"American Primitive" guitar
1960s in the U.S.
A01=George Henderson
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_George Henderson
automatic-update
Blind Joe Death
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=AVA
Category=AVGK
Category=AVLP
Category=JBSL
Category=JFSL
Charley Patton
confessional writing
COP=United States
Country blues
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
Delta blues
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=0
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
history of writing in the U.S.
John Fahey
Language_English
liner note writing
Maryland
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
psycho-politics in the U.S.
softlaunch
Takoma Park
the new left
U.S. blues revival
U.S. counterculture
U.S. folk revival
U.S. independent music
U.S. postwar culture of masculinity
U.S. postwar popular music
whiteness in the United States
Product details
- ISBN 9781469660783
- Weight: 355g
- Dimensions: 155 x 233mm
- Publication Date: 10 May 2021
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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For over sixty years, American guitarist John Fahey (1939-2001) has been a storied figure, first within the folk and blues revival of the long 1960s, later for fans of alternative music. Mythologizing himself as Blind Joe Death, Fahey crudely parodied white middle-class fascination with African American blues, including his own. In this book, George Henderson mines Fahey's parallel careers as essayist, notorious liner note stylist, musicologist, and fabulist for the first time. These vocations, inspired originally by Cold War educators' injunction to creatively express rather than suppress feelings, took utterly idiosyncratic and prescient turns.
Fahey voraciously consumed ideas: in the classroom, the counterculture, the civil rights struggle, the new left; through his study of philosophy, folklore, African American blues; and through his experience with psychoanalysis and southern paternalism. From these, he produced a profoundly and unexpectedly refracted vision of America. To read Fahey is to vicariously experience devastating critical energies and self-soothing uncertainty, passions emerging from a singular location-the place where lone, white rebel sentiment must regard the rebellion of others. Henderson shows the nuance, contradictions, and sometimes brilliance of Fahey's words that, though they were never sung to a tune, accompanied his music.
Fahey voraciously consumed ideas: in the classroom, the counterculture, the civil rights struggle, the new left; through his study of philosophy, folklore, African American blues; and through his experience with psychoanalysis and southern paternalism. From these, he produced a profoundly and unexpectedly refracted vision of America. To read Fahey is to vicariously experience devastating critical energies and self-soothing uncertainty, passions emerging from a singular location-the place where lone, white rebel sentiment must regard the rebellion of others. Henderson shows the nuance, contradictions, and sometimes brilliance of Fahey's words that, though they were never sung to a tune, accompanied his music.
George Henderson is professor of human geography at the University of Minnesota.
