Search - John Fahey :: Red Cross

Fahey's Last Will and Testament

jimnypivo | west of Chicago, USA | 12/15/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"John Fahey died in February, 2001. Alas, there will be no new eccentric American Primitive Guitar compositions from him.



Released posthumously, 'Red Cross' is a significant recording to all faithful Fahey fans. A collection of seven tracks (eight if you count the brief reprise of 'Red Cross' buried at the end) recorded in the last months of his life that reach back and touch the previous sixty-odd years of it.



Fahey meticulously picks through Irving Berlin's 'Remember' with eerily concentrated effort. Next up, `Red Cross, Disciple of Christ Today' is an example of Fahey's more esoteric `modernist' compositions. In Track 3 he plays Gershwin's 'Summertime' with the bittersweet memories of an old man for the summertime of his Life. `Ananaias' (Track Four) is revisits Fahey's explorations up and down the musical scale. He follows it with a quite spirited rendition of 'Motherless Child'. After reading Glenn Jones' liner notes to 'Red Cross' and Fahey's book of 'stories', How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life, I can feel the pain and the reasoning behind the choice of this song on this final album. Jones tell us how he struggled(as I also did) to reconcile Fahey the human being with the image of Fahey the music-preservationist, composer, patron, and performer.



A Fahey album wouldn't be complete without a train song, and Track 6, `Charley Bradley's Ten Sixty-Six Blues' is a fine one. `Untitled with Rain' (Track Seven) is a good example of his `wall of sonic angst' phase, if you like that sort of thing. It mixes a heartbeat-like bass with long, funereal organ chords and Fahey's atonal pluckings and inevitable environmental background sound-this time of falling rain, as if Fahey called up some divine intervention to bless his work. There's an abrupt silence for ten minutes, followed by a brief, ghostly reprise of `Red Cross, Disciple of Christ Today'.



It's a sad thing he is dead. His last gift to us may be only seven and a half songs long, but Fahey's determinedly haunting finger-picking and ominous choice of compositions gives us plenty of time to listen and reflect on what truly significant contributions to music and be thankful he made them."

America Primitive Coda

taverica | santa barbara, ca United States | 02/17/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Long live American Primitive Guitar! I admit to loving Fahey's earlier work from 1959 through his LP "Of Rivers and Religion" and avoiding his more recent work especially the 'wall of sonic angst' music, but this album is worth hearing the old master's final work. Great renditons of Irving Berlin's 'Remember' and the Gershwin brothers' "Summertime". The somber guitar 'reverbed (?)' in the title cut, "Red Cross, Disciple of Christ Today" is brooding enough to make anyone who loved his earlier work happy with the Fahey imagination towards his last days. The CD package has inside a wonderful tribute by Glenn Jones printed as an early Christian pamphlet. ... The total CD timing is listed as 60 minutes but track 7 is only recorded for half of the listed 27 minutes. Buy the CD."

Blind John Death

Hank Schwab | Indianapolis, IN USA | 10/12/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I could easily see giving this less than 5 stars. Compared to the brilliance of his earlier work, this pales. But if you're reading this review, you're more than a casual John Fahey listener, so I have to say, you need this disk. This was recorded by a man who was dying and knew it, and that's exactly how it sounds. The music is poignant, melancholy, and occasionally frightening. The title track, especially, is harrowing. Fahey's guitar sounds like it's caught in one of Brian Eno's tape loops and can't escape. I don't listen to this often, because it's not something you just plop into the CD player on a whim. It reminds me of a Tom Waits album. This is serious stuff."