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American primitive guitar is a style invented by John Fahey in the 50s. This dude made a name for the acoustic guitar as a solo instrument (no vocals) by combining blues and folk music together. He's a pretty radical guitarist and was ranked 35 on rolling stones list of 100 greatest guitarists (I think he is like 78 on list or something now. It's kind of a bullshit list anyhow). He also started the excellent label Takoma records and signed and released records by people like Robbie Basho and Peter Lang. He died most heinously in 2001 due to complications in heart surgery. It's okay though because his legacy lives on and his style has been continued by totally bodacious guitarists such as Jack Rose, James Blackshaw and Glenn Jones.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sbkFMMzg64[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21HwdNkzYq0[/youtube]

You dig???

Sidenote: I just watched Bill & Ted

Thanks for that -- very cool.

Jack Rose is also, sadly, no longer among the living.

so, because I'm sort of obsessed with John Fahey right now, I'm just going to post a bunch of stuff related to him - his influences, his contemporaries, and his musical offspring. yeah!
so country blues, classical music, Indian stuff, Captain Beefheart, Jim O'Rourke, Jack Rose and siblings...it's going to be quite a journey.

dude was obsessed with Charley Patton - wrote his master's thesis on him, and later released an incredible boxed set of Charley's stuff that includes his thesis.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyIquE0izAg[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=336dDZsU1Eg[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ1zOarIoEA[/youtube]

more later!

I saw American Primitivism and was all like:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF1OQkHybEQ[/youtube]

Yeah, I come in last today.

Charlie Patton is my favorite amongst the Delta "bluesmen".

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGsAh2jx6JA[/youtube]

Charley was fantastic, but man...there were a lot of great ones.

here's another of Fahey's favorites, Blind Blake.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF8fjfQaTok[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNQAXCyDBP8[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZILWkqvpKOU[/youtube]

great thread. I got into Fahey a while ago through Six Organs of Admittance, stuff is mind blowing.

yeah, i really dug John Fahey when i found out about him, because this was basically my style of guitar playing before even finding out about him. cool how the collective subconcious works like that.

heres an EP thats basically american primitive by a couple number of definitions:
http://gearmond.bandcamp.com/album/east ... st-wind-ep
Mediterranean is probably the closest thing, specifically.

imo, its probably one of the ascendant forms of american folk music, and specifically that of acoustic folk. the folk festival is goin down at my college, whcih i loathe and just see as about as true to folk music as war reenactments are to war, and to me American Primitive and it's offshoots (?) are the things that should be getting gigs at folk fests. because blues in the present, unless you're doing something REALLY special, is only relevant as a current form of folk music when its electrified.

mind you, i'm not talking down to past artists at all, just those recreating it rather than at least trying to update it. in folk music, it rubs me the wrong way a lot. but yeah. Fahey rules. its kinda lame that the primitivism part is a misnomer because its probably the most involved and innately personal of acoustic guitar styles.

Yeah, well, I generally prefer Basho to Fahey.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whlY9906KMM[/youtube]

Don't think that Peter Walker is normally grouped with these pickers, but maybe he should be.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDjaOSqxLos[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJP98IYgtuk[/youtube]

Gearmond wrote:imo, its probably one of the ascendant forms of american folk music, and specifically that of acoustic folk. the folk festival is goin down at my college, whcih i loathe and just see as about as true to folk music as war reenactments are to war, and to me American Primitive and it's offshoots (?) are the things that should be getting gigs at folk fests. because blues in the present, unless you're doing something REALLY special, is only relevant as a current form of folk music when its electrified.

mind you, i'm not talking down to past artists at all, just those recreating it rather than at least trying to update it. in folk music, it rubs me the wrong way a lot. but yeah. Fahey rules. its kinda lame that the primitivism part is a misnomer because its probably the most involved and innately personal of acoustic guitar styles.

Well said, well said.
I've been listening to Richard Bishop's album Polytheistic Fragments. It's pretty damn good. It has just enough variation to keep you interested throughout the whole thing.

Also Harris Newman is pretty good at giving a modern take on the genre.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47e056MsElQ[/youtube]

rly rly liking Harris Newman.

imo this style is a lot more interesting than the pop-schlock from CandyRat and the like. everyone uses the same open tunings, the same chord progressions, etc. etc.

hold up - more blues! let's get back into it with maybe the greatest blues fingerpickers ever - Mississippi John Hurt.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klcDgu2f_pQ[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr_VUEITbjY[/youtube]

Fahey also helped find some older blues cats, like Bukka White (who Fahey spoke highly of) and Skip James (who was a total creep.)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkhj9z14TBo[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv-_mzVBSF8[/youtube]

maybe he was a creep, but GODDAMN his tunes get to me. chill bumps, every time.