Dance of Death: The Life of John Fahey, American Guitarist

by Steve Lowenthal, David Fricke (Foreword)

John Fahey is to the solo acoustic guitar what Jimi Hendrix was to the the man whom all subsequent musicians had to listen to. Fahey made more than 40 albums between 1959 and his death in 2001, most of them featuring only his solo steel-string guitar. He fused elements of folk, blues, and experimental composition, taking familiar American sounds and recontextualizing them as something entirely new. Yet despite his stature as a groundbreaking visionary, Fahey’s intentions—as a man and as an artist—remain largely unexamined. Journalist Steve Lowenthal has spent years researching Fahey’s life and music, talking with his producers, his friends, his peers, his wives, his business partners, and many others. He describes Fahey’s battles with stage fright, alcohol, and prescription pills; how he ended up homeless and mentally unbalanced; and how, despite his troubles, he managed to found a record label that won Grammys and remains critically revered. This portrait of a troubled and troubling man in a constant state of creative flux is not only a biography but also the compelling story of a great American outcast.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, History

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote to John Fahey in 1990, it was just some kind of fan letter, and in return I got a package containing two cassettes and a huge photocopied manuscript. That was unexpected. The cassettes turned out to be his next two albums, Old Girlfriends and other Horrible Memories and Azalea City and Other Toxic Memorabilia. The second one still hasn’t been released. It’s pretty good too.
But the manuscript was a barely-readable thing called Admiral Kelvinator’s Clockwork Factory, and the reason why Fahey sent it to me, a nobody British fan, was that he couldn’t get it published in the US and thought I might try for him in the UK. Which having tried to read it, I didn’t.

About ten years later, by email this time, he randomly offered me the job of sorting through his entire archive of unreleased music to see what was releasable. But, you know, he flailed around like that all the time. You couldn’t tell if he was serious. He liked to pull people’s legs. He liked to curse his audience and tell them they were sentimental hippies living in the past. He liked to help turtles to cross the highway. He was a great cantankerous bull. The world was his chinashop.



I have here on my tiny little desk a beautiful document of 43 pages, I wish I could show it to you. An Australian guy Chris Downes put it together, A4 pages, bejeweled with small photos of Fahey at all stages of his turtley life, from beanpole student to fat old bad-Santa derelict. The text is every message put on the old original Fahey Forum in February and March 2001, from a few days before his death until his funeral. It’s an outpouring. A geyser of pain and love. I remember how these messages of sadness and shock mixed with love of the music and affection for the man just kept appearing hour after hour.

Fahey’s posthumous career has been surprisingly steady, not that he would have had a kind word to say about it. We have had five (!) tribute albums, a nice documentary,
a pathologically obsessive discographical nightmare,
a great big fat previously-unreleased box set (on which I get a name check!!), and now a slender but eloquent biography. Naturally I would have liked a Lewisohnesque 800 pager, but this will do for now. I did many times groan aloud as another tasty hilarious anecdote I knew should be coming up was omitted or another tendril in the rich vegetation surrounding Fahey was left furled; but hell, I lapped up all the dishing that Fahey’s ex-wives and close friends did, and it was well that they did too – this is no rosy Fahey-as-national-treasure father-of-Americana hagiography. This is Fahey as the world’s biggest baby, squalling with terrifying appetites all the livelong day, awake at inappropriate times, asleep at worse times; greeting house visitors draped in a Nazi flag and nothing else; living in his car because he got chucked out of the Salvation Army hostel, again; shoveling prescription drugs down his throat (he was an Elvis style dope fiend, anything on scrip), asking waitresses to marry him, asking random Japanese women to marry him, asking members of the audience to marry him – one of the best tales has John mimeographing a letter beseeching a girl from the audience that evening to marry him because he’s so lonely, then putting copies on every table and seat in the place.




He was more of a guitar playing coelacanth than a fully fledged human, in some respects.

After living in flophouses and hostels for some years, he got lucky, his hated dad died and left him a a lot of dough. So he paid off his bills and what did he do with the rest of the money? Started a new record label to reissue Dock Boggs, The No Neck Blues Band, Jenks Carman, Charlie Feathers, Albert Ayler, and other household names.

Genius.

This biography does not put a foot wrong. My eagle eye was poised to swoop over every word, waiting for the inept research, the misattributed quote, the crassly wrong date. There weren’t any swoops. No swoops. This book passes the Severe Fahey Fan test.

Steve Lowenthal writes to get the job done, but at times he produces beautifully illuminating phrases, such as :

Fahey’s improvements from therapy with Jan were shortlived and mostly cosmetic. Rather than see himself as a person who had problems that needed to be solved, he became enthralled by his own fascinating tapestry of dysfunction.


And

Fahey remained at odds with a universe that didn’t consider him a priority.


(me too, Steve, as far as that goes)

What came through to me in strong shudders as I turned these too few pages was how mentally unwell and how much of a mean-minded egomaniac Fahey was. His character is thoroughly trashed here. He wasn’t a nice man. He hated so many things. I don’t mind all this badmouthing though, and Fahey, having lived the gospel of telling it like it is through his whole life with no concessions made for anyone’s feelings, would have applauded this. There is a biography of Skip James by Stephen Calt which is as vicious as it’s possible to be about Fahey (who rediscovered and sort-of managed Skip James in 1964/5) and his treatment of and attitude towards James, it’s a very remarkable chapter; what was Fahey’s reaction? He said Calt’s book was the best blues book ever written.

The Faheyological material I collected over the years contains many amusing items, and indicates to me the great anecdotes that must be left out of most biographies, I suppose, because they’re just too long or too outrageous or too uncomfortable to include. But it would have been great to find in these pages Fahey’s own detailed account of the Great Antonioni Fiasco (background – in 1969 the great director invited Fahey to do soundtrack for his new movie set in the US)

He started telling me how he hated the USA and why and started preaching Marxist nonsense. I said “Sir, you should not speak of my country in this manner. It is RUDE and you do not understand the USA. Perhaps you have had too much to drink. Why not order some coffee?” He replied “Go fuck yourself with a fileophile!” The dinner degenerated into name calling. At one point – “What the hell’s wrong with you, Fahey? Everyone else knows about the Revolution. You work for the CIA or something?” By this he meant to insult me. … His stupid film [Zabriskie Point] is in the book The 100 Worst Films Ever Made and deserves inclusion.

Or the whole Glenn Jones Cul de Sac record psychodrama. Yes, you may have read the sleeve notes of that album by Glenn, and great they are, but even more lascerating and revealing are the REVISED notes fleshed out into a wonderful essay by Glenn which has never seen the light of day – I have it right here.

Or… well. Enough. Fahey was a monster who has given me more pleasure than any other monster. And when I met him, in September 1999, about 15 months before he died, on one of the worst-run tours anyone has ever done, having just played a gig where about two thirds of the audience walked out, he was gregarious, charming, affable, and excellent company.




Postscript. In case you were wondering

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cu4F...

[Paul Secor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got what I expected from this book, but not what I had hoped for.
I expected a multitude of details on John Fahey's life and that was there in spades - his early life, his marriages, his abuse of alcohol, prescription drugs, and coke (the cola kind only), the deterioration of his life style over the years, and his personality.
What I hoped for was something that would give a sense of the magic in Fahey's music. Perhaps that was too much to expect from a biography. It would probably take a novel - and one written by a talented novelist - to give me that. Lacking that, I also hoped for some detailed discussion (not necessarily technical) of the man's recordings. There was some of that but, in general, it was fairly superficial.

When I listen to John Fahey's music, the first thing that grabs me is the sound of his guitar. I have the sense that guitar sound was important to John Fahey also. When I listen, I almost have the sense that, as he played, he took great pleasure in listening to the pure sound of his guitar. Even on the (I believe) last recordings he did, which were released as Red Cross,
when he had either lost or left behind most of his facility - I would guess that the former is true (an aside - I experience this recording in the same way that I experience Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin. Her voice was shot, but the emotion is still there.) - I can hear that the sound of his instrument is still important to him. I didn't find any mention of this in this bio. Or if it was there, I missed it.

There were two small mistakes that I caught.
On page 68: "Vanguard hired Sam Charters as a talent scout. Having just recorded Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, and Junior Wells for the Prestige label ..." Sam Charters recorded all three of those gentlemen for Vanguard. As far as I know, none of them ever recorded for Prestige.

And Mr. Lowenthal omits any mention (again, unless I missed it) - in the heart of the book or in the discography - of John Fahey's appearance (with Bill Barth) on the Memphis Swamp Jam album on the Blue Thumb label.
(It's since been reissued on producer Chris Strachwitz's own Arhoolie label.) Fahey and Barth are credited as assistant producers and they play on three cuts credited to R.L. Watson and Josiah Jones. Watson and Jones are described as mutes who were found playing on the streets of Memphis. And further, "Little is known of the backgrounds of the two performers, as Strachwitz was unable to conduct an interview with them and all attempts at communication were forestalled in the face of the pair's undisguised mistrust of, if not outright hostility towards, blue-eyed Silesians." Obviously, this was a product of Fahey's sense of humor. The music itself is fine.

My mention of both of these mistakes is nit picking - the product of a blues aficionado's twisted mind - and I don't consider them major faults.

I did appreciate some of the information about the inside jokes that Fahey included on his records and in their liner notes, and I appreciated the discography. John Fahey was a complex character and perhaps this was all that one person could do in one book.
I doubt that I'll ever reread this - the recordings are what are important to me - so I'll probably pass it on to a good friend who is also a Fahey fan.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Steve Lowenthal seems to have been well-placed to interview a number of folks intimate with John Fahey, so this biography is far from a total bust. However, Lowenthal seems poorly disposed to the self-abnegating strain of Fahey's mysticism, and once Fahey begins, in the mid-Eighties, to report on abuse and molestation he may have experienced as a child, in his own home, his biographer adopts the line that Fahey's disclosures are the result of the repressed memory "syndrome," or some bit of casuist reasoning equally bizarre, and as his final steady romantic interest, Melissa Stephenson, didn't believe Fahey, neither should biographer-Steve. The case is more complex than can be ventured by so brief a notice as this, but I find Lowenthal's approach to a victim's testimony entirely inadequate. Lowenthal's opening chapters represent the Maryland childhood, without any of the disruption from abuse Fahey later claimed. So there's that: the biographer's art demonstrates just how little of this Lowenthal countenances.

[Steve Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely thoroughly researched biography of John Fahey. I absolutely love John Fahey and he was probbaly the biggest factor in my taking up the guitar. I still remember one day when in high school telling my brother one day I hoped to play guitar as well as John Fahey. While I may have failed in that quest (I'm still practicing and the future is always unknown), at least my life so far has been light year's better than Fahey. I love the man and I always knew he had a difficult life but after reading this book, all I can say is "Wow." He had serious strange problems with women and indeed with almost all social situations. And with his health. And his finances. My hero comes off as an extremely pathetic individual.

But so what? He wasn't really mean and horrible to people. Just strange. And he was one of the best collectors/authorities on old pre-war blues and country music. And he wrote and played beautiful guitar instrumentals. And he loved all animals, particularly his beloved turtles. So I will still proudly listen to his music and continue on my path to imitate him with my guitar playing. Long live the ideals of John Fahey.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

cuts through some of the bunk that fahey spread about himself in his autobio/fiction and on-stage rambles (though lots of times he would not even look at audience, much less talk) How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life
this book goes through his childhood, his absent dad, his music collecting in deep south, his success with some albums and running a record label in LA, his slow disappearance from the world (living in burbs in nw oregon) his continual substance abuse and misanthropy, and his harrowing end of life simultaneous 2nd spring touring with alt rockers.
wonderful music and art/artist, strange and kinda disturbing man.
has pictures, source notes, bibliography, super discography, index.

paul here has a wonderful book review and very interesting back stories and links to some music and pics https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Jonathan Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author provides a good overview of Fahey’s life and career and some interesting tidbits here and there (that the “Live in Tasmania” was not recorded live I find terribly dismaying for whatever reason; that Fahey inherited a bundle near the end of his life, etc). The author establishes early on that Fahey was a pain in the ass to work with and an overall mess of a man and the narrative seems to get stuck in a bit of a rut over that and that isn’t all that interesting after a while.

Worse, I got the sense the author found his subject distasteful and couldn’t wait to be done with the project. I don’t care for hagiography, so I appreciate the author pointing out some painful things like that Fahey was not exactly a man ahead of his time when it came to his attitudes toward African Americans.

While he was at it, he could have mentioned Fahey’s homophobia, as anyone who’s read the thing he wrote in his “Best of 1959-1977” tab book about the “homosexual guitar player” would recall. The qualities of a guitar player that Fahey misattributed to gays (Ani DiFranco, as just one example, could kick his ass) are nonetheless important in explaining his approach to playing guitar; I wish the author had made more of an attempt to salvage the good parts that were wrapped up in gratuitous bigotry and hatred. The brief essay is actually very valuable if you strip away the crap.

Sometimes the author strings together a series of long quotes from others which is a good thing in that it shows he did a lot of research on Fahey and conducted many in-depth interviews but it also, at times, reads like filler and that the author couldn’t be bothered to make sense of it all.

I would have liked more of a breakdown of individual compositions as so many have stood up well over time. For example, “Fare Forward Voyagers” clocks in at over 23 minutes and is an amazing piece in an especially unusual tuning. The only commentary we get on this is a lot of uninteresting gossip about his disastrous personal life. We get a vignette about Fahey being a jerk in a brief encounter with Joni Mitchell but nothing about the comparative guitar playing styles (Joni Mitchell was also fond of obscure guitar tunings and non-conventional approaches to the instrument). Likewise, Fahey, like his much more famous contemporaries Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Keith Richards, mined what were then obscure African American blues recordings and incorporated (or I guess we should say appropriated) many stylistic elements including various open tunings that had not been a part of white music previously. The superficial differences between Fahey and Keith Richards, Clapton, et al are obvious but there are also important commonalities. This might account, at least in part, for the fan note Pete Townsend sent Fahey, for example. In any case, there is much here to explore in a biography of Fahey the composer and musician (as opposed to the sad state of his personal life). Instead, the author notes that while Fahey acknowledged no connection to contemporary music, he clearly had been listening to at least some of it. And that’s basically ALL the author provides.

On a personal note, I saw Fahey perform live twice. The first time was in June or July 1984 at the Birchmere in Northern Virginia. He was at the top of game in terms of playing ability. He was very approachable and charming and even came and sat at my table during his break. I remember scanning the audience and seeing a lot of very focused young men who were obviously there to study his playing style. They were so focused on technique that they seemed to have no actual enjoyment for the music itself. I saw him 4 years later and he had put on a lot of weight and had an unpleasant exchange with one of the event staff people at the outset that was awkward enough that I declined the opportunity to say hello. Before taking his break, he asked if anyone in the audience would join him backstage and change his strings. In a small audience consisting of dozens of good amateur guitar players who could have changed his guitar strings, no one volunteered for quite an awkward while. I’m glad I got to see Fahey when he was in top form.

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have loved the music of John Fahey since hearing his guitar arrangements as something familiar yet challenging, checking LPs out of the library, then the used record stores. Similarly, Fahey is one of the generation who collected blues and roots 78s and went out in search of blues musicians like Skip James. I am so grateful this biography exists. Once begun, I could not put it down, reading most of it in a day, while listening to a mix of Fahey recordings, at the same time.
Here's a sample from YouTube.
This fine book could have used an additional edit, for instance, for a misleading reference to the mandolinist David Grisman and the snarky tone when referring to Windham Hill records. Yet Fahey was full of snark. Fahey went through relationships, prescribing doctors, and substances at a rapid rate. There are some mysteries of personality here.
The Georgia Tech radio station WREK-FM would use Fahey's arrangement of "In Christ There Is No East or West" as a station ID, and still does. I never heard Fahey in person, and apparently, that grew hit or miss, and he played electric more and acoustic hardly at all. I never get tired of his guitar from 1960s and 1970s. The run through his discography makes me curious about all the records I haven't heard, including his increasingly eccentric late work.
Yet, starting with his own Takoma records, I want to keep listening.
Here's the John Fahey Files website, http://johnfahey.com/
Thanks to the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library for the book.
Highly recommended.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, I've read two magnificent musician memoirs in the last week. I've picked up bits and pieces of John Fahey's story since I started listening to him in the early-2000's. Most of them centered around Fahey's almost singular level of eccentrism - pressing 100 copies of his first record, attributing a side to the fictional Blind Joe Death, and then selling them at the gas station he worked at; re-recording his first two albums years after releasing them because he felt they were too sloppy; antagonizing his audiences to the point of alienation; giving in to addiction (drugs, alcohol, and later, food); becoming homeless; and then, the bizarre rediscovery (mirroring his rediscovery of Bukka White, Skip James, and others in the 60's) and celebration of his work in the 90's. Sadly, all of this information came to me after he died. At any rate, Lowenthal does an excellent job of clarifying the tales and filling in the blanks. I wish that Joe Bussard had a greater presence in the book, but maybe he didn't want to participate? What was confirmed is that Fahey could be an asshole, but an artist asshole - someone who provoked in order to educate. As ridiculous as that sounds, it fits. He was a genius. He could have cashed in heavily when his legend was resurrected towards the end of his life, but he still made the music that he wanted to make, regardless of whether it would sell or not. Maybe another book will come out that will detail his recording sessions in greater detail, but for now, this book was more than enough, a page-turner if ever there was one.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I'm glad that this biography exists. However, I want to clarify something in the book. I'm mentioned as a Geffen Records rep that was trying to sign Fahey for six figures. I did not speak with the author of this book. I met with John a few times. On the first visit with him, he was in fine form and kind of charming. The second visit was a week long road trip with him and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore for a handful of east coast shows. John thought I was on the road trip specifically to sign him to DGC. I told him that I wasn't interested in the usual Fahey stuff. One suggestion was a Bola Sete styled album. If I went forward with it, it would be a low budget release, but there would be a producer and some accompaniment. I offered to pay for a demo with Bostons' Cul de Sac to see if John could work with other musicians which he hadn't done since a recording for Vanguard Records. A demo was recorded but I did not pay for it- the band released it on the Thirsty Ear label. John disparaged the band immediately after the session but had no problem with the album's release.John's intense erratic behavior and health problems were the reason for not moving forward on a project.

[Tim Ver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lowenthal did an exceptional job at trying to elucidate the complexities of a cult figure who very much conflated myth with fact wherever he could.

The book is nuanced in its approach of discussing Fahey's discography, public life, and the personal tribulations that informed his eclectic style of playing. Simply a must-read for anyone interested in American Primitivist music.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good biography of Fahey, the artist, record company founder/owner, and man, if you can get past the author's placing Alan Lomax's early employer as the Smithsonian, and his claim that David Grisman was the lyricist for the Grateful Dead.

[David Partikian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last evening, a musician friend was over for dinner and Daniel Bachman’s Seven Pines (Tomkins Square records) was on the CD player. My friend commented that it sounded like more than one guitar. I was pretty sure it was one, Bachman being influenced by the style known as American Primitive is well versed in making one guitar sound like many. The founder of this style, John Fahey, is a legendary but underappreciated figure who has influenced too many musicians to even cite without being accused of exaggeration and name dropping. Not only is Fahey one of the top guitarists of the last century (he was one of the few solo acoustic guitarists in the USA to earn a living with gigs and LP’s in the early 70’s), but he was very accomplished in other endeavors.

--He recorded his first album The Legend of Blind Joe Death in 1959 by creating his own record label, Tacoma Records. In this respect, his ability to circumvent the traditional recording industry puts him at least 40 years ahead of his time. As co-founder of Tacoma records, he is responsible for debut records by Leo Kottke and Robbie Basho, both often categorized as American Primitive guitarists, though they might dispute the term.

--As an avid collector of 78 rpm records, Fahey drove through mostly segregated neighborhoods throughout the South in his youth, rescuing rare recordings.

--He wrote an MA thesis on blues legend Charlie Patton. This thesis was later issued as a book.

--He is largely responsible for rediscovering Skip James and getting him back on stage in the 60’s.

--He wrote a book of short stories, “How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life.”

--He recorded over 50 albums in his lifetime, many of which were solo acoustic, but over all of which he retained full artistic control. Who has the talent to do the first? Who has the wherewithal and stamina to accomplish the second?

A biography of John Fahey finally appeared in 2015, “Dance of Death: The Life of John Fahey American Guitarist.” I am not attempting to write a music review—it’s not my preferred genre—but anyone who loves John Fahey’s music, American Primitive guitar, or finger-picking blues should be aware that there is, as of 2014, this outstanding biography covering Fahey’s prodigious career from his early years in Tacoma Park, Maryland to his terrible decline in Salem, Oregon (where he moved during doubts about the stability of the nation, figuring that a state capitol would always have employment opportunities and a solid economy). Never one for 60’s drug culture (He found it anathema), Fahey was quite content to be a prodigious and often obnoxious drunk. Like many of the more talented musicians who played solo and with astounding complexity (Glenn Gould, Elliot Smith), he became unenthusiastic about playing live. Though recordings exist of him tearing down the house, particularly in the early 70’s, he increasingly shied away from live performance. Never having been in the public eye or mainstream radio stations, since American Primitive is rather unclassifiable within a genre or marketable music form, Fahey often ran into financial difficulty. His mercurial personality had him filling in and out of favor throughout his career (His tantrum at having to open for Joni Mitchell is worth a chuckle*). Author Steve Lowenthal captures Fahey’s personality, the good and the bad, without ever seeming malicious or going for cheap personal gossip that fuels so many musical biographies. Anyone who has ever loved John Fahey’s music, his experimental alternative tunings, and been influenced by them on guitar should buy this biography; it contains a full discography.

Books on underappreciated geniuses do not always sell well. Author Steve Lowenthal is a music writer who also runs record a record label specializing in solo instrumental guitar music. The imprint, A Cappella Book, can always be relied upon for outstanding offerings.

*Nothing against Joni Mitchell, who is a phenomenal artist and innovator in her own right. In this instance, Fahey’s tantrum was quite bratty and uncalled for. It should be distinguished from other famous (apocryphal?) incidents like Miles Davis—quite rightly—throwing a fit after learning he was supposed to open or share a bill with the Steve Miller Band at the Fillmore East. One can only imagine Davis’s hoarse whispery tirade.

[False · Rating 3 out of 5]

So much mythology exists about John Fahey. Most is of his own making. To sort through the life of this true American original is a daunting task at best. This book represents the best effort to date at making sense of the life of a man who constantly defied sense and logic.

To write a biography takes a point of view. Everybody has an opinion, even biographers. Unfortunately, they run the risk of liking their subject too much. This can lead to certain conclusions being drawn that may have been best left to the reader. This is the main fault I find with this particular biography. He does not put Fahey on a pedestal. Far from it. Fahey is presented, warts and all. Fahey's particular brand of insanity seems to have been the fuel for his creative output all of his adult life. And this fuel was the high-octane stuff! We have terms and diagnosis today that did not exist in Fahey's lifetime.

However, insanity isn't a symptom of genius. Had Fahey never touched a guitar, he would have most likely found himself among the scores of walking wounded that decorate the urban landscape. It's too easy to draw the conclusion that his madness was somehow tied to his genius, that he was in a world that the rest of us mere mortals will never know. It is that point of view that colors this biography, more often than not, to its detriment.

There are also countless other points of view that are contained in this bio from friends, colleagues and family. Some are laughable. At one point, an ex wife of Fahey (I think, I might be wrong) said something to the effect of "I'd like to find these doctors that killed John Fahey" by prescribing him all kinds of drugs. Fahey was a guy who never took care of himself. He may not even have had the ability. He ate, drank and medicated himself with suicidal abandon. To blame doctors for his death is nonsense.

The author also spends some time bemoaning Fahey's lack of commercial success. This is an issue that never seemed to bother Fahey in the least. At one point, he even goes as far as surmising that Fahey was jealous of the success of bands like Canned Heat and Country Joe and the Fish. That seems to be a reckless conclusion made by someone with a true lack of understanding of Fahey's own point of view. Fahey never seemed deterred by a lack of public approval or financial support. He seemed to thrive on disappointing his public's expectations and doing the very things that would challenge and even offend the people that could help him financially. I believe he measured his success very differently than the author.

It would have been nice to have heard a little more about the instruments Fahey played. His Bacon and Day, his Recording King, his string of Martins and the electric instruments. It's a safe bet that a large percentage of readers will also be guitar players that would be genuinely interested in hearing more about these iconic instruments.

Fahey is a tough nut for any biographer to crack. I hope this is the first of more from others who find this man so fascinating. One point this author makes is quite insightful. Truman Capote once said "When God gives a gift, He also gives a whip. The whip is for self flagellation." Fahey's life and difficulties sometimes had the mark of a flagellant's zeal. There was sometimes the stink of the martyr about him and his life. It's an interesting thought.

[Alistair · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Fahey was an American solo acoustic guitarist who supposedly invented American primitive guitar and was active from circa 1960 until his death in 2001 .

He was at his best during the folk revival and and hippie era and his style based on 1920's and early 30's black and white country music gave him a considerable following especially when he moved to the West Coast from Takoma near Washington DC . His also incorporated classical themes and also Indian .He originally set up his own record company and issued his early limited edition charmingly home made records on that label before being taken up by professional labels .

He was a complete original and using a finger picking style created songs sometimes of great length such as The Great Bernadino Birthday Party clocking in at around 20 minutes and this was in 1965 or Sail away Ladies based on a Dave Macon hillbilly song from the 1920's . He also created an alter ego Blind Joe Death who he pretended was a long lost rural blues singer . His early records often included a sort of booklet expanding on this mythological figure and developing a personal story about ex girlfriends too and other friends and enemies and a lot of theological side tracks . Death was a big topic , one of his records being titled Requia , as was rural America . And turtles too . Requia contained a B side of one very long track which meshed his guitar playing with a sound track which included Hitler speeches , Charles Ives , Sibelius , Mamas and Papas , railway noises to name a few . He usually ended his albums with a hymn . His most successful album was The New Possibility of christmas carols . A lot of his many later albums were not very good .He later experimented with an electric guitar and grunge

As you might have guessed he was not quite your usual bog standard folkie . He was difficult and played up to his extreme iconoclastic personality just for a bit of fun . Somehow he managed to get married several times . He was an alcoholic and great pill popper and lived on a diet of coca cola and hamburgers and but delighted in offending hippies and in fact almost everybody . He performed drunk most of the time and was when I met him once and as time went on this affected this live playing and his career careered downhill after a flirtation with popularity on major labels . He ended up broke and in poor health towards the end but somehow managed with some help and an inheritance from his father who he claimed had sexually abused him ,to start a new record label and get a huge Charlie Patton box set published with extensive notes , photos , reproductions of old record labels and 7 cd's and Fahey's book about Patton updated from an earlier edition . It won several Emmys . It was issued after Fahey died on the operating table during surgery for heart problems .

This book tells his story pretty comprehensively maybe a bit short on detail but I think gives a well balanced view .

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting read, short, but full of crazy, sometimes funny, sometimes unsettling anecdotes about the quirky, self-destructive, highly original acoustic guitar genius. Maybe quirky is an understatement, since it implies a sort of charming eccentricity, and Fahey was more like a full-fledged pain-in-the-ass wack job. One element that struck me was just how DIY, improvised and homemade his records and career were, especially the early years. Gotta give some credit to those wives, too, hanging with John sounds like a challenge few would sign up for or stick with. I also enjoyed the window into the folk/guitar scene of the 60's from this angle, kudos to the author for the many interviews, letters and other ephemera he pieced together into a coherent, albeit discouragingly tragic, narrative. Fahey seemed to embody that saying, "Talent hits a target no one else can hit, a genius hits a target no one else can see." Sadly his gift did just as much collateral damage to the man himself. I don't want to paint too dark a picture here, many of the anecdotes are pretty hilarious, such as him threatening to "beat the sh*t out of" David Geffen for trying to shoehorn the then unknown Joni Mitchell into one of John's shows. Definitely worth your time if you're into this sort of thing.

[Matt Briggs · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a thorough and linear account of John Fahey's life and career. The book paints what feels like an authentic and complex picture of Fahey and his closer associates. While this isn't the most insightful book, it does lay out the story in great detail. It never gets bogged down. I think this choice is a good one. It makes Fahey's convoluted story easy to get; but it creates lots of questions and byways that are probably explored in more detail elsewhere.

If you are interested in outsider music, guitar music, or the work of the folkies in the 1950s and 1960s who recovered the lost music of the 1920s and 1930s, this books has a lot of essential history. Fahey had a troubled relationship to the folk movement, but he had a troubled relationship with everything. Fahey rediscovered Skip James and Bukka White. And by the end of his life after creating a vast catalog of music that connected the finger picking style of the country blues to classical music, Jazz, experimental music, and World Music (a mix of influences that come to be known to Fahey's horror as New Age Music), Fahey did the best that he could to get lost himself in Oregon.

[Edith · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Fahey was a shitty and sad guy. The book is all right. I think it's a little too reverent, but what are you going to do. The book seems to gloss over Fahey's racism and violent treatment of women pretty quickly. I especially wish that his racism was given a closer, more objective look given his obvious overwhelming debt to black musicians and the black people that sold him the 78s that served as the foundation for his career and entire output.

Sometimes too, I think the book is too indulgent of Fahey's incessant mythmaking.

A telling quote from his first wife, whom he threatened to kill (like he threatened his other wives), speaking about a memorial service held after he had died:
"I was like 'Who are you people?' We were in a big room, and one after the other they would come up to me and tell me their story. He had to have people take care of him, and they did. It's very sad. It's really tragic. People talked about having to drive him places and people having to feed him and buy him guitars and take care of him like a giant, talented baby. They talked about what a blessing it was to have this opportunity to take care of him, and I thought, better you than me."

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never meet your heroes, they'll always disappoint you, they say. John Fahey did more than disappoint his fans, he scared them to death. A guitarist who played beautiful traditional American folk melodies with remarkable individual style, Fahey not only popularized folk instrumental albums, but was one of the first DIY label entrepreneurs.

Steve Lowenthal's biography very keenly goes into great detail about his brilliant musicianship, as well as his extremely temperamental behavior on and off stage. Dance of Death also reveals some interesting gossip about Robbie Basho that Basho's documentary never went into. Needless to say, both virtuosos suffered from poor social skills.

Dance of Death accomplishes what all good music biographies should do, and that's make you want to listen to their art and appreciate the great work they left for us to enjoy.

[Jessie]

really well researched, clean and functional prose, like a good biography and kind of feels like the definitive document on fahey. I think there's a tendency in it to erase the harm he clearly caused through his life, or more to minimize, but on a certain level it's like this is a book about an abuser; If you study most abuser's lives you find that the harm they cause comes from an understandable place, like hurt people hurt people type shit. I found a lot of good musicians throughout the book just mentioned in passing, really good if you're into the music as a resource and guide to american primitivism.

[Michael Roeder · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good companion to the 2013 Biopic

I was reading this around the same time I caught the 2013 film In Search of Blind Joe Death which is currently available on Amazon Prime. The book shines light in some of the dark corners of Fahey's life in a way the film couldn't feasibly. A sad complicated existence of a man who seemed to shine brighter on record. Recommended if you're a fan of Fahey or curious about the man who influenced so many musicians.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is pretty short, coming in at 188 pages. I certainly could have handled something twice its length on the subject, especially if it went a little deeper into the music. But at least someone bothered to write a biography of Fahey, and it is an enjoyable read, so I'm happy for that.

[Will Harlan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hoped for clear answers as to John Fahey was and what he was about. This book provides a few fuzzy answers and plenty of unhappy ones.

Fahey was an especially excellent musician and composer. He was not especially excellent to himself or others. Sometimes behind all the mythos and clever bullshit, there is only hurt and a desire to be something you aren’t. Maybe sometimes that hurt can run so deep you can only mire yourself in elaborate storytelling and a contrarian outlook. Also, maybe some people are just jerks.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m actually not very familiar with Fahey’s music but I have friends here in Portland who knew him and I’ve been hearing his name forever. It sounds like he was a very complicated, talented, often difficult, man.

[Carlton Duff · Rating 4 out of 5]

With Dance of Death, Steve Lowenthal has written a totally engaging book and a biography of a musician that transcends its genre.

[Jay Hinman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fahey’s been ripe for a book-length deconstruction even long before his 2001 death, but it’s truly the swelling cult of worship around his dazzling four decades of guitar work that’s propelled enough interest to warrant it. Steve Lowenthal, a writer and record label head, does an admirable job at relaying the complexities and alternately misanthropic and large-hearted character of the man, keeping his biography rooted more in name/date/order facts, and in quotes from Fahey’s ex-associates and –wives, than in conjecture or analysis. One comes away with even more appreciation for just how creatively out of step Fahey was with his times, and how he was deeply sub-underground & “alternative” well before the terms had even been used in relation to music, or humanity.

Lowenthal takes the biography chronologically, starting with childhood life in Takoma Park, Maryland and ending with Fahey’s late-in-life existential conversion to the course of free noise & radical experimentation (much of which, it’s made clear, was quite likely the burden of age and declining health, and not being able to pluck & play acoustically any longer). We get some good detail on Fahey’s discovery of Charley Patton and the blues; his record-collecting and canvassing in the Deep South with Dick Spotswood, Joe Bussard and other collecting luminaries; and how he sort of fell in to being a guitar virtuoso and a creator of some of the most incredible, symphonic and detailed guitar ever created. In between we see how Fahey’s pranksterism, introversion, abuse of alcohol and pills, and his abundant willingness to talk down to his audience both built his mystique and throttled many aspects of his career.

Though I’ve never liked even a smidgeon of the post-rebirth, late 90s noise/improv Fahey (it’s clear that Lowenthal thinks it’s crap as well), the last few chapters detailing his belated connections to the American indie underground are outstanding. His hatred of the hippies and of the 70s shorthand that connected his instrumental guitar playing with “new age” music comes full circle, in which he finally finds a group of weirdos on the margins of music who are very like him. Yet his sloth, unpredictability and many flights of bizarre fancy are even too much for many of them, and there are some great (if a bit tragic) anecdotes from folks in his later-years orbit about just how uniquely bullheaded this guy was. Fahey was the late-20th century manifestation of the absinthe-guzzling creative iconoclasts of previous centuries, and his outsized contributions to the arts exist on a timeline that stretches back still further. Lowenthal did a fine job at documenting it, and leaves room for a more critical and contextual examination of Fahey’s work for someone else to tackle.

[Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Around 2001 I started playing more acoustic guitar--detuning the instrument, fiddling around with weird ways of picking, and creating strange improvisations with my friend Eamon playing tenor banjo--as a way of growing beyond the electric guitar I was playing in a band. On one visit he mentioned that he had heard from his dad of this guy called John Fahey and that he played this really unique acoustic style.

The next time I visited Eamon to play, he opened the door and said I had to sit down and listen to something. He put on an album and a song started. I couldn't put the song into any context...it seemed both primitive and futuristic, the playing was both complex and easy to listen to, it seemed kind of like blues, folk and classical music. It seemed like music from another world or time, like nothing I'd ever heard.

That was my first exposure to John Fahey (specifically Sunflower River Blues on this second album, Death Chants, Breakdowns, and Military Waltzes). From that point I was totally hooked on his music and devoured everything I could get a hold of. I also spent years practicing in my apartment along with many of his songs to learn how to play finger-style guitar.

All that being said, I never really knew a lot about Fahey as a person. As anyone familiar with his work knows, his liner notes are strange works of art themselves and biographical information (at the time) was pretty scarce (being pre-Wikipedia).

This book offered tremendous insight into his life, especially the years before and after his creative peak. John Fahey seemed like a truly creative person (= difficult) but one that released a lot of good into the world, between his own music and his early work as a collector/researcher into (at the time) very obscure blues and folk musicians.

[William Dury · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve been listening to Glenn Gould lately. He actually looks a little like Fahey to me. And I read the biography of David Foster Wallace a couple of weeks ago. He doesn’t look like either one of them. At all. Anyway, Mr. Fahey comes out the minor artist in this company, but he did good work and left his mark. He really was a good composer but will be more widely remembered for his Christmas records than anything else. John was a productive artist and has no reason to hang his head in any company.

Does he come out the loser in the Mental Health Issues Club? Tough call. Wallace suicided but he fought depression and was generally more coherent than John. I would argue that his cultural peak is higher than John’s but that’s a matter of taste.

I do think that Glenn is the highest peak amongst the three. He was eccentric but not diseased. Is mental health an occupational hazard for the artist? A necessary evil? The result of an undisciplined life style? I would argue that mental health issues interfere with the ability to be productive, as it clearly does in any other line of work.

Was there a writer around the time of George Eliot that compared artistic creation to making shoes? Trollope? I never read anything by him, big surprise. According to Wikipedia, the main criticism of Trollope is that he is pedestrian, i. e., “uninspired.” But I’m with AT. It’s just work. If you’re making chairs in your basement you don’t wait around for inspiration to strike. And I really don’t see the advantage of being mentally ill.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

a great, comprehensive bio of Fahey and his music. only two caveats are that the author relies a bit too heavily on compiling information from already widely available sources such as the famous Byron Coley article and Barry Hansen's liner notes to 'return of the repressed', and secondly I wish there had been more technical discussion of the evolution of his music; musical analysis is mostly restricted to simply referencing genres from which Fahey drew influence.

[David Nailling · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid - though brief - biography of the founder of the American Primitive school of guitar playing.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really comprehensive look at a very difficult figure - he comes across both as unbearable to be around and damaged and as a brilliant blues weirdo with a really original vision.