Blind Joe Death's America : John Fahey, the blues, and writing White discontent /

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Includes bibliographical references and index.Manufacturing discontent -- The puberty of political economy, or communism -- The politics of the songster -- The great liner note breakdown -- Performance as war -- Some music. Some dancing. Some unusual intermingling."For over sixty years, American guitarist John Fahey (1939-2001) has been a storied figure, first within the folk and blues revival of the long 1960s, later for fans of alternative music. Mythologizing himself as Blind Joe Death, Fahey crudely parodied white middle-class fascination with African American blues, including his own. In this book, George Henderson mines Fahey's parallel careers as essayist, notorious liner note stylist, musicologist, and fabulist for the first time. These vocations, inspired originally by Cold War educators' injunction to creatively express rather than suppress feelings, took utterly idiosyncratic and prescient turns"--