later published.
He completed it with the musicological assistance of his friend Alan Wilson, who shortly after became
a member of Canned Heat.

During this period, Takoma Records was reborn. Fahey decided to track
down Blues legend Bukka White by sending a postcard to Aberdeen, Mississippi (White had sung
that Aberdeen was his hometown, and Mississippi John Hurt had been
rediscovered using a similar method). When White responded, Fahey and ED
Denson, a Washington, DC area
friend who had also moved west, decided to travel to Memphis and record
White. The recordings by White became the first non-Fahey Takoma
release. Fahey also, finally, released a second album in late 1963,
called Death Chants, Breakdowns and Military Waltzes. To their
surprise the Fahey release sold better than White’s and Fahey had a
career going. But still Fahey did not begin playing in public for
another year.

His releases during the mid-1960s employed odd guitar tunings and
sudden style shifts rooted firmly in the old time and blues stylings of
the 1920s. But he was not simply a copyist, as compositions such as
“When the Catfish is in Bloom” or “Stomping Tonight on the
Pennsylvania/Alabama Border” demonstrate. Fahey described the latter
piece as follows : “The opening chords are from the last movement of Vaughan Williams‘ Sixth Symphony. It goes from
there to a Skip James motif. Following that it moves to a Gregorian chant, Dies
Irae. It’s the most scary one in the Episcopal hymn books, it’s all
about the day of judgment. Then it returns to the
Vaughan Williams chords, followed by a blues run of undetermined origin,
then back to Skip James and so forth.” A hallmark of his classic
releases was the inclusion of lengthy liner
notes, parodying those found on blues releases. Typically, these
were epic acts of self-mythologization, mixing personal biography,
reverie, folklore, and myriad obscure blues and bluegrass references.

Later albums from the sixties, such as Requia and The
Yellow Princess found Fahey making sound collages from such elements
as Gamelan
music, Tibetan chanting, animal and bird cries and
singing bridges. In 1967, Fahey recorded with Red Crayola at the 1967 Berkeley Folk Festival,
music that resurfaced on the 1998 Drag City reissue, The Red
Krayola: Live 1967.

In addition to his own creative output, Fahey expanded the Takoma
label, discovering fellow guitarists Leo
Kottke, Robbie Basho and Peter Lang, as well as emerging
pianist George Winston. Kottke’s debut release on the
label, 6- and 12-String Guitar, ultimately proved
to be the most successful of the crop, selling more than 500,000
copies. Other artists with albums on the label included Mike Bloomfield, Rick Ruskin, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Maria
Muldaur, Michael Gulezian and Canned
Heat. In 1979, Fahey sold Takoma to Chrysalis Records.
Jon
Monday, who had been the General Manager of the label since 1970
was the only employee to go with the new company. Chrysalis eventually
sold the rights to the albums, and Takoma was in limbo until bought by Fantasy Records in 1995.

Later years

By the mid-1970s, Fahey’s output abated and he began to suffer from a
drinking problem. He lost his home in
the dissolution of his first marriage, remarried, divorced again, and
moved to Salem, Oregon in 1981 to live with his third
wife. In 1986, Fahey contracted Epstein-Barr syndrome,
a long-lasting viral infection similar to chronic fatigue syndrome, which
exacerbated his diabetes and other health
issues.
He continued to perform in and around the Salem area, as he was managed
by friends David Finke and his wife Pam. The trio attempted to keep
Fahey’s career afloat by radio appearances and small venue performances.
He broke up with his third wife and his life began to spiral downward.
He made what appeared to be his last album in 1990.

Although he won his five-year battle with Epstein-Barr, Fahey spent
much of the early 1990s living in poverty, mostly in cheap motels. Gigs
had dried up, due to his health problems. He paid his rent by pawning
his guitars and reselling rare records he found in thrift stores.

Following a 1994 entry on Fahey in Spin magazine‘s spin-off Alternative Record Guide
publication, Fahey learned that he now had a whole new audience, which
included alternative US bands Sonic
Youth and Cul de Sac, British comedian and
writer Stewart Lee and the avant-garde musician Jim O’Rourke. Byron Coley published a
large article called “The Persecutions and Resurrections of Blind Joe
Death”
(also in Spin magazine) and at the same time a two-cd
retrospective called The Return of the Repressed all combined to
kick-start Fahey’s career. Suddenly new releases started to appear in
rapid succession, in parallel to the reissue of all the early Takoma
releases by Fantasy Records.

Jim O’Rourke went on to produce a Fahey album, 1997’s Womblife,
while in the same year Fahey recorded an album with Cul de Sac, The Epiphany of Glenn
Jones (Glenn Jones is the lead guitarist of Cul de
Sac). This late flowering showed Fahey had changed. Gone were the
melodic dreaminess and folk-based meditations of the 60s and 70s, which
Fahey himself characteristically denounced as “cosmic sentimentalism”.
In characteristically witty fashion, he once said of his style: “How can
I be a folk? I’m from the suburbs you know.”
Now his music was harsh, grating, and confrontational.

At the same time as he was delving into more experimental electric music, Fahey’s
passion for traditional roots music did not subside. After coming into
some money upon the death of his father in 1995, Fahey used the
inheritance to form another label, Revenant Records, to focus on reissuing obscure recordings
of early blues, old-time music, and anything else Fahey took a
fancy to.
In 1997, the label issued its first crop of releases, including albums
by artists such as British guitarist Derek
Bailey, American pianist Cecil
Taylor, guitarist Jim O’Rourke, bluegrass pioneers the Stanley Brothers, old-time banjo legend
Dock
Boggs, Rick Bishop of Sun City Girls, and slide
guitarist Jenks “Tex” Carman. Revenant’s most famous release would
become Screamin’
and Hollerin’ the Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton, a
seven-disc retrospective of Charley Patton and his contemporaries,
which won three Grammy awards in 2003.

On May 23, 1998, Fahey (guitar) performed an improvised experimental
piece on the WNUR-FM Airplay show in Evanston, Illinois in collaboration with Jim O’Rourke
(electronics, live-mixing). Later that evening, he gave a solo guitar
performance at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity
Temple in Oak Park. In the summer of 1999, Fahey returned to WNUR
to read from the manuscript for what would become How Bluegrass Music
Destroyed My Life—the working title at that time was Spank.
An interview with Fahey by WNUR’s Joe Cannon followed the reading. Fahey
appeared to have found new vitality through his writing as well as his
now more experimental and improvised compositions.

Fahey performed in Europe in Autumn 1999, including a show at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London in
September.

In 2000, the American record label Drag City published a volume of
Fahey’s esoteric autobiogaphical short stories, How Bluegrass Music
Destroyed My Life, edited by Damian Rogers with an introduction by
O’Rourke.

In February 2001, just a few days before what would have been his
62nd birthday, John Fahey died at Salem Hospital after undergoing a
sextuple bypass operation.

In 2006, five years after his death, no fewer than four John Fahey
tribute albums were released as a testament to his reputation as a
“giant of 20th century American music” (Byron Coley).

Documentaries

Starting work in 2007, Washington D.C. filmmaker Marc Minsker has
completed a 30 minute documentary feature on the life of John Fahey
entitled “John Fahey: The Legacy of Blind Joe Death.” It chronicles his
humble beginnings in Takoma Park, Maryland, through his success as a
guitarist and record producer in California, and follows him through his
dark days in Salem, Oregon. The film was accepted into the
7th Annual Takoma Park Film Festival.

A full length, feature documentary is currently underway by James
Cullingham and his Canadian film house, Tamarack
Productions entitled In Search of Blind Joe Death—The Saga of
John Fahey.