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  1. Culture
12 October 2011

In praise of John Fahey

He's my favourite guitarist and I want posters for my bedroom wall.

By Tom Ravenscroft

Everyone needs to get rid of his or her friends and find £79.99 and a free weekend. You may need something to drink as well. The Dust to Dust record label has just released a vast box set of 115 rare recordings by John Fahey for the Fonotone label between 1958-1965. It also comes with a beautifully put together book, all of which I suspect has taken someone an incredibly long time and an immense amount of love. I haven’t read the book yet and will probably forget to for some time but have absorbed myself so deeply in the 5 CDs that I fear I may never return. From what I can gather they have spared not a solitary hum in compiling this slab of joy. Every last recording has been included, so it isn’t all that surprising that there is the odd track that I may not revisit all that often (“I Shall Not Be Moved” springs to mind).

For me, it is a little odd to hear him sing so often and even more so to hear him talk. I kind of prefer it when he doesn’t. I love when he comes storming in and firing out the other side without an utterance as to what he just did or how he did it. He’s my favourite guitarist ever and I want posters for my bedroom wall.

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