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David Fahl is featured on Outbound Radio |
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 David Fahl is a folk singer, a solo performer playing an acoustic guitar, singing his own songs, and covering material by people like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. What sets him apart from the rest? For one thing, his time in rock, blues, and country bands has given him a deep understanding of all these idioms of American music, resulting in a performing style that belies the laid-back folkie label, allowing him to successfully carry off gigs in coffee houses, punk clubs and redneck saloons. For another, his songs cover a wide range of musical styles; from straightahead renderings of the more usual forms to experiments with calypso, reggae, samba, and what he calls "hillbilly hiphop" rhythms. Fahl's facility with song structure enables him to come up with catchy hook-filled tunes and to put together songs that defy every rule in the book and still flow like the coolest of Tin Pan Alley. Even stronger than the musical aspect of his songs are lyrics that reflect an admiration of wordsmiths as disparate as Chuck Berry, Robert Johnson, Hank Williams Sr., William Blake, Walt Whitman, Lin Po, and Edgar Allen Poe. (Not to mention Bob Dylan, the prototypical singer/songwriter of the last forty years; "Whether you're a fan of his or not, you've got to admit that most of us (singer/songwriters) wouldn't even be here if it hadn't been for him.") He's got drinking songs, philosophy songs, story songs, theology songs, political songs, funny songs, sad songs, mad songs, bitter songs, cheerful songs, mean songs, and all kinds of love songs; happy love songs, guilty love songs, desperate love songs, hopeful love songs, angry love songs, dirty love songs and holy love songs. He's got songs about bad women, good women, women who go both ways, thieves, hustlers, rich men, men who work, angels, cowboys, good guys, cops, and substance abusers. Among other subjects addressed are money, marriage, adultery, revenge, true love, revolution, enlightenment, and Jesus. Fahl's songs consistently shed light on their subjects from unique and surprising perspectives. Performing as a solo act, he has developed a flat-picking guitar style that creates a full sound with a solid groove, providing a rich background for the vocals. His unique voice conveys a wide range of emotions and attitudes that lend depth to the characters speaking in the lyric. |
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