Three houses in New Orleans, in particular, claim to be the “house”- the first, a hotel on Conti St. in the 1820’s. Evidence surfaced in 2005, from an excavation and research, that unearthed an ad for this house that alluded to prostitution.

A guidebook called Offbeat New Orleans places the second house at 826-830 Louis St. between the years of 1862-1864. According to www.straightdope.com, the building was supposedly named after its madam Marianne LeSolei Levant. Her surname translates to “The Rising Sun.”

The third, Rising Sun Hall along the riverfront in the uptown Carrollton neighborhood during the late 19th Century, where meetings of a Social Aid and Pleasure Club were held, as well as dances and functions. The Conti St. house and “Rising Sun Hall” are listed in old period directories.

Dave van Ronk wrote in his autobiography that he had seen photos of the old New Orleans Prison for Women, and over the entrance he saw a design of a Risin’ Sun. Thus, some believe that the ballad is about a young girl who goes to prison. Others think she ended up as a “lady of the night.”

Clarence Ashley and Gwen Foster released a recording in 1934 that is considered the earliest existing record of the song. There is a dispute that says Texas Alexander’s was the first, but some scholars state it was a completely different song entitled “Risin’ Sun” recorded in 1928.

Roy Acuff recorded it in 1938, probably learning the song from other Smokey Mountain artists.

The traditional lyrics were written by Kentuckians Georgia Turner (a miner’s daughter) and Bert Martin. Folklorist Alan Lomax, in his 1941 germinal work Our Singing Country, reports writing the lyrics down as Georgia sang. He added them to his songbook. The older lyrics were written in a feminine viewpoint, warning about coupling your friendship with a drunk and or gambling man, thus ruining your life, though male artists recorded the song early on. A popular version from the 1930s was recorded by Leadbelly, who added ambiguity to the lyrics by changing the gender of the singer. (wikipedia)

But Eric Burton and The Animals shortened the lyrics and gave them a masculine perspective in 1964 that warned about drinking and gambling. They used the arrangement written by Dave van Ronk that Dylan used before them (this is according to Martin Scorsese, who did the bipic for the Dylan album No Direction Home). It is said that The Animals actually learned the song from Nina Simone. In 2006 Shawn Mullins released 9th Ward Pickin Parlor, performing a powerful rendition from the original female perspective of the lyrics.

The Charlie Daniels band makes a reference to “House of the Rising Sun” in their song the Devil Went Down to Georgia (“…the devil’s in the house of the rising sun…”). Also, there are French, Finnish, and Catalan versions. An alternate name for the song is “Rising Sun Blues.”

Some of the artist that covered the song includes:

• The Adolescents
• Bachman-Turner Overdrive
• Gerry and the Pacemakers
• Joan Baez
• The Be Good Tanyas
• Eric Bibb & Cyndee Peters
• Blind Boys of Alabama (as ‘Amazing Grace’)
• Bon Jovi
• The Brothers Four
• Cody C & J.R.
• Johnny Cash
• David Allen Coe
• Bob Dylan (as part of his self-titled debut album)
• The Eagles
• Tommy Emmanuel
• EverEve
• Marianne Faithfull
• Frijid Pink
• Woody Guthrie
• Wyclef Jean et Les Portes du Pen
• Waylon Jennings
• Brian Johnson
• Sammy Kaye
• B.B. King and Mary Travers
• Mark Knopfler
• Kult
• La Renga
• Leadbelly
• Led Zeppelin
• Courtney Love
• Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power)
• Ronnie Milsap
• Roger McGuinn
• Muse
• Mark O’Conner
• Sinéad O’Connor
• Odetta
• John Otway
• Oysterhead
• Dolly Parton
• The Platters
• Pink Floyd
• Rockapella
• The Rolling Stones
• Dave van Ronk
• Santa Esmeralda
• Pete Seeger
• Sentenced
• Nina Simone
• Tangerine Dream
• Toto
• Tracy Chapman
• The Ventures
• Doc Watson & Richard Watson
• The Weavers
• The White Stripes
• Josh White
• Demis Roussos
• Jimi Hendrix
• Grateful Dead
• Conway Twitty
• Shawn Mullins
• Guster
• The Street Walkers
• Tim O’Brien

The traditional lyrics, as recorded by Lomax, are as follows:

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun.
It’s been the ruin of many a poor girl,
And me, O God, for one.
If I had listened what Mamma said,
I’d ‘a’ been at home today.
Being so young and foolish, poor boy,
Let a rambler lead me astray.
Go tell my baby sister
Never do like I have done
To shun that house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun.
My mother she’s a tailor;
She sold those new blue jeans.
My sweetheart, he’s a drunkard, Lord, Lord,
Drinks down in New Orleans.
The only thing a drunkard needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk.
The only time he’s satisfied
Is when he’s on a drunk.
Fills his glasses to the brim,
Passes them around
Only pleasure he gets out of life
Is hoboin’ from town to town.
One foot is on the platform
And the other one on the train.
I’m going back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain.
Going back to New Orleans,
My race is almost run.
Going back to spend the rest of my days
Beneath that Rising Sun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Rising_Sun

Traditional Lyrics (another version)

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
Its been the ruin of many a poor girl
And me, Oh Lord! Was one
My mother was a tailor,
She sewed them new blue jeans.
My lover, he was a gambler, Oh Lord,
Gambled down in New Orleans.
My lover, he was a gambling man,
He went from town to town;
And the only time he was satisfied
Was when he drank his liquor down.
Now the only thing a gambling man needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk;
And the only time he’s satisfied
Is when he’s on a drunk.
If I’d only list’nd when my dear mamma said:
Beware, my child, when you roam,
Keep away from drunkards and all those gambling men,
It’s best by far to come home.
Go tell my baby sister
Never do like I have done
But to shun that house in New Orleans
That they call the Rising Sun.
With one foot on the platform,
And one foot on the train
I’m going back to New Orleans
To wear the ball and chain..
I’m going back to New Orleans
The race is almost run;
I’m going back to spend the rest of my life.

http://www.risingconviction.com/

Alternate Lyrics

There is a house in New Orleans
It’s called the Rising Sun.
And it’s been the ruin
Of many young boys
In God, I know I’m one.
My mother was a tailor,
She sewed my new blue jeans.
My father was a gambling man,
Down in New Orleans.
And the only thing that a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk.
And the only time he’s satisfied
Is when he is on that drunk.
Oh mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done.
Spend your life in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun.
With one foot on the platform,
Got my fist upon the stage.
Yea I’m going back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain.
That’s alright.
It’s only alright.

http://www.risingconviction.com/

References:

• http://guitar.about.com/library/bltab60houseof.htm
• http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mrisingson.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Rising_Sun
• http://www.risingconviction.com/house-of-the-rising-sun/house-of-the-rising-sun.asp

What if I told you that the guy who invented punk rock, popularized the basic harmonic ideas of modern rock and metal, and who was a direct influence on Hendrix, Clapton, Page, Townsend and others is someone you’ve never heard of and who will never get into the Rock Hall of Fame. You’d think I was crazy. But I’m not, that artist is . . .

Link Wray

His single Rumble is what made Pete Townsend pick up the guitar in the first place. Link didn’t invent the power chord of course, that harmonic idea has been around for centuries, but he did apply it to rock guitar. When he did that, Link set the stage for the entire direction of the rock genre.

Hailing from Dunn, North Carolina, Link had few choices in the musical world. He could be a country guy or a country guy. So in the early 1950’s he teamed up with his brothers Vernon and Doug and formed Lucky Wray and the Lazy Pine Wranglers. By 1955 they’d changed their name to Lucky Wray and the Palomino Ranch Hands. Not precisely the stuff of rock legend! They moved to the Washington, D.C. area and added Shorty Horton on bass. Vernon did the vocals as Link was missing a lung from catching a bad case of tuberculosis while in the Army during the Korean War. So Link was left to playing the guitar, which he took to with great enthusiasm.

They had some minor success, but it wasn’t until they worked down to a trio, Vernon Wray changed his name to Ray Vernon and the group changed their name to The Ray-men that they found their groove.

Link was a great improviser and never backed down from a challenge. One gig, during a set, the house crowd asked for a stroll. Says Link, “They wanted me to play a stroll. I didn’t know any, so I made one up. I made up Rumble.”

The recording companies almost passed on Rumble, but the Cadence label owner Archie Bleyer’s daughter wouldn’t let her dad off the hook. She said the whole song reminded her of the fight scenes in West Side Story, so Bleyer renamed the song, and it soon topped at #16.

Cadence records came under immediate fire for releasing a song that “was promoting teenage gang warfare.” To counter this bad press, Bleyer tried to get The Ray-Men to team up with some Nashville clean-cut straight country artists for their next record. The Wray brothers saw no point to that, and broke their contract with Cadence, teaming up with Epic records.

With Epic, their follow-up to Rumble was the single Rawhide, which was, of course, an immediate hit.

Still, the Epic label wanted to clean up Link, get him out of his black leather jacket, and sell him as a country artist. Link and his brother wanted none of this. They liked being the bad boys on stage, and after a few stints recording things like Danny Boy backed by an orchestra, The Ray-men left Epic as soon as they could.

They formed their own label, Rumble Records, with the hope that being out on their own and out from the clueless label mangers, they could find the success their music clearly deserved. Their next big hit, recorded under Rumble Records was the single Jack The Ripper. In order to get the echo effect they wanted, they put Link’s amp at one end of a hotel staircase and the microphone at the other end.

But it wasn’t until Swan Records picked up Jack The Ripper that the brothers were able to get national coverage for the song. Swan Records liked Link and his brothers, and under a new contract, gave them free reign to experiment with different sounds and to dress and act how they wanted. Swan, like Epic and Cadence, came under heavy fire for “allowing” the band to do it’s live gigs in the roughest clubs it could find, and earning a reputation as serious party animals, the likes of which the newly evolved Rock World had yet to see. But Swan’s president understood what it had in Link, and would respond to his critics with a shrug and a smile, saying, “What can you do with an animal like that?”

Link’s career continued into the ’70’s, ’80’s and he still plays today. While Link never had another hit like Rumble, his influence in all of rock music is profound. Now in his late ’70’s, Link continues to tour. Sadly, most of his records are not readily available, and one has to work hard to find his music. But you can find a few places on the web selling CD’s of his songs. Particularly worthwhile is the CD of Swan record singles. Another source for hearing Link is through “Link Wray-dio” station.

Link is on tour through at least July of 2005, and if you can find him near you, go see the grandfather of punk!

Now how would you feel if I said that the most important guitarist in Country Music wasn’t Chet Atkins? You’d think I had flipped a lid. And I might have. But, there’s a good case to be made that while Chet was a phenomenal guitarist and musical talent, it was his skills as a producer, manager, engineer, and record executive that really earned him his stripes. But for pure Country Guitar glory, you have to look to…

Grady Martin

Thomas Grady Martin was born in 1929 in rural Tennessee. The youngest of four, he was spoiled a bit by his family, even through the rough depression years. He learned music from his mother and began recording at the age of 15. He dropped out of school to pursue his love of music and made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry in 1946 with the Bailes Brothers Band.

Grady was playing as a session musician and working the Grand Ole Opry regularly, as well as appearing on the Ozark Jubilee and the Kate Smith Show. He played on countless country hits, and was soon one of the most sought after guitarists in Nashville. He played backing guitar for any number of artists, from Little Jimmy Dickens, Red Foley, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Willie Nelson, Waylan Jennings, Joan Baez, J.J. Cale, Patsy Cline, and countless others.

Martin had his own band, The Slew Foot Five. They regularly played on records with a number of great vocalists. They are present on recordings by Burl Ives, Bing Crosby, and others. However, their own recordings, released by the Decca label, did not garner much attention.

Grady’s style of music influenced early Rockabilly, Country and Rock. Chet Atkins may be responsible for producing the Nashville sound, but it was Grady Martin who was responsible for playing it. When Atkins was producer, Grady Martin was his favorite guitar player.

Grady remained busy through the 1970’s, working with Elvis, Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, and Kris Kristofferson.

In 1978 he joined Jerry Reed’s band to return to doing live performing. He played on the soundtrack to Honeysuckle Rose, where he rejoined up with his old friend Willie Nelson, and from there spent the next sixteen years as a member of Willie’s band. He had to quit in the early 1990’s, owing to his health starting to fail him.

From Spanish-style nylon string country guitar on Marty Robbins’ single El Paso to rock-n-roll electric work on Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison’s Nashville sessions, to finger-picking country licks with Willie Nelson, to folk singer-songwriter styling with Joan Baez, Grady Martin simply did it all. And he did it better than any other country guitarist since.

While it would be impossible to list all of the records Grady played on, it is safe to say that if it was a Nashville Record released between 1946 and 1975 and it had a great guitar riff, it very well probably was Grady! Still, Sony Music has put together some of his best work on one CD called Cowboy Classics.

Grady died in 2001 after a long illness.

As always, I’m always excited to hear about guitarists. Please send your feedback to david.wagle@gmail.com. If there’s someone in particular you’d like to see profiled, or you want to take issue with some point I’ve made, drop me a line. While playing the guitar is more fun that talking about guitarists, it’s a close call! Let me know your thoughts!

The modern guitar has a long and rich history. The very first guitar-like instrument appears on a terra cotta plaque in the Baghdad museum. The plaque is estimated to be around 3700 years old!

An instrument that sounded this good just had to be shared, and these early instruments soon spread throughout most of the known world. Egyptian paintings show similar instruments, with two or three strings and a short, fretted neck. Music was apparently “women’s work” in Egypt, as all of the existing paintings show only female musicians… but they were clearly innovators: these paintings also show the first use of plectrums, or picks.

To the north, ancient Greeks improved on the design by lengthening the neck. At this point, the instrument was called a lute, and within another 500 years or so it had spread as far East as India.

As the instrument spread outward from Mesopotamia, local variations came about – the medieval lute, the oud, the Russian balalaika, and others are all descendants of this first instrument. Not every design succeeded, of course, and some instruments like the theorbo came and went without leaving much of a mark on the musical landscape.

The immediate ancestor of the guitar is probably the gittern, a Spanish instrument dating to the late 1200s. Gitterns started out as a four-stringed instrument, but by the 1400s had expanded to seven strings – the lowest three strings were paired in octaves (as in a modern 12-string guitar), with a single E string as the highest note. These instruments were tuned just as we tune the first four strings of the modern guitar: D, G, B, and E.

Eleven string versions came next, with five paired strings and a single high E, and the pairs disappeared shortly after 1800, leaving just six strings. A few years later, the Spanish luthier Antonio Torres Jurado standardized guitar making to a fixed string length, creating the first modern classical guitar.

We don’t know a lot about the earliest musical styles performed on guitar-like instruments; most of the literate people prior to the Renaissance were members of the clergy, and frowned on non-liturgical music. Perhaps this is because some French troubadors are said to have substituted bawdy lyrics for the familiar tunes of church music in the 1200s!

The music that does survive from the early days does give us some fine examples of how music developed from monophonic melodies to the complex arrangements we hear today. Early music, with its simple harmonization, is particularly well suited for beginners, as there isn’t a lot ‘going on’ at one time.

What we think of today as full chords were pretty rare in early performance. Simple melody lines were plucked to accompany a singer, with an occasional interval of a fourth or fifth to ‘fatten up’ the melodic line.

To give you a feeling for how this sounds, I’ve transcribed a short piece from the Dowland Lute manuscript, probably entitled “Jamie has lost his digger”.

This short piece is in AAB form. The only tricky fingering comes five measures from the end, with the B-F#-B; I finger this 1-4 in order to hold the B note while striking the C#.

The fact is that, quite often, in these ancient paintings, the instruments in question were used as religious objects and were not even played. Through rigorous study, it becomes obvious that the guitar is not an ancient musical instrument.

Closer to us in time, most of us will think of the lute as a direct ancestor to the guitar. This is indeed correct. Think of it as the “father” of the guitar. The lute, this instrument favored by troubadours of the dark ages and the renaissance, more closely resembles a modern bass than a guitar. Usually, it had four strings which would be plucked. One could not strum a lute.

The body of the lute was oval and the back was rounded, sort of like an Ovation guitar. The result of this was that the lute was not a loud instrument. Hence, it could not be played in any kind of band setting.

Now, to get from the lute to the guitar, many elements are missing. One of these is the treble strings. Another the pinched waist. Finally, the flat back of the instrument.

In comes the vihuela. Think of it as the “mother” of the guitar. This instrument was developed in Spain in the 15th century. The vihuela has a slightly pinched waist, a smaller body than the lute and treble strings, in pairs, called courses, which were made to be strummed.

It’s about a hundred years later, some time during the 16th century that someone (nobody will ever know who) had the idea of mixing the two instruments together. Making the body more like that of the vihuela, but sized closer to that of the lute. The neck was closer to that of the vihuela. Finally, both bass and treble strings were added to the instrument.

The first examples of this instrument are very crude. Some very beautiful models were made by violin maker Stradivarius. But the instrument was still far from being as complex as its modern counterpart.

It’s toward the end of the eighteenth century that we can start talking about the modern guitar. This was a time when the US were electing their first president, Britain was in the throes of the first industrial revolution and Napoleon seized power in France.

I’ve often heard how Art achieves its greatest moments when civilization is in the midst of conflict or pressure. Just look at the Rock and Roll revolution during the cold war. One could find many examples of this sort. I don’t know whether any studies have actually ever been done, but I’d certainly be interested in reading one.

At any rate, it’s at this moment that the modern guitar makes its first appearance. It’s unclear whether this was in France or in Italy. But here was an instrument very similar to the ones we see today, with six strings.

This is when the machine head was invented and so the old wooden peg box, used to hold the strings and tune them was discarded. It’s also at this time that guitar makers started carving the heads of guitars. Although they usually aren’t carved nowadays, makers still leave their mark on the headstock. A very old tradition.

In the late 18th century, José Pagés and Josef Benedid started adding fan-shaped struts inside the body of the guitar in order to amplify the sound. This method was picked up by other guitar makers, such as François Lacôte in Paris. It’s also at this point that the “floating arm technique” came about. Previously, one rested the little finger of the right hand on the sound board. This was a technique which had been handed down from lute players.

But the finishing touches, involving volume and tone, were added by Antonio de Torres Jurado. He increased the size of the body, increased the distance between the bridge and the nut and improved on the fan shape of the struts. The result being that finally a guitar could be played with an orchestra. Previously, the sound of the guitar would be completely buried by that of the other instruments. However, that still did not make it a popular instrument.

Well, popular with the masses, just not with the “serious” musical community. During the 1950’s, Julian Bream (only one of the greatest names related to the classical guitar) was threatened with expulsion from the music college for playing his guitar on the premises.

The first college level guitar course in the UK was given by John Williams (apart from his classical work, Williams has played for such people as Sky (the original Sky, not the pop outfit from a few years ago), Kate Bush, David Bowie, and many, many others). This course was given, for the first time, in 1965. Hence, and contrary to popular belief, not many of the older guitar heroes are classically trained.

The guitar, being such an easy instrument to learn (not play well, but at least learn a few basic chords and songs), became very popular within the masses. Especially in South America where it immediately became a hit. In Europe and North America, though, it was snobbed at. Even today, there are very few concertos written for the guitar, as it is still snobbed at by many people in the classical community.

The 20th century has seen most of the instrument’s improvements. First, the old cat gut strings were replaced by metal and nylon strings. Then, the classical (or Spanish) guitar was modified to make the acoustic guitar in an attempt to have an even louder sounding instrument.

Many attempts to electrify the instrument were made, primarily by Martin. Here came the invention of the pick-up.

The pick up is generally a coil of fine copper wire wound around a bar magnet. This generates a magnetic field. Once the strings move into this field, they generate pulses of electrical energy which are transmitted to the amp.

The first amps came out toward the end of the 1930’s. However, the main improvements were made by Leo Fender. The first electric guitars were hollow bodied models. Although these look fantastic and sound great, they are quite inconvenient on stage where the sound coming from the amps tend to make the instrument vibrate and thus create feedback. If you ever have a chance to see B.B. King live, notice that he stuffs the inside of Lucille with a towel to diminish the vibration.

Enter Les Paul. His first electric hard-body guitar was basically a log (it was even called “the log”) with a neck and two double-coil pick-ups set into it. He gave it its distinctive look in order to make it more attractive, then sold the idea to Gibson. And they still make it.

Leo Fender was another innovator in the milieu. Coming up with the Telecaster for country music, then later with the Stratocaster. Note that Leo Fender sold the company in 1965 as he was convinced he had little time to live. He sold the company to CBS for $13 million dollars. He came back during the seventies and left again as he didn’t agree with the quality of the work being done by the company. Eventually they were bought out by a Japanese company who created the Squire series with much less than impressive results.

Another innovation of Leo Fender is the bass. He invented this instrument for live bands. Because of the electric guitar, bass notes, played on a contrabass could not be heard live. Fender thought of creating a bass based on a guitar. The first model was the Fender Precision Bass.

Another strange guitar that was produced in the 1930’s is the Dobro. The first one was made in 1926 by National. This looks like an acoustic guitar, except that the body is made of aluminium. At the back of the front panel are resonator plates (hence, this type of guitar is also known as “resonator”). A Dobro doesn’t need to be plugged in to sound loud. The aluminium body produces a sound which is quite distinctive.

Since then, many experiments have been tried. Mainly in an attempt at getting more sustain or because of the scarcity of certain woods, various materials have been tried. Acrylic being one of them. Although it looks fantastic and does wonder to sustain, it can do weird things toward the tone of the instrument.

In an attempt to come up with a material that would be lighter, yet denser than wood, Steinberger invented graphite. Many professional guitarists swear by it.

Go visit guitar manufacturer’s websites, or just visit a guitar store and you’ll see strange things. Such as two solid wood plates, front and back, sandwiching a cork body. All in all, and by the looks of things, the instrument’s progression is far from over.

Like many guitarists, I was always confused as to what Pentatonic this and Pentatonic that meant. Guitar books varied in their interpretation of blues scales and Pentatonic, and still do. Most of us get through in the end by using our ears and not the grey stuff in between.

Improvisation of any kind, either sung or played, has always tended to be modal. That is to say, a few notes are selected from a scale and used at random or through repetition, to create a desired effect. This is especially so in western music where the diatonic scales we are used to, tend to be too weighted down with notes, (twelve if we consider the sharps and flats).

Simple, memorable tunes can be found by taking just a few of these notes. If you think of the start of Three Blind Mice, you’ll see what I mean. This tune comprises of a basic modal phrase using the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd elements of the scale, and soon becomes familiar when repeated a few times.

Take five

The pentatonic scale is a way of using this modal system and has become the most popular. So, what is a pentatonic scale? As the name suggests it is five of something, that is, five notes selected from the diatonic scale. The five notes are the 1st, 2nd, 3rd , 5th, and 6th. In the “Pentatonic To The Blues” course (available at http://www.acousticguitarworkshop.com), we see how these five notes have translated into the blues, as we work through the various examples, but at this point it is worth mentioning a few points in connection with the birth of the blues.

Simple folk songs that formed the basis of the many work songs and later the blues, had melodies derived from the pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scale is not unique to western musical tradition. Similar scales exist in parts of Africa, and it is fair to assume they would have arrived with the slaves well before the birth of the blues. These pentatonic notes were somehow stressed into what we call blue notes.

Because of the attitudes and indifference to the birth of the Afro-American culture, it was many years before anyone cared to study the development of the blues note.

Here are a few theories on how the blues note actually came about:

1. The blues note developed because slaves were too exhausted to sing the simple pentatonic phrases of the work songs in complete tune.
2. Certain notes changed due to cultural differences and natural development.
3. The blues note was just a minor or sad feel, and was bound to happen due to appalling conditions.
4. The African pentatonic scales, already consisted of these blues notes and they just became integrated into the work songs.

The last point is probably the most likely origin of the blue note. Musicologists have shown, that in certain African tribes, the pentatonic scale is used to sing simple work songs, but differing to the European pentatonic by the lowering of the 3rd and 5th notes of the scale. The sound would have been eerie when mixed with the work songs and hollers of the deep south. It was not necessarily associated with the emotion of the blues as we know it, and could mean happy as well as sad.

Whatever happened, the sound became embedded in the unique Afro-American culture, and along with the many other social and economic factors, gave birth to the blues.

This article is taken from a course entitled Pentatonic To The Blues, one of the in-depth acoustic guitar courses you get when you subscribe to The Acoustic Guitar Workshop. http://www.acousticguitarworkshop.com

About the author:

Rick Payne has also written Acoustic Slide Guitar – Technique and tips and History and Origin of the Slide Guitar in the Blues

Throughout the world musicians have created sounds by dragging objects across stringed instruments, for either effect or as an integral part of its sound. An example of this was discovered in W.Africa in the form of a musical bow. Still used today, this one stringed instrument was attached to a gourd resonator and held to the abdomen, while the player plucked the string and used a bone or metal to vary the pitch.

Investigators into the popular form of slide playing associated with the blues, determined that this was probably why a more contemporary version of the bow called the Jitterbug came to be used by the Negro musicians around the southern states of America at the turn of the century. With the influx of slaves, years before, came a rich culture of music, and although the slaves were bereft of possessions, a musical bow would be a simple instrument to make. The Jitterbug, like the bow, had one string, but this time simply attached to the floor or side of a shack. When plucked, an object would be dragged along the string to accompany simple songs. The sound, which could wail and moan like the human voice, became an ideal backing to the early blues and perhaps forerunner to the guitar’s role in the slide style.

But why the guitar?

In the early part of the 20th century, the guitar was becoming increasingly popular, as a cheaper alternative to the piano. Along with the banjo, it was more portable and could be ordered by catalog in the many rural backwaters. It is a safe bet to say, that knives, bones and glass, would have been used on the guitar as an extension to the Jitterbug. The guitar became more widely used with the slide, after a young Hawaiian guitarist called Joseph Kekeku made a recording using this style. It was a flashy, eerie kind of tune, that became popular in the U.S, and gave the already established Negro style more impetus.

The Hawaiian influence on slide playing cannot be overlooked. The speed at which the music spread into the American culture at the turn of the century was evident in the increased production of guitars and lap steels. All the main makers were turning them out: National, Rickenbacker and Gibson. In fact, the Hawaiian style lap steel, far out sold Spanish style guitars. Since the early Kekeku recordings, the use of the slide began to seep into all styles of music, from the early blues, right into the mountain Hillbilly music of early folk and country.

The Hawaiians have always laid claim to the invention of the slide guitar, but it is fairer to say, that it was a development rather than an invention. Anyway, the young J.K could easily have got the idea by listening to an American Negro sailor, whose ship had docked in Honolulu!

Whatever the worldly origins of the slide guitar, this form of playing is best known for it’s partnership with the blues. The slide playing of Robert Johnson, Son House, Blind Willie Johnson, to name a few, has reached almost classical status. It is a style that has captivated, amazed and baffled guitarists of all kinds, and to my mind has become the most enchanting.

About the author:

Rick Payne has also written Acoustic Slide Guitar – Technique and tips and Origins of the Pentatonic and Relevance to the Blues