Acoustic guitarist John Fahey was impossible to classify. His eclectic music included traditional-sounding folk pieces, Indian ragas, blues, and unpredictable modern works, not fitting securely into ...

Have you ever listened to—or, better yet, read—the lyrics of “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear”? As holiday tunes tend to go, it has become a typical Christmas bauble, the stuff of coruscating ...

John Fahey’s death from medical complications earlier this year was a shock to many of his loyal listeners, but in the context of the commercial music world his passing went largely unnoticed. A prime ...

It seems one of the happiest days in John Fahey’s life was the day he was included in Spin magazine's guide to “Alternative Music," which included biographies about such artists as Nirvana, the Pixies ...

1. Twilight on Prince George's Avenue * 2. frisco Leaving Birmingham 3. Slingo Mud * 4. Orinda-Moraga 5. On the Beach of Waikiki 6. Oneonta 7. Dance of Death 8. The Assassination of Stephan Grossman 9 ...

Christmas music can be treacly, overfamiliar, corny and awful. But the few exceptions out there can be genuinely exciting — music you hear for only a few weeks each year, but often have a 20- or ...

This weekend, the city of Takoma Park, Maryland, will host the Thousand Incarnations of the Rose, the first and only festival dedicated exclusively to American-primitive guitar music. Takoma Park, a ...

Listen to the metaphysical folk songs that the late John Fahey recorded way back in the 1960s, and they can still transport you to unknown worlds. And that seems to have been the idea all along. Fahey ...

Matt Ward isn’t the sort of music fan who cares to know much about the life of a musician in whom he has an interest. Her drug or alcohol problems, his poverty, her childhood traumas, his medical ...

Since 2005 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in ...

On this week's excellent episode of Lost Notes, KCRW Producer Carla Green explores the intriguing and occasionally cruel realm of artistic genius. The emotional dark waters where the roles of artist, ...

Last year Fantasy Records released The Best of John Fahey Vol. 2: 1963-1983, positioning it as an overdue follow-up to a Fahey best-of from 1977. Fahey, the founding father of the “American primitive” ...