John Fahey - Poor Boys Long Way From Home

thanks to the cummunity for adding context and keeping the conversation of John Fahey going.

I'm 28 and just picked up the guitar. I've listened to this song for about 10 years now. I started learning this song first. No lessons, nothing strumming. Just dove into fingerpicking. After 3 long months of the same song, I'm getting pretty good. Not close to perfect but enough to make me cry in gratitude.

It sounds like three guitars at once. What a master.

I knew John in the last few years of his life and he was one of the kindest men I knew...he would give you the shirt off his back. If you wanted him to show you a thing or two on guitar he was more than happy to oblige.

I never get tired of listening and watching John Fahey play this song. He deserved a lot more credit for his guitar playing than he ever got.

You can literally see a steamboat cutting through the Mississippi just by listening. I love how John can paint such vivid pictures with his guitar/paintbrush.

first time ever listening to Fahey.... completely floored.

I had the privilege of seeing John Fahey in about 1970,small club in Vancouver,sat about six feet from the man while he played on a floor level stage. Mesmerizing doesn't quite describe his performance. Went and saw him again the next night. Wish I'd gone to every show he did.

They call it primitive guitar but it’s far from primitive the way John played. I could listen and watch him play all day and all night brilliant stuff, RIP John!!!

A hypnotic and intensely musical guitarist. Few could get as much out of as little.

This has been my earworm for literally 30 years since hearing it on John Peel's radio 1 show back then. So glad to track it down. John Fahey himself teaches it at youtube watch?v=SAoSMhQTr4E and I love that slower version even more than this one.

His music dances through the Universe !!!!!

Woke up to my dad playing this song almost everyday he’s been gone since 07 Matt Bryer was an amazing blues musician just like mr fahey I still get goose bumps listening

This is probably my favorite Fahey tune. I taught myself how to play it last year using a Fahey songbook published in 1978. It is the kind of song that once you know it , you start playing it and you don't even have to think about it much. It just keeps going and your mind wanders off somewhere. I love it.

"I'll give you a little tip about the blues, folks: it's not enough to know which notes to play. You need to know why they need to be played" - G. Carlin

It took me a long time, but I finally came as close as I'll ever be to playing this song. It fills me with much joy when I play it 😀

I've been listening to Fahey my whole life, and it never gets old. Pure genius.

The song is a variation of a tune called Vestapol. It's in open D. Fahey did not write it. He never claimed to, either, to his credit. Libba Cotten recorded a version in about 1960. She said it was a very old song that she heard as a child in the 1920s. It has been in public domain for at least 50 years. Nearly every acoustic fingerpicker had a version of this in their repertoire, including Rev. Robert Wilkins, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Bukka White and Stefan Grossman. Keith Richards definitely did not write it. He gave credit to McDowell. But Fred did not write it either. A lot of bluesmen referred to open D as Vestapol tuning. Or Vastapol, depending on where you are in the country. It is a beautiful tune I have been playing since about 1970. The trick to learning the tune is to get that solid boom chick alternating bass going. Took me some woodshedding. Then you play the melody on top. I admire John Fahey. But he was not a writer of old blues so much as one who gave new life to old blues tunes and riffs. Robert Wilkins had some nice words for it about Poor boy long ways from home.

Every time I listen to him and especially to his most transcendental, incandescent tunes... The phrase "A master at the height of his powers" comes to mind. He connects to something infinite in a unique way, unmistakable.

This is probably the most impressive folk music I've ever heard. I've never heard anyone ever play such beautiful chord melodies like that.