 As his guitar-playing and composing progressed, Fahey developed a style that blended the picking patterns he discovered on old blues 78s with the dissonance of 20th-century classical composers he loved, such as Charles Ives and Béla Bartók.In 1958, Fahey made his first recordings.These were for his friend Joe Bussard's amateur Fonotone label and were recorded under both the pseudonym "Blind Thomas" and under his own name.