in defence of john fahey
about four years ago gwenifer raymond played a gig. horsemouth believes his friend myk went (though he had to take a carer to deal with the electronic ticketing lark). there was a gig review in the guardian (by kitty empire).
it says a number of things that are worth unpacking;
'her specific field of solo guitar is known as “american primitive” – almost everyone involved now agrees that is a highly problematic name, because it both appropriates and patronises the work of its black inspirations, but a new one hasn’t been minted yet. john fahey (1939–2001), the father of the genre, coined it...',
it is worthwhile pausing to explain what fahey might have meant by this term.
‘american primitive’ is a satire upon attitudes to the blues and hillbilly music as 'primitive' music from the time before the great veneration of such music in which we now live, the use of such terms in visual art to describe the adoption of allegedly primitive techniques by avant garde visual artists in the west (think picasso), and perhaps also upon the limitations of fahey's own playing.
like a lot of fahey's writing it is particularly double edged.
it is worthwhile noting that as much as fahey trained at being anything it was as an anthropologist. now anthropology is not about assuming the 'superiority' or 'inferiority' of cultures but rather about investigating how they work.
'american primitive long remained the preserve of white guys. great as many of them have been (the late jack rose in particular), that is now changing. a recent new york times article profiled a series of non-white, non-male and non-binary solo guitar players breaking the mould; raymond is one of the rising talents quoted...'
that the new york times article was controversial in american primitive guitar circles horsemouth has to admit.
at first horsemouth thought it was another outbreak of VOGUE disease (‘they put a black girl on the cover (and everybody lost their minds’) for indeed they had put a photo of black american primitive guitarist yasmin williams at the top of the article. but no, what drew american primitivists ire was the incorporation of fahey, wearing his 'white guy' suit, into contemporary discourse for in this formulation fahey can only be a racist and a bad guy guilty of cultural appropriation and of patronising the genre's black antecedents. etc. etc. etc.
that's just his structural role in the discourse (as a white guy).
now horsemouth thinks it is good that all sorts of people are using the solo instrumental steel string guitar as a means of self and cultural expression but this now. and now is and then was, and how things worked then we don't have immediate access to.
and when fahey was making his synthesis then was definitely then. fahey was obliged to formulate american primitive at a distance from delta blues both by reason of the racial divides of america in the 50ies, 60ies and to be frank right up to the present day, and to be frank that's why such an article is still possible. but fahey also made a virtue of necessity of that separation.
fahey is not engaged in a recreation of old time-y music, a heritage project such as stefan grossman, norman blake, he's out there incorporating classical motifs into the music trying to break the music free from an understanding of it as mere sociological document.
in some respects it is a moment similar to be-bop (in amiri baraka's telling of it in blues people). but unlike be-bop it is not collectively authored, american primitive is almost entirely fahey's thing. other guitarists either follow in his slipstream (robbie basho, max ochs, harry taussig etc.) or their work becomes recontextualised in relation to his (peter lang etc.).
there is also what it is not, it is not the new age windham hill guitar music, it is not the folk-baroque of bert jansch, john renbourn, or davy graham either...
anyway. horsemouth always wonders what to do with it. he doesn't really play american primitive himself he doesn't think. but it certainly makes him think about how he plays acoustic guitar. certainly some of the things he plays have been formed in its image.
