Communists. We were the pre-hippie
crowd of beatniks. (Publisher’s note:
Although On the Road by Jack Kerouac
was not published until 1957, it was
written in 1951.)
During that time I became
acquainted with anarchy, poetry,
Buddhism and marijuana. Grass made
me sick the first three times I tried it. As
a cigarette smoker, I tried to smoke
reefer like it was tobacco. It made me
feel sick so I gave up smoking pot for
the next ten years. I had a lot to learn
about that herb.
I have recorded and performed
with many other folk singers in my life-
time. My main act was always as a solo
artist. I have been to almost every folk
festival anywhere, played an untold
number of venues from backyard
campfires to nationally-known per-
formance stages, written and published
about folk music, and recorded more
albums and CDs than I can count. I
have traveled all over the Western
Hemisphere of the Earth with my
banjo, performing on all levels, from
professional concertizer to itinerant
street musician. I live today in
Marathon, Texas where I run my web-
site, billyfaier.com, and play banjo and
piano. Not one to sit still, I am still
traveling. One of the biggest reasons I
like living in Texas is that it is the only
place I have ever been where the
inhabitants love to sit around the
campfire singing songs about their
home state late into the night.
A few years ago I donated all my old
tapes, papers, letters and memorabilia
to the Southern Folklife Collection at
the University of North Carolina at
Chappell Hill. The request came from
Bill Ferris, a folk and blues collector
who is also a donor to the collection. I
was surprised and flattered by the
request and I asked Bill, “Why me?
There are thousands of folksingers like
me.” Ferris laughed and said, “No,
Billy, there are only about five of you
old timers who not only have been
Image courtesy of Wendy Wright.
playing since the late forties, but who
have also made a significant contribu-
tion to the art form.” I could live with
that, and so I made the donation.
I do not write for the already-con-
vinced audience, looking for applause
at how well I can put our mutually-held
Cenizo
convictions into song. White racists are
the ones whom I would love to sell my
records to, in the hopes that the
messages in my songs have an effect on
them and their racism. That’s why I
wrote the songs, to change people. As
my friend Woody Guthrie once told
me, “People come and people go, but
the music goes on forever.”
January 30, 2016—yesterday my
grandpa Billy passed on to the next
world. He was and still is an absolute
musical legend and I will miss him a lot.
In the time I knew him he taught me
how to play banjo, how to roll a joint,
and most importantly helped open me
to accepting new and beautiful experi-
ences of adventure, spontaneity and
folk music. I am so glad we got to spend
a lot of time together the past few years,
glad we went to the Grand Canyon,
glad we sneaked out of the house with
our banjos to go to Mendocino without
telling my parents, and glad we got to
play a lot of music together. I only wish
it would have been more, but I know
that he is Flying Away to that Great
Hootenanny to meet Jesus in the Air.
RIP Billy Faier. For anyone interest-
ed to view Billy’s last concert, it is avail-
able on YouTube at: Billy Faier 1, and
Billy Faier 2 ~Chris Wand
Second Quarter 2016
9