THE meditation pond at the Swami Satchidananda Ashram in Lake County, California, was not a safe place by which to contemplate. A troupe of turtles had made the pool their home and these were often found snapping at anyone who dared ponder at its edge. To solve this issue, the ashram employed one of their number, a guitarist who was also a keen amateur herpetologist.
“John Fahey was their official turtle catcher,” remembers friend and guitarist Leo Kottke. “They hired him to remove all the turtles from the pond. I wandered around the grounds with him once in the early ’70s, when he showed me this one giant snapping turtle, right between the water and the shore, that he’d left there, just to keep the balance right. John thought the monks needed something to keep them on their toes.”
Fahey approached his music like his herpetology: with a sense of the absurd, a dash of spirituality and spikiness, as well as a complete disregard for consequences of any kind. “John was surrounded by that stuff,” confirms Kottke of the countless bizarre stories that have contributed to the myth of this contrarian pioneer. “In my experience a lot of it is true.”
Twenty-three years since his death at the age of 61, Fahey’s influence has perhaps never been greater – and it’s growing still. He left behind a lot of work to unpick, while unheard material is still emerging, as on Drag City’s Proofs & Refutations release last year.
“He’s one of those artists that end up being a portal for a lot of younger people into lots of different kinds of music,” says William Tyler. “He synthesised so much – I’d class him alongside people like Brian Eno, Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell.”
Fahey’s work remains almost talismanic – yet strangely out of time. He steadfastly refused to be part of any movement – though he could have fitted into the folk revival, psychedelia, blues-rock or alternative scenes – and operated moreestablished traditions,” says his manager Dean Blackwood. “He had more of a post modern take. The Blind Joe Death persona, for instance, was obviously layered with irony, he wasn’t trying to pass himself off as a purveyor of authentic blues.”
