John Fahey was a DC native, raised in Takoma Park, MD. He was both a dedicated traditionalist and radical innovator on the acoustic guitar, helping establish solo guitar as a serious compositional, performance, and recording pursuit. He was a devoted student of "primitive" American styles like folk, bluegrass, and early blues, who adapted those techniques to classical-style tonality and composition. At age 20 Fahey founded Takoma Records in order to publish his own early works; the label ultimately became home to like-minded musicians and was an important forerunner of the New Age music movement.
