‘what happens next? what about the fifty years before you die?’

to lift a line from nik cohn’s awopbopaloobopalopbamboom, a jilted love letter to rock and roll (written in a cottage in conemara in the spring of 68 when he thought it was all over).


last night horsemouth watched takoma park city tv’s panel discussion on the takoma music scene in 1962 (midway through daniel bachman played a gig). fahey always talked it like he came from a cultural desert - but of course there was a scene, a succession of coffee houses and record shops, a network of blues aficionados and record collectors (not least the famous cellar door club - where richie havens and john fahey later played, where miles davis recorded). the seegers lived nearby, their maid was the blues guitarist elizabeth cotton.

fahey kept the names from his hometown for his songs  (the sligo creek immortalised in sligo river blues, his record label named after the neighbourhood itself, revalation on the banks of the pawtuxent) - he records tracks for collector joe bussard, then records and has independently pressed 100 copies of his first album blind joe death and then he’s away to university of the west coast. really and truthfully takoma park records was properly born elsewhere - more down to ED Denison than fahey.

they struggle with fahey (a notoriously difficult character) - he’d gone away, they’d stayed - but now he is the city’s most famous son.