the men with beards who played acoustic guitars (popular in the mid to late noughties)

 so a friend has characterised john fahey (darn it horsemouth has missed the boat yet again).

the thing that made fahey interesting was his hatred for 'folk', 'folkies', 'folklore', 'authenticity' and especially 'singer songwriters'. his life and his writing ('how bluegrass music destroyed my life'/ his dissertation on charley patton/ the songtitles/ the voluminous inaccurate and frequently libelous sleevenotes) are probably more interesting than his guitar playing. lots of people do that 'old-timey' thing well if not better, lots of people do that proto-ecm thing well if not better, robbie basho could do it (and sing like anthony from anthony and the johnsons). what horsemouth hears and reads in fahey  is a complete rage against the position of the music in society, against the position of the musician in society (and against society as a whole and any role you could take in that society).

'some people talk about my career in music. I don't have a career in music. People sometimes pay me to play guitar that's all.'  (horsemouth may have garbled the quote a bit in his rush to get it down). 

fahey was endearingly keen on larding his writing with heidegger's dasein  et al.  (sure in the knowledge that this would wind up just about everybody who'd ever heard of him) and with nlp hypnotism scripts and cognitive-behavioural procedures. he was also keen on annoying people who saw folk as 'the music of the people'  or who wanted to use it for political ends. in a way he's the mark e. smith of acoustic guitar - a relentless curmudgeon. what would fahey make of americana? toilet paper and bird scarers probably. the dissertation on charley patton probably sums it up best - an attempt to destroy what the blues is commonly thought to be musically, lyrically and socially by showing that the music and lyrics and repertoire of archetypal blues-singer charley patton do not conform to it, that at the same time reduce the ethnomusicological tools fahey was taught to use to absurdity. 

... and then there's the guitar playing both horsemouth's own and fahey's and the other 'american primitives' (which horsemouth still enjoys - if in small doses). but fahey's music exceeds his musical choices which themselves exceed his 'guitar playing' the (mere-)technique he brought to bear.

or perhaps not - pehaps they can't do this - but they sometimes sound like they might.