Bill Fay Death, Obituary; Bill Fay, Cult British Singer-Songwriter, Dies at 81

A statement from his company, Dead Oceans, announced the death of Bill Fay, the cult British singer-songwriter who had a late-life professional comeback. It states, “Bill was a gentleman and a gentle man, wise beyond our times.”

“He wrote deeply poignant, meaningful songs that will continue to find people for years to come. He was a private individual with the biggest of hearts.” Although Fay battled Parkinson’s disease in his last years, the cause of his death has not been disclosed. He was eighty-one.

Fay’s music was in line with the Jesus freak movement that was popular in the United States at the time, but as Sadie Sartini Garner wrote for Pitchfork in 2015, “he hardly avoids the truth; his staring into the void is the only thing that allows him to mourn its existence.” Fay’s music was heavily influenced by his own Christianity. The Vietnam War, Jim Crow legislation, and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were among the major tragedies of the 20th century that Time of the Last Persecution specifically addressed.