John Fahey and the Tape Whir

An odd public figure if there ever was one, the musical legacy that John Fahey left behind isn’t done being played out. His ideas and praises can be heard in an ever widening circle of musics. Everything from rock to folk and avant garde noise have embraced the peculiar tunings and odd amalgam of influences that Fahey strove to incorporate in his work during his lifetime. And even if there were times when it seemed as if no one was paying attention, they were. The vacuum that was Fahey’s career in the ‘80s would be exploded during the following decade as he appreciated a second round of much deserved acclaim. He never became a house hold name, but no one really did out of that Takoma roster of folk players. But that wasn’t ever anyone’s aim – well, alright, some of those guys attempted some vocal works that were aimed at a pop audience, but nobody ever anticipated chart success. Fahey’s cataclysmic guitar music, regardless of its ebbing popularity then and now, expresses enough about the individual, the medium and the world to keep listeners, including new ones, revisiting mountains, cascading sequences of chords and odd tunings.

After releasing a few discs under his own name, Fahey sought to expand Takoma during the ‘60s and released a disc by the pre-War blues player Bukka White. To the amazement of everyone involved, Fahey’s discs outsold the elder statesmen’s work, though. It wasn’t necessarily a defining moment in anyone’s career, but simple a marker in the road. Fahey, perhaps then, realized what he was potentially capable of. And subsequent to this ever confusing occurrence, the decade saw release of nine long players donning the Fahey name. As the ‘60s progressed and music, the popular variety at least, began involving itself with non-Western ideas and a more expansive concept of what music could and should do, Fahey continued deviating from the (relatively) traditional settings in which he recorded himself. And by ’67 this change was becoming more and more apparent.

Of course, the 1968 release of The Yellow Princess would find the guitarist in the company of a drummer, the shift during the previous year might not have been so bold, but Days Have Gone By certainly features more deviation from the folk form than most discs from within a few years time either way of its release.

There were unquestionably recordings prior to this one that featured tunings not too familiar to most listeners in addition to that pervasive Indian influence. But here on Days Have Gone By these ideas are made plain for listeners, regardless of whether or not they’d been prepared. A dissonance permeates a great many of the progressions that Fahey follows here, but nothing prior to “A Raga Called Pat,” which is broken into two parts, can compare. The songs include field recordings (a train whistle, birds) as well as those Eastern modalities on top of an oddly distant sound to his guitar. Fahey may have reached his avant-peak over these fourteen minutes. And while he had nearly another thirty years to record and perform, this album still proves to be one of his most rewarding as the tendencies of an American genius are splayed out for listeners.