The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death

John Fahey

album cover

Transfiguration, Indeed

Here's a rarity: Music for solo guitar that can function as calm and relaxing background fodder and yet, if you go deep enough inside it, reveals a roiling, surprisingly turbulent netherworld. Throughout his fifth album, the mercurial John Fahey (1939-2001), one of the great musical scavengers of the 1960s, references the blues and folk and ragtime, yet keeps the influences at some distance. His songs employ traits of those styles in unexpected ways, enlivening instrumental death chants ("I Will Be Changed") and picturesque landscapes ("On the Sunny Side of the Ocean").

Central to the scenes is Fahey's guitar prowess, which is built on a similar feat of translation. He was one of the first to apply the fingerpicking techniques of traditional country and blues steel-string playing to less-traditional settings. Then, he added complex tunings and tightly clustered voicings of his own derivation. Fahey found a way to simultaneously affirm the riches left by his musical forefathers and express his own soul: Even at this album's bluesiest moment, the swerving pitch-bends of "How Green Was My Valley," it's possible to hear echoes of Fahey's heroes Mississippi John Hurt and Charley Patton while knowing that those patriarchs would never have written anything remotely like this. Though Fahey made other crucial contributions to music—his label, Takoma, gave the world Leo Kottke, as well as his own explorations of Indian raga and Native American music—the expert filtrations of Blind Joe Death stand apart, proof that even the most entrenched forms can be transfigured in dazzling ways.

Genre: Folk
Released: 1965, Takoma
Key Tracks: "Orinda-Moraga," "On the Sunny Side of the Ocean"
Catalog Choice: Death Chants, Breakdowns, and Military Waltzes
Next Stop: Leo Kottke: 6- and 12- String Guitar
After That: Bonnie "Prince" Billy: I See a Darkness
Book Page: 268

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Comments:

#1 from Michael, New York - 10/16/2008 10:58

As an 18 year old electric guitar fiend who loved Black Sabbath and all things dark, I’d read in Guitar Player magazine that a guy named John Fahey was a dark and strange acoustic player. When I saw his name in the record rack one day I started thumbing my way through (I’d probably never even TOUCHED an acoustic recording in my life). When I came upon “The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death” the title and artwork said “buy me” and I did.

It took me about 45 seconds to feel the power and the madness of this music. I’ve been playing it for 30 years now and never tire. Nobody tells a story on the guitar like Fahey. If you want to mess with someone, put this album on and don’t tell them what it is.

#2 from Tom Moon - 10/24/2008 12:22

Another measure of Fahey is his influence on subsequent generations. I’m a huge fan of M. Ward, whose last few records have carried strong traces of Fahey genius. The ones I’m thinking of: Transistor Radio and the astoundingly intense Post War.

Enjoy!

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