Paying tribute

One of the important aspects we must remember as followers of the Indie scene is that often, people glaze over Indie music in search of the more mainstream stuff; in doing so, sometimes people and breakthroughs get lost in the shuffle and never get the recognition they might merit. Take John Fahey, for instance. Does the name ring a bell? (I didn’t think so.) Wednesday, February 22, 2006, marked the five-year anniversary of the death of this Salem, OR musician, who, although “semi-obscure during his time,�? actually achieved a whole laundry list of accomplishments, like “perfecting solo fingerstyle acoustic guitar, starting his own record label and setting the standard for musicians who experiment and delve into other media…�? Read up about him, and besides honoring a memory, it’ll remind you how important he and other similar figures are in helping to establish the music scene we have today.

One response

  1. Joe Taylor Jr. Avatar
    Joe Taylor Jr.

    Funny that Melissa writes about this today. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the years I spent working at XPN, and how fortunate I was to meet and speak with so many talented folks, especially the artists that flew under the mainstream radar. When you think about the real long term ripples we all make, it can be pretty astounding. An artist might never have sold 10,000 “units” in his or her lifetime, but influenced someone that went on to write an influential screenplay or invent a great new medicine.

    While we’re all scrambling to pay the bills, it’s important to remember the echoes of our work beyond “sales.”