Happy Wednesday afternoon, folks. I recently had an attack of “guitar acquisition syndrome,” a disorder that does afflict a number of guitarists—in fact, there are related syndromes for uke & banjo players too. The result of said attack is the guitar in the pic to the right, a Recording King squareneck tricone resonator guitar.
Now you might ask, “John, you already have two resonator guitars, one of which has a metal body—what makes this one different?” Good question, & I do have answers!
First, there are three basic cone configurations in resonator guitars: there’s the single cone with biscuit bridge, which is found in my Regal metal-body resonator; there’s the single cone with spider bridge, which is found in my Gold Tone wood-body resonator; & there’s the tricone (3 cones, of course!) as found in the new Recording King guitar. You can see the three guitars together in the pic on the left, & you can find a clear explanation of the different ways these cones produce sound here on the Acoustic Fingerstyle site.
There are also two basic neck configurations associated with resonator guitars; they either have a round neck or a square neck. The “roundneck” models have a neck just like a conventional guitar with a rounded back & are typically held in the conventional manner. The neck action is usually a it higher than on a conventional guitar to allow for slide playing, but usually roundneck resonators are set up so that you can actually fret notes & chords with your left hand fingers in addition to or instead of using a slide.
This isn’t true for squarenecks. As you can see in the pic to the right, a squareneck guitar has a thick, squared neck. The “squareneck” design allows much more flexibility on tunings because the neck is so strong. This is important in slide playing because the majority of slide playing is done in what are called “open” tunings—this means that if you strum the strings without any of them being fretted or “stopped,” a major chord will sound. The six open strings on a guitar in standard tuning don’t produce a common major chord. Also, with a squareneck guitar, the player typically doesn’t wear a slide over her/his finger, but instead holds a slide (often referred to as a “steel”) in his/her left hand. & the guitar is played facing upwards on her/his lap.
I see myself using this new guitar quite a bit with my music partner, Heather U (note to Heather: since we’re now getting calls for bookings, we need to come up with a band name!), but I’d also like to incorporate the guitar slowly into my blues playing. Speaking of which, I’ve added a “test drive” video of me playing & singing the old blues standard “Trouble in Mind” (& occasionally messing up the lyrics!) with the Recording King. It has a few rough spots—I’m not used to playing lap style—or singing while playing lap style! But all in all, I think it’s a reasonable effort as a “test drive.”
Hope you enjoy it! & important note: tomorrow on Writers Talk—B.N.! You know you don’t want to miss that!
The solstice is here, a season when the light comes out of darkness. Festivities recognizing this time of year date back very far in human history, & of course, at least since the Fourth Century C.E., the Christian church has also celebrated the birth of Jesus at this time of year (it appears that this practice probably didn’t much pre-date the Fourth Century, as some earlier Church Fathers specifically prohibited any type of winter holidays).
One of the most beautiful carols celebrating this was the product of an odd collaboration; the lyrics are a poem by the very much underrated 19th century poet Christina Rossetti (pictured at the top of the post), with music added by Gustav Holst in the early 20th century—the poem has also been set to music by Harold Darke, Thomas Strong & Benjamin Britten.
The video below is yours truly playing a guitar arrangement by Doug Sparling of Holst’s setting (I made a few interpolations, but almost all of the arrangement is Sparling’s). The arrangement is for guitar in the DADGAD tuning—so called because those are the notes of the open strings, as opposed to EADGBE in standard tuning. The DADGAD tuning is particularly used by fingerstyle guitarists exploring British Isles folk music—the open strings taken as a whole are a “suspended chord”—one that is neither major nor minor, but hovering somewhere in between. It’s a lovely tuning, & one that loves to have open strings ringing.
I’ve also included the words to Rossetti’s beautiful poem after the video. But if you’re singing along, watch out! The poem is five stanzas long, & I only play the song thru three times. Hope you enjoy this.
In the Bleak Mindwinter
In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, Long ago.
Our God, heaven cannot hold him, Nor earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away When he comes to reign; In the bleak midwinter A stable place sufficed The Lord God incarnate, Jesus Christ.
Enough for him, whom Cherubim Worship night and day A breast full of milk And a manger full of hay. Enough for him, whom angels Fall down before, The ox and ass and camel Which adore.
Angels and archangels May have gathered there, Cherubim and seraphim Thronged the air; But his mother only, In her maiden bliss, Worshipped the Beloved With a kiss.
What can I give him, Poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb, If I were a wise man I would do my part, Yet what I can I give Him — Give my heart.
It’s no secret to readers here that I love the old acoustic blues, & it’s difficult to write about old-time blues—or blues music in general—without discussing slide guitar. I only mess around with slide style at this point, but one of my goals for the winter is to improve my slide technique enough to incorporate it into performance; I also thought it might be fun to share a bit about slide guitar here on Robert Frost’s Banjo.
There are at least a couple of historical threads that led to the phenomenon of slide guitar as we know it now. One was the African-American instrument called the Didley Bow. These were homemade, one-stringed instruments played with the right hand plucking a wire & the left hand sliding a glass or metal object along the wire to change the pitch. Slide guitar also developed, apparently independently, in Hawaii too, as the lap steel guitar (check out our friend & Musical Questions participant Scott Houston here— Scott’s a lap steel player). Tho the lap steel itself isn’t a really common blues instrument, it’s important to blues history because the Hawaiian music fad of the early 20th century had a big effect on all forms of U.S. popular music. When W.C. Handy, composer of “St Louis Blues” first heard a slide guitarist at the Tutwiler, MS train station in 1903, he described it as follows:
A lean loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept... As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars....The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard.
Slides originally were pretty much any handy glass or metal object (because of those materials’ resonant capacities); bone was also used. When glass was used, it typically was the cut off neck of a bottle—hence the term bottleneck slide. In the videos below, no one is playing with a true bottleneck, but Mississippi Fred McDowell is playing with a glass slide. A variation on this is a glass medicine bottle, such as the glass Coricidin bottle used by Duane Allman. Coricidin isn’t available any longer, but replicas are made, & of course, you can buy pre-made glass slides too. Other objects that were commonly used were jackknifes (see the Mance Lipscomb video); pieces of copper tubing (Son House) & socket wrenches (see Rory Block).
The slide doesn’t “fret” the strings in the way that a finger would; it glides over the top of them, & the frets are really superfluous except as position markers. Tho some people play slide style with the guitar in standard tuning, it’s much more common to play with the guitar tuned to an open chord, usually either D major or G major. For non-guitarists there, that means that if you strum all 6 strings with no string being fretted, a major chord will sound—thus as the slide moves up the neck you move from one major chord to another (in standard tuning, the 6 unfretted strings don’t play a common chord). This is handy because it means that the player doesn’t need to use any left hand fingers, & in some styles, it would be virtually impossible to do so—Bukka White, you’ll notice slides the long nail he’s using across all 6-strings constantly, while Mance Lipscomb also never frets any strings in playing his “knife blues.” Mississippi Fred McDowell, Son House & Rory Block, on the other hand, fret a number of notes while playing. All three of these players wear the slide on the ring finger, which leaves the index, middle & (theoretically at least) little fingers available for fretting; some players prefer wearing the slide on the pinky & having the index, middle & ring fingers free to fret strings. Conventional wisdom holds that it’s easier to control the slide when it’s worn on the ring finger, however.
Hope you enjoyed this overview. Now for the real thing: some music from five great slide players! & if you want a bit more slide guitar, check out my post on Ramblin’ Thomas’ version of “Poor Boy Long Ways from Home” (really a completely different song than Bukka White’s) on Just a Song.
If blues were an ocean to be distilled to a lake & a pond & ultimately smaller & smaller until eventually it became a drop of water, then that is Son House. Dick Waterman (Son House’s manager)
Dick Waterman’s description of Son House, the man he helped thru an 11-year second career when Son House was already in his 60s, in the throes of chronic alcoholism & suffering from a tremor caused not only by his drinking but also by the onset of dementia, seems to me to be nothing short of the truth. When House erupted into a song, it was like the visceral sound of a freight train when—as my friends & I did sometimes when young—you stand perilously close to the tracks. We use the word “blues” to describe a mood—often as a sort of diminutive for depression; with House, there’s nothing diminutive about it at all—it’s a consuming force, an overwhelming emotion that can shake & rattle the soul the way the strings rattled on his National under the attack of the copper slide he wore on his left ring finger. Slide guitar played on a resonator guitar is always in potential a journey into some mythic territory beyond the confines of what conventional, “Spanish” playing can bring out of the instrument—in the case of Son House, his National sounds like a whole other instrument, driven by an attack that’s built from an emotional fury. This may sound like hyperbole—it’s not. Just check out the man in any of the vidclips below—but you could start with “Downhearted Blues” (which is similar to his song “How to Treat a Man”).
Son House was born in Mississippi in 1902. His father was a musician, but House wanted to be a Baptist preacher & took up this vocation while still in his teens. He sang in church, but he didn’t play guitar—an instrument that wasn’t considered very appropriate for a religious man due to its connection with the blues—until he was in his 20s. That’s when Son began a journey that veered between two very different poles: his religious fervor & his equal fervor for the blues & the life that seemed to entail. As a result, his music ranges from a kind of raw desolation—see the second vidclip below for “Death Letter Blues,” about the most unsettlingly grim blue songs I know—to an almost hopeful religiosity. On his Delta Blues & Spirituals album (a live recording on Capitol—out of distribution, but not unavailable) when House talks about “THE BLUES,” he says, “You can sing the blues in church if you use the words right.” Yet there’s a sense in his music that, as much as he attempted to reconcile these two passions, the relationship between them was always dynamic, at least; as he sings in “Preaching the Blues”: “Oh in my room I bowed down to pray/Say the blues came ‘long & they drove my spirit away.” You can hear Son House singing “Preaching the Blues” in the third vidclip.
Son House was friends with some of the greatest bluesmen, all hailing from the Mississippi Delta: he played with Charlie Patton & Willie Brown (even casual blues fans will recognize Willie Brown from the final stanza of Robert Johnson’s “Crossroad Blues”: "You can run, you can run, tell my friend-boy Willie Brown/Lord, that I'm standin' at the crossroad, babe, I believe I'm sinkin' down”). In fact Robert Johnson played harmonica with Willie Brown & Son House, & learned much from them, especially from House. Son House also knew the young Muddy Waters, who described House as “my idol.”
I try to ground these essays in each guitarist’s real musicianship—so what three adjectives might I use to describe Son House’s playing? “Rhythmic,” without question—not just the propulsiveness & percussiveness of his playing, which are remarkable in themselves, but the intricacy of the rhythmic variation; “Passionate,” certainly—his guitar work & his voice both are expressive of powerful emotion, tho it’s also worth noting that House had a pretty keen sense of dynamics—as much as the overall effect of his music is full-bore playing & singing, he knew the power of holding back, getting quiet & getting spare; & “organic”—in the sense that his guitar part is built solidly within the framework that the song allows, without involving either stale clichés on the one hand or mere flash on the other—for all their thunder! Son House also had an uncanny sense of how to best accompany his voice with the slide guitar—driving the vocal forward or giving it an aching poignancy or eerie desperation.
House typically played National Duolian single cone resonator guitars (actually, a bit of a bargain model at the time: they were $32.50 new in the 30s—needless to say, these guitars have appreciated significantly, even accounting for inflation. As I mentioned earlier, he typically played with a slide, & this was usually a section of copper tubing that he wore on the ring finger (slides are practically always worn on either the ring finger or little finger & there are advantages & disadvantages to both). He kept his guitar tuned to an open G most of the time (meaning the strings sounded together make a G major chord; standard guitar tuning doesn’t produce any commonly recognized chord on the six open strings). Such open tunings really facilitate slide playing.
Fortunately, there are some good recordings of Son House: The Complete Library of Congress Sessions 1941-1942 (Travelin’ Man label) showcase House when he was still relatively young (there are even earlier recordings, from a 1930 session in Wisconsin which House traveled to with Patton & Brown—all three men were recorded); another good choice is Sony’s Original Delta Blues.
& hope you enjoy the intro provided by these YouTube clips!
If one is inclined to read books or visit a number of websites, or even talk to a number of musicians, one might come away with the impression that traditional music is dictated by a number of very strict rules—for instance, if you’re going to play blues you need to do it in such-&-such a style on such-&-such a guitar, & you should be able to reproduce certain licks as emblematic of the style. Now, I’ve learned a fair amount from music books & websites, & a whole heckuva lot from other musicians, but I’ve come to realize that these rules only go so far. While it’s unquestionably important to study the good ones who’ve come before, at a certain point you need to dive in & play it the way you hear & “feel” it—& by “feel,” I mean emotionally, of course, but also tactilely—because the physical act of playing an instrument is a combination of hearing & touch.
The majority of us spend some time trying to figure out how to play things “the right way” before we realize that we actually have gained enough skills along the way to play the songs we love the way we hear & feel them. The results may not be as spectacular as the results of the justifiably renowned traditional musicians, but they will have that “certain je ne sais quoi” that comes from actually interacting with a piece of music.
Some musicians, however, rapidly develop a unique style, & one of these was the great folk/blues fingerstyle guitar player, Elizabeth Cotten. Ms. Cotten was left-handed, & when she was young she picked up a guitar in the way that seemed natural to her—namely, what would be considered upside-down & backwards. These days, they make left-handed guitars (tho depending on the degree of left-handedness, a number of left-handed folks also play “as if” they were right-handed), Elizabeth Cotten came to the guitar after learning the banjo at age seven (she learned on her older brother’s banjo); again, she played the banjo “upside-down & backwards.”
Now a banjo has a quirk in that the string that would be typically played with the thumb by a right-handed person is a high-pitched drone. It’s also true that in a number of old-time banjo styles the thumb plays a good deal of the melody. So in that sense, Elizabeth’s approach to the banjo was slightly less novel. But when she started to play the guitar, she came up with the odd technique of playing the bass strings with her index finger & the treble strings with her thumb—exactly the opposite of how the instrument is typically played.
Despite or because of her unusual playing technique, Elizabeth Cotten grew to be a masterful guitar player. She also was a precocious composer—Cotten wrote her best-known song, “Freight Train,” as a young teenager, not long after she’d scraped together enough money to buy a Stella guitar (an inexpensive model of the time). The song has become a real “standard” of fingerstyle guitar, & has been covered by everybody from Peter, Paul & Mary to Chet Atkins. You can hear Elizabeth Cotten playing & singing the song in the first video clip below.
Cotten made her living mostly as a maid, & apparently didn’t pursue music in any “serious” way. In fact, by the time she moved to the Washington, D.C. area she’d mostly put the guitar aside, except for playing occasionally at church.
Cotten was working in a department store one day when a young girl became lost. Elizabeth Cotten helped the child, who was Penny Seeger—yes, of that Seeger family. The upshot was that Cotten became the Seeger’s maid, & at a certain point young Mike Seeger discovered that Elizabeth Cotten could not only play the guitar but could really play the guitar. He began taping her performances on reel-to-reel tapes, & these were later issued by Folkways Records.
Elizabeth Cotten, now in her 60s, became a fixture at folk festivals from the 1960s almost until her death at age 92 in 1987—in fact, she won a Grammy Award for best traditional album in 1985 (for her Live! on Arhoolie). She continued to write songs, too: her wonderful song “Shake Sugaree” was written in the 1960s, & was recorded with Elizabeth playing guitar & her 14-year-old granddaughter, Brenda Evans, singing. You can hear this lovely tune in the second video clip below.
Elizabeth Cotten was a true musical wonder. Her guitar playing was impeccable. Tho her voice had lost something to age by the time Seeger began recording her, her instrumental technique remained formidable. As evidence: check out her version of the classic fingerstyle piece “Vestapol” in the final clip.
So next time someone says, “You can’t do it that way,” think of Elizabeth Cotten!
As regular readers know, these days guitar-wise I’m performing exclusively on a resonator model. It seems like everywhere I turn up with my Regal, I get questions about it; since the resonator (also called a resophonic guitar) stirs interest in the tangible world, I thought it might generate some in the virtual world as well. These days it’s de rigueur for a band in almost any form of popular music to have at least one guitar; & since this has been more or less the case since the mid 1950s on, you might believe it’s always been so. Well, no. The guitar as it existed from the 16th century to the 1930s had a significant drawback as a “band” instrument, especially in ensembles featuring wind instruments of practically any sort: acoustic guitars are quiet—a fact that may seem surprising to us in the era of magnetic pick-ups, & perhaps even unbelievable to moms & dads whose kid is hammering out power chords on his/her Strat.
So a number of developments in the history of guitar design have had to do with increasing the instrument’s volume & “sustain”; the latter term refers to how long a note produced by an instrument can continue to sound, & is actually only tangentially related to volume. For example, a banjo can generate quite a bit of volume, but has very little sustain. Solid body electric guitars have a great deal of sustain—when Les Paul was designing the “Les Paul Log” in the early 40s he said, “You could go out & eat & come back & it would still be sounding.”
Other innovations to guitar design dated to the late 19th century, many of which were instigated by the Martin & Gibson companies; these would include using steel strings rather than gut strings—which increased volume, & necessitated modifications in the neck design—& also the carved “archtop” body shape, especially associated with Gibson guitars. This shape tends to increase the guitar’s ability to project sound. But while these innovations worked well in string settings like mandolin orchestras, when jazz came along & popular bands started featuring cornets & trombones & clarinets, the guitar was simply drowned out. That’s why the early jazz bands featured banjos &/or pianos to play the chords. The guitars of the teens & early 20s couldn’t be effective in such a setting. & that’s where our story starts for real.
In the 1920s, instrument builder John Dopyera was approached by steel guitar player George Beauchamp, who asked him to design a louder guitar—by the way, “steel guitar” here refers to the Hawaiian guitar that developed into the lap steel & then to the pedal steel. The original steel guitar (like the lap steel) typically was laid on the lap & played with a metal slide held in the left hand. At that time, of course, steel guitars like their conventional counterparts were acoustic.
Dopyera’s solution was to place metal cones (originally as many as four) within the guitar’s sound cavity. Rather than relying on the wooden soundboard driven into vibration by the strings, the cone(s) amplifies the sound transmitted by the strings thru the bridge, & the body acts essentially like a speaker cabinet. Dopyera & Beauchamp formed the National String Instrument Company in 1927, making tricone metal-bodied resonators (tricone referring of course referring to three cones). The next year Dopyera & his brothers formed the Dobro Company (Dopyera Brothers=Dobro) & began producing single cone resonators. Following a legal battle, the Dopyera brothers gained control of both companies in the early 30s & operated them as the National Dobro Company. This company is no longer in existence: Gibson won the rights to the Dobro name in the early 1990s, while a new company called the National Reso-Phonic Guitars was formed in the 1980s. Guitars currently sold under the National name are made by this company. There are a number of manufacturers of the various resonator instruments, which can be broken down into three mix & match categories: round-neck/square-neck; metal-bodied/wood-bodied; single cone/tricone. What is commonly known as the Dobro (actually a Gibson trademark now)—i.e., a square-neck played lap style (or if played standing, then played with the guitar suspended flat), typically with a single cone—is most often seen in bluegrass & country contexts. Players using resonators for blues or fingerstyle in general tend to use the round-necked models, because they can be played either lap style or “Spanish style”—i.e., held as a guitar is conventionally. The square-necked guitars are more versatile in terms of tuning possibilities, simply because the square neck is stronger—some common square-neck tunings simply can’t be used on a round-neck guitar. However, round-neck guitars are often re-tuned to what’s called “open tunings”—meaning the 6-strings sounded together make a chord—usually a major chord, & most commonly either a G or a D; because the strings either stay at conventional pitch or are “slacked” (tuned down) to do this, the strings & the neck aren’t put under any extra tension. These open tunings are especially favored by players who use a bottleneck slide. Of course many people—including yours truly—play round-neck resonator guitars in conventional tuning & held & fretted conventionally.
I love the resonator sound—& that distinctive sound is the reason that these guitars are still quite popular long after the invention of the electro-magnetic pick-up made their original purpose obsolete. I should note that other instruments have incorporated the resonator sound from almost the first days of the technology—these include especially the ukulele (also a notoriously quiet instrument) as well as the mandolin & the tenor guitar. I own a Beltona resonator tenor uke, & I love it—very bell-like in sound. My resonator guitar is a Regal RC-2 (a single cone), & I’m very happy with it—sorry not to have a sound clip ready at this point, but I do plan seriously on doing some recording next month—honest! Obviously, National is the brand everyone thinks of, & I’m sure they’re great if you have the $. If I had the $, however, I’d think very seriously about a Beltona Southerner. Because the Beltona bodies are made of a glass reinforced resin, they’re considerably lighter than the all steel body instruments—my Regal is pretty doggone heavy!
Other more affordable models in addition to the Regal would include Johnson, Recording King & Epiphone. Beard makes both high-end guitars & also more moderately priced ones (in conjunction with Gold Tone). Which guitar is right for a given player is obviously (to me at least) an individual choice. However, a Google search will show that this is a particularly hot topic when it comes to resonators. There are quite a few out there who insist you save for a National (or go in debt for one) & forget all others. My opinion: if you find a guitar you enjoy playing (both in terms of sound & feel) & it fits your budget, go for it.
Hope you enjoy the videos. The first shows Bukka White playing bottleneck style on “Aberdeen Blues”; the second shows Josh Graves with the Foggy Mountain Boys playing Dobro (look for Graves’ breaks at around 1:55 & again around 3:50 or a tick or two after) & finally, Blind Boy Fuller playing “I'm A Rattlesnakin' Daddy” Spanish style.
Pix from top Yours truly with my Regal Tampa Red with a tricone Son House playing bottleneck style Josh Graves & Dobro Yours truly playing my Beltona resonator tenor uke with good pal Dani Leone on steel drum Bukka White playing bottleneck. White has the bottleneck on his little finger, which is what I prefer when I do play with a slide. You'll notice Son House wears his on his ring finger. Both are common & each has advantages.
Music stores can be dangerous places, if you’re me. Once several years ago Eberle & I pulled up outside Greif’s Music in Ontario. For you local readers, that’s when Greif’s still had stores in both Payette, ID & Ontario, OR—& this was our first ever visit to the Ontario store. I got out of the car & said, “Well, at least we don’t need to buy anything.” We used Greif’s as an outlet for Alice in Wonder Band supplies, & I guess I was thinking we were pretty well stocked at that moment.
Anyhoo, Eberle was looking around thru the sheet music, probably wearing her piano teacher’s hat, & I decided to wander thru the guitar room. There was a hollow body electric guitar hanging on the wall, which I looked at rather admiringly. It wasn’t a high-end guitar—pretty middle of the road as such guitars go, but it caught my eye. Eberle came into the room—I said, “That’s a cool guitar.” She said, “Don’t you want to play it at least?” I guess you know the rest of the story. The good news is that between Five & Dime Jazz & (especially) our movie soundtrack work as the Bijou Orchestrette, the guitar ultimately paid for itself.
Fast forward to last Friday, the end of a mind-bogglingly hectic week. On an excursion to Ontario, we stopped at Greif’s Music in Ontario, OR so I could pick up a guitar cleaning cloth—a $1.50 item. I bought the cloth, then wandered off to the guitar room while Eberle looked for piano teacherly music….
& I saw quite a nice bajo sexto that I thought Eberle would get a kick out of seeing, too. So, we both ended up in the guitar room, & after admiring the bajo sexto & the Gibson plectrum banjo Greif’s hasn’t found a buyer for after about three years, we came around the corner & were greeted by the little fellow you see in the pic above. Eberle said the fatal words, “Wouldn’t you like to play it?” But it was a deal: $79.95 for an old Kay parlor guitar—when I looked at the tag I thought they'd missed a “1” at least in front of the price, & a little ‘net research showed that one quite a bit like it was going for $200 as a “buy now” item on eBay this week.
Now I refer to this guitar as a “little fellow” because it is a small guitar—maybe not “Owl & the Pussycat” sized, but tiny in comparison with my favorites, the Regal resonator & the Harmony archtop. In the next pic on the righthand side, you can see the Harmony & the Kay side by side as a point of comparison—won’t get into scale length & size of upper & lower bouts, because that’s apt to make most folks’ eyes glass over.
In essence, this Kay is a parlor guitar, a term that dates back to the mid 19th century. A fair number of old-time musicians played these smaller sized models. Interestingly, although it’s small, it’s got a big tone, especially on the bass end—who’d a thunk that? Of course, the fact that even the inexpensive guitars typically were made of solid wood back in the 50s helps the tone, & there’s some truth to the old adage “the older the violin, the sweeter the music.”
About 240 odd posts ago, way back in August, I wrote a post called “A Good Guitar”; it was a little tribute to my beloved 58 Harmony Master, as well as a meditation on what “a good guitar is.” This topic also came up on a recent post over at Citizen K. Now I’m not here to tell you this Kay is some diamond in the rough—as per the punnish title, it’s “an okay guitar.” But I am saying that if you can figure out what the guitar wants to do, you can have a lot of fun with an instrument like this—the Kay particularly responds to fingerpicking I’ve found, & some day when I’ve got nothing else to do, I might re-string it with a set of John Pearse bronze & silk strings, which might enrich the tone a bit.
The Kay has had its share of little cosmetic dings & nicks over the years—the fretboard is worn in places, & ideally the action might be a little lower (those John Pearse strings could compensate a bit for this). I do know (because I asked) that someone traded it in for a newer instrument; I’m hoping they got a pretty decent guitar, because if they got some inexpensive but “prettier” new guitar, I’m thinking they might have been better off with what they had.
The story of the Kay Guitar Company, like the story of Harmony guitars, is an interesting one. The majority of guitars produced by both Kay & Harmony were inexpensive models, often department store guitars—Harmonys & Kays were sold by Montgomery Ward & Sears (under the Silvertone brand name). Both companies had their origins in the 1890s, but both really experienced a heyday between about the 1930s thru the 1950s. Despite being “cheap” guitars when they were made, both Kays & Harmonys have held up well over the years & these old guitars continue to make a lot of good music. Some noteworthy guitar players who used Kays were:
Arthur Crudup (used both Kay & Silvertone archtops) Buddy Guy (archtop & jumbo) John Lee Hooker & Lightnin’ Hopkins (jumbo models) Howlin’ Wolf & Joseph Spence (archtops) Elmore James (Kay dreadnought)
In terms of Kay electric guitars, players have included Barney Kessel (!), Eric Clapton (I think in the Yardbirds days) & Ry Cooder.
Now that’s a pretty impressive line-up of folks who played fairly modest guitars—guess Paul Skelton might be on to something there…. It's something for sure that novice players might consider when they read in various chat rooms & bulletin boards, etc. that they can’t even begin to think of making music without a Gibson or a Martin or a National, etc. etc. Do they need a guitar with a comfortable & playable set-up? Yes. Do they need a guitar whose sound & feel they like? Yes. Are they only going to find this in a high-priced guitar? My answer to this is “no.”
At any rate, I’m having fun making music on this okay guitar!
Eberle took the pic of me with the Kay The fellow in the previous pic is the great Howlin' Wolf
I knew I just wasn’t firing on all cylinders—oversleeping a bit, a little groggy, a bit too hurried & distracted…. it was 18 degrees F outside—bitter, & all the glass on the car was solidly frosted. But I headed off in the gray cold morning for my round of appointments in the high country of Donnelly & McCall somewhat later than usual, “on schedule” to arrive on time, but without much time to spare.
About 12 miles down the road, as I neared the town of Council, it began to dawn on me that things just didn’t look right—everything had a fuzzy appearance; was it the gray early morning light? That didn’t make sense. I put my hand to face & discovered I’d left home without my glasses.
There was a short deliberation about how to address this situation. But I realized if I turned back, I may as well cancel my 9:00 a.m. appointment; & I was reasoned that since I’ve made this drive at least once a week since ’02, it wasn’t as if I needed to read the road signs. Still, the drive was surreal—even more surreal coming home in a snowstorm that increased in ferocity the lower I descended in elevation. By the time I came back thru Council, the flakes were about as big as they can be before turning to rain.
But I had some truly wonderful & inspiring music to listen to as I wended my fuzzy & foggy way thru the canyons—music that gave me a lot to think about in terms of how art communicates. Here are the albums:
Buell Kazee: Buell Kazee (June Appal) 1. Roll On, John 2. Jay Gould's Daughter 3. The Lady Gay 4. Steel A-Going Down 5. The Roving Cowboy 6. Banjo Medley: Blue-Eyed Gal, Rock Little Julie, What'll I Do With the Baby-O 7. Look Up, Look Down That Lonesome Road 8. Sporting Bachelors 9. The Orphan Girl 10. Black Jack Davy 11. The Blind Man 12. O, Thou in Whose Presence 13. Amazing Grace 14. Wexford Girl 15. Butcher's Boy 16. Wagoner's Lad 17. Short Life of Trouble 18. Shady Grove 19. East Virginia 20. Hook and Line
Buell Kazee is quite simply a legend of clawhammer banjo playing. On his most memorable tunes, the banjo is producing a lilting cavalcade of notes; the drive of his banjo frailing is simply remarkable. For those of you who weren’t around for the Clawhammer series here on Robert Frost’s Banjo (you can find the posts most easily here), frailing or clawhammer style of playing involves using the nail of either the index or the middle finger along with the thumb to play the banjo in a rather percussive manner; for reasons that may or may not seem obvious, it was also referred to in the Appalachians as “rapping” or “knocking” a banjo. The style is quite old, & is thought to be (like the banjo itself) African in origin; it was the style used in the old minstrel shows that spread the banjos popularity in the mid to late 19th century (there are some differences between the “minstrel stroke” & what’s known as “clawhammer” today, but these are relatively fine points for the general reader). The style is known for its propulsive energy, & was the preferred playing style for dances because of this.
Kazee had no problem generating propulsion; like so many good musicians, his playing always seems to be “pushing the envelope” of the beat, while actually remaining steadfast to the given tempo. This may seem contradictory, but it’s what gives his playing that remarkable drive.
As remarkable as Kazee’s banjo playing is, his voice is a match for his banjo. Bill Monroe talked about a “high lonesome sound” as being fundamental to old-time music—a sound that he sought to reproduce in an updated manner in his bluegrass band. Kazee has that high lonesome sound in spades—but with a soulful, haunteds quality that I don’t find in much bluegrass singing. Kazee’s voice comes from Greil Marcus’ “weird old America,” & in fact Kazee is featured on that most essential of Americana albums & the album Marcus was referring to with that term, Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. There is an immediacy in Kazee’s singing & playing that’s hard to achieve. This might spring in part from the naturalness with which he sang. Kazee said, “We just sang by nature. Everybody sang & nobody thought there was anything unusual about it.” Unfortunately, that attitude about singing isn’t as prevalent as it could be here in the US (that’s actually quite an understatement). It reminds me of an African proverb that’s meant a lot to me: “If you can talk you can sing; if you can walk you can dance.” So much of singing (also true of playing an instrument) is relaxation: relaxing to allow your voice to come thru, & relaxing enough to hear your voice. Relaxation isn’t given a high cultural value amongst us; I wonder as I listen to Kazee sing & play the banjo, how much that’s responsible for the cultural myth of tone deafness—which largely is a myth & not based on any actual physical condition (except, perhaps, in a very small percentage of cases). Son HouseDelta Blues & Spirituals (Capitol Blues):
1. Monologue-The B-L-U-E-S 2. Between Midnight And Day 3. I Want To Go Home On The Morning Train 4. Levee Camp Moan 5. This Little Light Of Mine 6. Monologue-Thinkin' Strong 7. Death Letter Blues 8. How To Treat A Man 9. Grinnin' In Your Face 10. John The Revelator
Although this magnificent album appears to be out-of-print, it can still be found for a reasonable price, & it’s also available on LastFm; & magnificent is just one superlative that could be used to describe Son House’s singing & playing: “mind-boggling,” “stunning,” “amazing” all come to mind. There are some musicians whose music is visceral; when the music hits you, it goes straight to the body: the gut & the heart. It come from a musician who really inhabits the music or who allows the music to inhabit him/her. In cases like this, you don’t think: “oh, what a good singer,” or “wow, he can really play guitar”; these considerations are really quite secondary, because what the singer is about is the music: in a culture that places a high value on virtuosity, this type of immediacy can get overlooked. This is substance, not style.
Recently Citizen K. posted a video of Glen David Andrews & company playing a jazz-gospel version of “I’ll Fly Away.” I’d grown so used to hearing rather mediocore versions of this tune that it no longer struck me as “musical.” When I heard the music on that video, I was floored: these musicians brought so much life & so much presence to the song: they transformed it. & tho all the musicians involved in that recording are very talented & have clearly honed their skills, that’s not what I thought about as I heard the song: my thought was how incredibly moving this is.
I have that same experience with Son House. His voice is remarkable, his slide guitar playing is powerful. But I don’t think so much about the technique. Son House doesn’t use the song as a mediating force; it’s not something to come between him & his audience, something to be used to display his chops, either vocal or on his National guitar—it’s music. In his opening monologue, House talks about the connection between blues & the heart; once he launches into the roaring opening bars of “Between Midnight And Day,” (with excellent blues harp accompaniment by Alan Wilson) you begin to experience this. David Evans, in his liner notes to this album, describes a Son House show as follows: “We hadn’t just seen Son House; we had seen The Blues.”
Delta Blues & Spirituals was recorded live, at the 100 Club in London in 1970. The energy of that show explodes off the disc. When House closes the show with "John the Revelator” (done a capella, with audience participation—including the audience clapping in perfect time on the off beats), you realize this was the kind of show that could actually transform a listener. It’s not just a passive listening experience—the music gets inside you & moves you both physically &, I’d say, spiritually.
There aren’t that many musicians—or artists of any sort—who can be so consistently present & immediate in their work. I hear jazz great Rahasaan Roland Kirk this way; I think Janis Joplin at her best was like this, especially recorded live. César Vallejo’s poetry strikes me this way, too. I’m sure I could come up with other examples, but the quality is rare.
Son House is a tough act to follow. I listened to that cd again as soon as it was over. As someone who loves the old blues, & who plays them, this is like getting a lesson from a master: not about technique, but about how the music has to connect with your heart, how you have to be in the moment to play the blues.
Living in the moment—after a hurried, distracted morning, Son House showed me the way back to this. I definitely give both these artists high recommendation; & just because I think my words can only begin to convey House’s power, I’ve added a video of Son House performing his song “Forever on My Mind.” There are some other excellent videos of Son House on YouTube; it really was hard to choose. Hope you find this great artist moving & instructive, too.
Yesterday morning was the weekly trek to Donnelly—a bitterly cold morning at that, with frozen fog down here in the valley & overcast at the higher elevations.
& a mentally foggy drive for yours truly, as my old companion insomnia paid me a call in the wee hours of Thursday morning—first time in quite a while—& that does put one in a state of somewhat forced focus while navigating the canyon roads. The January landscape has become sober in these parts, too—a lot of grays, the eerie sight of the fog crystals frozen on the skeletal limbs of sagebrush &, at higher elevations, the fog frozen in clumps on the lodgepoles & ponderosas. McCall & Donnelly were both cloudy with the raw promise of snow moving in the air—at 5,000 feet, these towns were above the inversion, but the clouds hung low & heavy.
My mind was scattered & my heart somewhat heavy with childhood recollections, & more recent memories as well: Charlottesville, VA; San Francisco…. I felt the need for a guitar, just as I felt the need for a piano in my adolescence. Hard to drive & play, tho. Later, yesterday evening, I could sit down & work on some material: Mississippi John Hurt’s version of “See See Rider,” which has the lovely line about “Ain’t no more potatoes, the frost has killed the vine,” & “Make Me a Pallet,” & Kansas Joe McCoy’s “Joliet Bound.” During the drive, I did have some wonderful music to listen to & meditate upon, however.
1. Viper Man 2. Half as Much 3. Banjo Tango 4. Shakin’ the Blues Away 5. Over the Rainbow 6. El Choclo 7. The Gift 8. Romance without Finance 9. Dark Eyes 10. You Are My Sunshine 11. Swing De Paris 12. Abba Dabba Honeymoon 13. Hungarian Rhapsody No 2
This album has been my introduction to plectrum banjo wiz Cynthia Sayer (the banjoist in Woody Allen’s dixieland ensemble), & I’d call it a good listen. Sayer’s voice has personality, & she does some interesting melodic & rhythmic improvisations while singing some old standbys, as well as her composition, “The Gift.” In fact, her rather bouncy interpretation of “Over the Rainbow” is quite fresh, & she does a bang-up job on the old novelty tune “Abba Dabba Honeymoon.”
To my ear, tho, we’re listening to Sayer’s banjo first & her voice second. She’s at her best when she’s trading licks with the magnificent Bucky Pizzarelli, & the two of them, as well as violinist Sara Caswell, really cook on several cuts: “Banjo Tango” (Sayer's own composition), “El Choclo,” “Swing de Paris,” & “Abba Dabba Honeymoon” (I kid you not on the latter) are standouts. Sayer also proves in spectacular fashion that she can really burn up the fretboard going solo too—her version of “Hungarian Rhapsody No 2”—just her & her banjo—is a tour de force.
I have a few quibbles with the album, mostly at the level of production & arrangement. Both “Half as Much” & “You Are My Sunshine” seem to lag a bit below the overall level. “Half as Much” seems a trifle desultory during the break; I just can’t make much sense of what Sayers intended in a banjo solo that seems a tad aimless. I do think she had a fresh take on the vocal, tho. “You Are My Sunshine” also never seems to quite get off the ground, & then it’s marred (to my ear, but this may just be a quirk of mine) by the dreaded half-step modulation (this also occurs at the end of “Dark Eyes,” which I find a trifle annoying, but the playing on “Dark Eyes” is pretty strong overall). For you non-musician types out there, the half-step modulation (also called the “truck driver’s gear change”) consists of taking the song up a half step in key, usually toward the end of the song; if the body of the song is in C, the band & singer take it up to C# as a flourish toward the end. Besides the fact that it’s the same interval as the sound a truck makes when shifting gears, it also seems to say: “We have no more ideas in the original key, so let’s make it sound like we’re doing something by modulating." I admit this is done habitually by some pretty great musicians (as well as in some truly horrific pop songs)—Patsy Cline & the Beatles both were notorious practicioners of the truck driver’s gear change, & I forgive them. So I forgive Sayer & Co. too. This album really is worth a listen—Sayer’s tone & technique on the plectrum banjo (a rather unusual instrument these days—I wrote about it in an early post here) are both superb, & Pizzarelli is his usual masterful self on the 7-string guitar. The addition of Caswell’s violin makes the ensemble recall the hot jazz days, & the horn section of Scott Robinson, Randy Sandke & Jim Fryer is first-rate.
Bill Evans Trio: Waltz for Debby (Riverside) 1. My Foolish Heart 2. Waltz for Debby 3. Detour Ahead 4. My Romance 5. Some Other Time 6. Milestones 7. Waltz for Debby (alt. take) 8. Detour Ahead (alt. take) 9. My Romance (alt. take) 10. Porgy (I Loves You, Porgy)
This album, along with its companion Sunday at the Village Vanguard, are masterpieces of the piano-bass-drum trio format. The music was recorded in June 1961 during a week-long run at the Vanguard; the trio played both a matinee & an evening show over the weekend. Unfortunately, these were the last recordings made by this trio, because bassist Scott LeFaro was killed not long afterwards in a highway accident.
In addition to the even greater tragedy of a young life ended in such an untimely way, the loss of LeFaro's music was itself a tragedy. LeFaro’s bass lines, both as a back-up player & as a soloist were stunning; he has been compared to Mingus, & this doesn’t strike me as hyperbole. Some have said his bass solos sound as if they were played on a huge guitar—this also seems true: they have the melodic flow of a guitar, but with the unforgettable bass timbre. Fortunately, LeFaro gives his instrument a real work out on this album, so his playing really can be appreciated.
Evans is of course acknowldged as a master of jazz piano. As I listened yesterday, I was struck again by how much feeling & beauty he was able to convey in a simple phrase—even at times in a single note or chord. The very rubato opening of the old piano lounge standard “My Foolish Heart” shows this; his transformation of the tune into a Debussy-like melody is stunning, as is the grace he displays on his own standard, “Waltz for Debby,” or the rich darkness he brings to Miles Davis’ “Milestones.” Evans was a player who could communicate clearly on an emotional level, & he used his considerable technique to serve this—just as LeFaro used his technique to serve the song, & not vice-versa. Throughout the album the light & sure-handed drumming of Paul Motian provides a solid background for the two great improvisers; Motian is able to convey the shimmering undercurrent of the ballads, & is also able to swing, as in the upbeat 4/4 section of “Waltz for Debby.”
There are literally hundreds of jazz albums that could be categorized as “must listen.” This is not the least amongst those.
1. Big Road Blues 2. Preaching Blues 3. Joliet Bound 4. Maggie Campbell 5. Hellhound on My Trail 6. Bye Bye Blues 7. Gone Woman Blues 8. Peavine Blues 9. Rolling Log Blues 10. I Let My Daddy Do That 11. Tallahatchie Blues 12. Tain’t Long Fo Day 13. Terraplane Blues 14. Come On In My Kitchen 15. Be Ready When He Comes 16. Cypress Grove 17. Railroadin’ Some 18. Hawkins Blues 19. Cool Drink of Water 20. Do Your Duty 21. Rowdy Blues 22. On the Wall 23. Devil Got My Man 24. Take My Heart Again
I’ll admit it had been quite some time since I’d listened in any thorough way to Rory Block before I compiled the fingerstyle list for Michelle Lemon (& y’all) last week. Since then I’ve listened to this album a few times, & I continue to be blown away by the passion of Block’s singing & her guitar playing. I tend to be less than enthusiatic about latter day blues interpretations by famous white musicians—as just one example, if I want to hear "Crossroads Blues,” I prefer Robert Johnson’s original a good bit over the version Eric Clapton did with Cream. But Block is the real deal. Her playing generally packs a wallop, but she can also come up with some lovely riffs, as at the beginning of “Rolling Log Blues.” Her slide work is also fantastic—a startling accent, not overbearing or intrusive.
The album is a “greatest hits” compilation, tho it’s clear that Rory Block is all about making the music she loves in the best way possible, & not necessarily worrying about churning out hit records in the usual sense. The tracks are drawn from her 1991 Mama’s Blues; her 1995 When a Woman Gets the Blues; 1992’s Ain’t I a Woman; the 1996 release Tornado; & her 1989 High Heeled Blues. All of these albums were issued by Rounder.
In addition to showcasing Block’s considerable playing & singing skills, this album also has a wide range of material—from the boisterousness of “Big Road Blues” to the eerie “Hellhound On My Trail” (Block does a fine job on all the Robert Johnson covers) to the joyful sexuality of “I Let My Daddy Do That” & “Do Your Duty” to the rollicking gospel of “Be Ready When He Comes.” Block is capable of conveying all these moods effectively & with great feeling. It would be difficult to pick favorites: I do like her take on the Johnson songs, & “Peavine Blues” is wonderfully moody. Block also does a wonderful job with “Joliet Blues,” a favorite of mine from the Kansas Joe McCoy/Memphis Minnie version.
While I try to encourage folks to go back to the source with country blues & listen to the likes of Mississippi John Hurt & Robert Johnson & all their amazing counterparts, this is a truly inspired album that very much deserves a listen—& more than one listen, too.
For various reasons, I didn't have the Thursday playlist going yesterday—I do expect this feature will return next week. In the meantime tho, dont despair—here's a similar feature for your cd contemplating pleasure.
Very recently good guitar student & good friend Michelle Lemon asked yours truly for a "top dozen" list of fingerstyle albums she might listen to as she’s beginning to really explore this playing style. As I was thinking about this list, I came to think others might find it interesting as well—hey, there’s nothing you can’t turn to a blog post if you set your mind to it—so I’m presenting them here as well.
Now one caveat: this list is culled from my own cd collection, which is a respectable collection of lots of types of music, but also has its gaps, even in the sorts of music I enjoy a lot. You simply can’t buy every cd you want, & given the choice between roughly 50 cds (or around 700 mp3 downloads) & a resonator guitar, I’ll take the latter (or its equivalent in other noisemakers) pretty much every time. So yes, I agree, it’s inexcusable to present a list of fingerstyle albums without one by Chet Atkins or Mance Lipscomb; & there are a myriad other essential players I'm neglecting, too. Just one example: Citizen K has gotten me thinking about Jorma Kaukonen for the first time in years, & his “Embryonic Journey” on the Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow is a gorgeous fingerstyle piece. Kaukonen also did a lot of fine fingerstyle blues numbers in Hot Tuna; I’m relatively familiar with their self-titled 1970 live album, & it does have some fine renditions of old blues tunes. & it’s a shame to leave the great Doc Watson off the list, but I don’t have any Watson albums that are mostly fingerstyle; they’re mostly flat pick tunes, with the occasionaly fingerstyle or banjo tune sprinkled throughout.
I did exclude folks who primarily play on a resonator. That’s not because I don’t like the resonator as a fingerstyle instrument—right now, it’s my favorite ax for fingerstyle playing & I expect it will be for a good long while. But the resonator’s bark is a lot different from the sound of an acoustic, & I thought it was best to confine the selections to a more familiar sound—so no Taj Mahal or Bukka White or Son House. There are a few resonator (& slide) cuts on a couple of the albums, however (e.g., see Rory Block). As you’ll see, my tastes run toward what is often called “country blues." For those of you who don't know, this isn’t a form of “country music”; it’s the rural pre-electric blues. As aficionados of this style are aware, it’s built on a steady bass rhythm kept by the right hand thumb while the right hand fingers play a melody with lots of syncopation (the number of fingers used along with the thumb varies from just index, to index & middle, to index, middle & ring, depending on the player—for normal human beings not named Elizabeth Cotton or Doc Watson, a minimum of index & middle is highly recommended). But there are a couple of “country” pickers in the usual sense of the word: Sam McGee, who actually pioneered a style that got away from just index & thumb playing (presumably a carryover from old-time banjo styles) & the great Merle Travis, who was so influential as a fingerstyle player. Tho he played “country” music he was heavily influenced by a blues sound, especially with his use of heavy damping on the bass notes.
There’s one other guitarist in the list who’s doesn't play some variation on the “country blues” style. That’s the great (& I do mean “great”) Bahamian guitar player Joseph Spence. I’ve never heard anyone like Spence. His playing is exquisite; his use of bass runs, & the counterpoint between his voice & his playing is unsurpassed in my experience. His singing is extremely quirky—he tends to forget the lyrics, & a lot of his singing is just vocalization “played against” his guitar. more commentary—& it’s virtually impossible to select must-hear cuts with many of these, so here’s the alphabetized list:
Etta Baker:One Dime Blues – Rounder(An exquisite fingerstyle player who should be better known)
Blind Blake: Ragtime Guitar’s Foremost Fingerpicker – Yazoo (This one has been discontinued, but The Best of Blind Blake, also on the Yazoo label is similar; although the sound quality of these old sides isn't great, Blind Blake is essential listening)
Rory Block: Gone Woman Blues - Rounder (A contemporary blues guitarist & singer who carries on the Delta Blues tradition; some of her versions of old blues on this album are particularly striking: I love her take on "Joliet Bound," for instance)
Elizabeth Cotton: Freight Train & Other North Carolina Folk Songs & Tunes - Smithsonian/Folkways (A huge force in the folk music after she was "discovered" by the Seegers; inimitable, but absolutely essential)
Reverend Gary Davis: Harlem Street Singer – Prestige (His guitar playing & singing just have to be experienced; there's so much passion in both; extremely influential fingerstyle player)
Mississippi John Hurt: The Best of Mississippi John Hurt – Vanguard (This album consists of sides recorded toward the end of John Hurt's life; I marginally prefer his older, mellower style to his 1920s recordings, but everything he recorded is worth hearing. Perhaps my favorite among the fingerstyle players)
Blind Lemon Jefferson: Moanin’ All Over – Tradition (This one has been discontinued, but The Best of Blind Lemon Jefferson on the Yazoo label looks better; it has a lot more sides; Blind Lemon Jefferson is sometimes called "the Father of the Blues," & is essential listening)
Robert Johnson: King of the Delta Blues, vol 1 & 2 – Sony (OK, this is really two cds, which technically makes this a baker's dozen
Sam McGee: Grand Dad of the Country Pickers – Arhoolie (There's also banjo & banjo guitar on this album, & Clifton McGee plays back-up guitar)
Joseph Spence: Bahamian Guitarist – Arhoolie (as above; an odd thing about Spence: one of his strings was never in tune; I forget which now—this guy will blow your mind)
Merle Travis: Folk Songs of the Hills – Capitol ("Travis Picking" is named after Merle Travis, which clues you in to this guy's place among fingerstyle players)
Dave Van Ronk: Live at Sir George Williams University - Justin Time (Van Ronk of course came up in the 50s & 60s folk revival, & was a masterful fingerstyle picker & singer)
For anyone interested in this style of guitar playing, the Acoustic Fingerstyle Guitar Page is a fantastic resorce—tab collections, articles & reviews (including reviews of instructional books & dvds), a guide to open tunings, & related links. There’s a link to this site on the front page here under the “Other Places of Interest” heading.
Finally, there's lots of fingerstyle guitar on YouTube: just start searching on any of the names listed in this post & you should find scads of videos. Here's one featuring the great Mississippi John Hurt:
Happy Wednesday afternoon, folks. I recently had an attack of “guitar acquisition syndrome,” a disorder that does afflict a number of guitarists—in fact, there are related syndromes for uke & banjo players too. The result of said attack is the guitar in the pic to the right, a Recording King squareneck tricone resonator guitar.
have a round neck or a square neck. The “roundneck” models have a neck just like a conventional guitar with a rounded back & are typically held in the conventional manner. The neck action is usually a it higher than on a conventional guitar to allow for slide playing, but usually roundneck resonators are set up so that you can actually fret notes & chords with your left hand fingers in addition to or instead of using a slide.
strings on a guitar in standard tuning don’t produce a common major chord. Also, with a squareneck guitar, the player typically doesn’t wear a slide over her/his finger, but instead holds a slide (often referred to as a “steel”) in his/her left hand. & the guitar is played facing upwards on her/his lap.
