Hayden Pedigo: Tiny Desk Concert

Lars Gotrich | November 13, 2023 Hayden Pedigo’s guitar tells stories through musical landscapes. At the Tiny Desk, he plays quiet, gentle melodies inspired by his Texas panhandle home that still manage to kick up little dust storms of the soul. As a teenager, Pedigo picked up fingerstyle guitar by way of John Fahey and Robbie Basho. A decade later, his songs have taken on ambient and avant-garde textures, yet have never strayed from a strong, narrative drive. The set here features “Elsewhere“ and the title track from his most recent record, The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored, plus “Carthage,“ a personal favorite of mine, via 2021’s Letting Go. On songs performed with six- and 12-string acoustic guitars, he makes you lean into the silence to wonder what small gifts await; Pedigo assures us that the long pauses represent Amarillo, Texas’ “flat plains that go on forever.“ To close, he plays a song inspired by a letter written by National Lampoon founder