John Aloysius Fahey (February 28, 1939 – February 22, 2001) was
an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who played the
steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been
greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American
Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the
self-taught nature of the music and its minimalist style. Fahey borrowed
from the folk and blues traditions in American roots music, having
compiled many forgotten early recordings in these genres. He would later
incorporate classical, Portuguese, Brazilian, and Indian music into his
œuvre. Fahey wrote a largely apocryphal autobiography. He spent many of
his later years in poverty and poor health, but enjoyed a minor career
resurgence with a turn towards the more explicitly avant-garde, and
created a series of abstract paintings during the last years of his
life. He died in 2001 from complications from heart surgery. In 2003, he
was ranked 35th in the Rolling Stone "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of
All Time" list.
