Cenizo Journal Spring 2016 | Page 9

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