John Fahey- Candy Man- Strikes a Chord

John Fahey…. Okay I thought…

By today’s standards you might think a little primitive but ya know…

Something is happening here that is very unique….

And someone had to do it first, right?

We’ll here’s the pioneer- the guy that started it all on the solo steel string guitar.

I admit that I never really listened much to John Fahey. Mostly because I was into the flatpicking thing. But after listening, John Fahey would be my first stop if I was trying to learn fingerstyle guitar.

Here’s a short bio from Wiki about him worth reading…

“John Aloysius Fahey (February 28, 1939 – February 22, 2001) was an Americanfingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic 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 folkand blues traditions in American roots music, having compiled many forgotten early recordings in these genres. He would later incorporate classical, Portuguese, Brazilian, and Indian music into his œuvre.^[1] Fahey wrote a largely apocryphal autobiography. He spent many of his later years in poverty and poor health, but enjoyed a minor career resurgence with a turn towards the more explicitly avant-garde, and created a series of abstract paintings during the last years of his life. He died in 2001 due to complications from heart surgery. In 2003, he was ranked 35th in the Rolling Stone “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” list.” read more

Special thanks go to Richard Harty for sharing info on John Fahey with us

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