John Fahey’s first album, released in 1959 for the record label he co-founded, is a beautiful introduction to this incredible artist. Blind Joe Death remains a wonderful album and displays Fahey’s ability to re-interpret the blues and folk idioms prevalent at the time in his own inimitable style.
The album's mystique probably owes more to the 1959 record's rarity (and utter oddity in the context of its era) than the music, in which Fahey's experimental blues-folk acoustic fusion is just beginning to take shape. It remains a very interesting record from a historical perspective, however, as few if any other guitarists were attempting to interpret blues and folk idioms in such an idiosyncratic fashion in the late '50s and early '60s. ~ Richie Unterberger
All I have ever done with music was to depict various emotions in an organized and coherent musical language, sometimes very dark emotions...but also happiness, health, certain types of ecstasy, etc. I achieved this especially in the song, "Sun Gonna Shine in My Back Door Someday..., a piece which is bitonal, a la Bartok, Ives and others, but is also played ragtime-guitar style, a la Mississippi John Hurt and others."
from The Legend of Blind Joe Death
