Favorite Slide Guitar Songs

[EddyBlack]

Although…

If we take one of the key Chicago figures, Muddy Waters who was only four years younger than Johnson and lived in the Mississippi delta region:

The great Delta blues musicians-Charley Patton, Son House, Tommy Johnson and, especially in Waters' case, the brilliant, tortured Robert Johnson-sang with a naked force, majesty and total conviction that make their music timeless and universal in its power to touch and move us deeply.
Growing to manhood there, in the very heart of the region that had spawned this magnificent music, Waters was drawn early to its stark, telling, expressive power. He had been working as a farm laborer for several years when at thirteen he took up the harmonica, the instrument on which many blues performers first master the music's rudiments. Four years later he made the switch to guitar. "You see, I was digging Son House and Robert Johnson." The two were the undisputed masters of the region's characteristic "bottleneck" style of guitar accompaniment. With this technique the Delta bluesman could utilize the guitar as a perfect extension of his voice, the sliding bottleneck matching the dips, slurs, sliding notes and all the tonal ambiguity of the voice as it is used in singing the blues.

http://www.muddywaters.com/bio.html

 

[Weller]

Ry Cooder - the soundtrack to paris Texas was what first got me into slide - not a bad film either



Vigilante man...



And the Whistle Test live version of Freebird

Slim out of The Hamsters is in my opinion one of the best Slide Guitar players currently touring in the UK , unfortunately due to thier usually more profitible Hendrix cover nights its rare that his billiance is seen.

 

[Tank Girl]

Ry Cooder

that's beautiful

 

[chooch]

that's beautiful

Most of the soundtrack is different takes on his version of Blind Willie Johnson's Dark was the night, cold was the ground, which is the shit.

 

[Magic Sam]

The playing of a guitar with a slide originated somewhere in the Pacific and became popular with Hawaiian music at the start of the 20th century.
Having said that the playing of a single string with a slide (diddley bow) can be traced back to Africa from black slaves but the use with a guitar didn't seem to become popular until the Hawaiian guitar craze. (when it also started to appear in country music)

Sylvester Weaver was the first blues artist to record with a slide when he recorded guitar blues in 1923 (he was also the first guitar playing blues artist to be recorded).
He sounded like this From there the slide blues players sort of divided into 2 camps, those whose style stayed more faithful to the Hawaiian style such as Casey Bill Weldon , Oscar Woods and Tampa Red (although you could argue these are not exclusively blues artists) and the delta/ country blues artists such as Charley Patton, Son House and Robert Johnson.

The latter group was probably more influential on the electric blues era artists like Muddy Waters, Robert Nighthawk and Elmore James

Now that I've bored you all to death, one of my favourite slide songs is this
Furry Lewis- Pearlee blues

 

[Magic Sam]

On the subject of Elmore James and Robert Johnson, Johnson supposedly either gave or sold "dust my broom" to James, some even dispute that it was James and not Johnson who wrote it.

Johnson got alot of his slide licks from Kokomo Arnold who wrote "milk cow blues" and had a hit with Scrapper Blackwells' "old original Kokomo blues" which Johnson adapted into "Sweet Home Chicago".

Its all pretty incestuous and can get pretty confusing when trying to work out who influenced who.

 

[Sasaferrato]

I just don't see the appeal of Johnson - his stuff is rough as arseholes

Yep, and Clapton, who is a superb technician, had enormous problems replicating it.

 

[dilute micro]

Anything by George Harrison. When I was in the navy my best friend was from Nashville. His dad had played guitar on the Grand Old Opry for 20 some odd years. He told me in his dad's opinion George was the best slide guitar player he'd ever heard.

 

[loud 1]

Or



as well as crossroad blues.

fuk yeh.

 

[Superdupastupor]

son house= death letter ( and credit due to jack white for brining it to my attention)

another vote for Robert Johnson. The guy is spooky good./
although in the same breath covers of his songs ( often full band+horn section+backing vocalists) leave me punching holes in walls

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Love All me - Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

 

[Superape]

Robert Johnson stuff does sound rough & very basic. Until you see it tabbed out and try & emulate it. Like all good musicians, he makes the difficult seem very straightforward.

 

[twister]

The Cedars do a nice turn in slide guitar. As their myspace tagline says:
"Image is nothing; slide is everything."

http://www.myspace.com/theonlycedars

I'm getting a bit bored about going on about them, but they're top.

 

[rutabowa]

Robert Johnson stuff does sound rough & very basic. Until you see it tabbed out and try & emulate it. Like all good musicians, he makes the difficult seem very straightforward.

yeah although some of the tabs i've seen of his stuff notate every single fluff etc, so it's incredibly difficult to copy exactly, but not so bad if you forget about the exactness and just get the rhythm etc right

 

[rutabowa]

How do you know they heard him, and only him, and that his tunes were not very similar to what a number of musicians at the time were doing? And how do you not know he was in fact a reflection of what he was hearing around him, and it sold, as part of a trend for the rustic among nostalgic migrants to the north?

You're just asserting his primacy in some sort of cause and effect without any evidence. I'm saying he was one among many and was only elevated years later in a marketing myth-making exercise (based on the Wald book, which is a work of history, analysing the music people were listening to at the time using documentary sources and interviews).

– he didn't sell well
– he didn't sound like other contemporary records (which is all anyone has to go on)
– people say they were influenced by him, even if you just took the rolling stones his influence on them is documented
– yeah i agree he was just one of many amazing musicians at the time who has been elevated maybe out of proportion
– BUT me personally just subjectively listening to him i find him the most gripping and interesting of blues musicians (though there are loads of people who i also rate really highly) and i don't think it's just cos i've been infected by myth!

 

[Spion]

– people say they were influenced by him, even if you just took the rolling stones his influence on them is documented

That's the really interesting one. It reminds me of the anecdote that there are twice as many people claim to have seen the Pistols at the Free Trade Hall in 76 than could actually fit in the place.

People name check all sorts of people as influences. But the how that influence measures up to the influence of the artist at the time they worked are often two different things. By the early 60s the blues myth-making marketing machine was getting into full swing.

On the subject of influence RJ himself was supposed to have been influenced by the devil at the crossroads. I don't believe that one either

You can like what you like, of course.

 

[rutabowa]

On the subject of influence RJ himself was supposed to have been influenced by the devil at the crossroads. I don't believe that one either

and all those stories about how he died. yes i am sure yr right there has been a lot of myth making... i'm not sure if it was done in a calculated way by a "blues marketing board" tho!! more that it was just overenthusiasm from people discovering the music for the first time, and people naturally always love a good story anyway!

 

[Spion]

i'm not sure if it was done in a calculated way by a "blues marketing board" tho!!

No, of course not, but it was by record company marketing departments.

 

[rutabowa]

No, of course not, but it was by record company marketing departments.

i'm pretty sure the guys putting out blues reissues weren't big corporate record companies like you make it sound! more like enthusiasts, wanting to introduce the music to new people. it's not like there has ever been much money in reissues of old blues artists

 

[Spion]

i'm pretty sure the guys putting out blues reissues weren't big corporate record companies like you make it sound! more like enthusiasts, wanting to introduce the music to new people. it's not like there has ever been much money in reissues of old blues artists

well, to prove that either way we'd need to decide which artists we're talking about and when and then how much of a money spinner it was would be a matter of fact and revenues and sales figures wouldn't it?

What, for eg, about Chess records in the 50s with most of the major blues artists - now that was no two bit operation was it? Those two brothers must have been millionaires. In fact a quick Wiki says they sold the label for $6.5m in 1969. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Records

And then how did the older guys come to peoples' notice in the late 50s/early 60s - Big Bill broonzy, Son House etc - what labels were they on and who was making money from it?

 

[rutabowa]

but Chess wasn't a reissue label, it was a contemporary pop label! they were getting no.1 singles and stuff, not the same thing at all. i really think the old guys started being rediscovered through enthusiastic young guitarists going out and searching for them, that is what i have read anyway, people started collecting old blues records then thought "hang on these guys might actually still be alive" and they were. John Hammond and Alan Lomax, they weren't business people they were folk historians! i think Yazoo records is a more typical rerelease record label of the time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazoo_Records

 

[Spion]

but Chess wasn't a reissue label, it was a contemporary pop label! they were getting no.1 singles and stuff, not the same thing at all.

I would say that although they were successful artists, the likes of Sonny Boy, John Lee H, Howlin Wolf, Elmore James etc - all on Chess - were part of this process of influencing the 'enthusiastic young guitarists' you talk of (and a very well marketed influence, in fact - an important part (genre-ised by Billboard as 'Rhythm and Blues') and a stepping stone for listeners to the pre-war guys.

So, where did the older guys fit into all this? Cheers for the Yazoo ref, but a lot of those artists were wielding influence nearly 10 years before. The question is, how, and via what 'marketing' (in whatever form)?

 

[rutabowa]

the way i understand it (which might well be wrong) is that it was quiet a small network of dedicated (white) collectors of obscure old records that began the rediscovery of the old guys, they were generally guitarists themselves too, peple like stefan grossman.. whereas chess was always releasing modern music to a generally black audience.

hey this is interesting that i just found, John Hammond the record producer ( a white guy who played a big part in exposing black music to white audiences) organised his first showcase concert in 1938, and Robert Johnson was meant to play! but was murdered before the night, Big Bill Broonzy replaced him (who went on to be a big blues revival success, my dad saw him in coventry!). So it seems robert johnson was recognised as something special quite early on, i wasn't aware of this.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Hammond

 

[Spion]

hey this is interesting that i just found, John Hammond the record producer ( a white guy who played a big part in exposing black music to white audiences) organised his first showcase concert in 1938, and Robert Johnson was meant to play! but was murdered before the night, Big Bill Broonzy replaced him (who went on to be a big blues revival success, my dad saw him in coventry!). So it seems robert johnson was recognised as something special quite early on, i wasn't aware of this.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Hammond

I remember that from the Wald book - and he characterises it as the archtype of well-to-do white folks romanticising the rustic down-home black folks, with the latter happy to play up to that stereotype (while also actually being very keen to play any kind of music they could to make money)

Unfortch, someone's got my copy at the moment. I really recommend it as a good read that opens your eyes a bit about the mythologising of music (well, it did mine, anyway) I've also got this on order

 

[rutabowa]

i will have a look. (though i am not sure i want to much of the romance removed from the music so i might have to stop reading if that starts happening!)
i do agree the market for revival of older black music (of any kind) seems to be predominantly white (that is a horrible generalisation and i hate the term "black music" etc but i am using shorthand!)

 

[Magic Sam]

Yes, the majority of black musicians were happy to play up to the romantic sterotypes, make no mistake these were true professional musicians and would change their output depending on the audience. (most relied on music to live, not to make fortunes) They couldn't afford to do otherwise.

Just to clarify a few things about Robert Johnson, he never claimed to have sold his soul at a crossroads, the story is confused with another delta blues legend Tommy Johnson and the fact that Robert recorded "Crossroads Blues".

Tommy Johnson was a contemporary of Charley Patton and Son House and was tought guitar by his older brother. Within a couple of weeks Tommy was way better than his brother and was asked "how come you got good so quick?" to which Tommy told the tale (which is common in Afro-American folklore BTW) of taking his guitar to the crossroad at midnight and been met by a giant black figure who took his guitar, retuned it and when Tommy played it again he found he was proficient. (whether the figure is supposed to be the devil or something similar from African mythology is debatable)

Initially blues music was recorded with a black audience in mind, it was intended as a vehicle to sell gramophones to black folk (they wouldn't buy one if they didn't have anything to listen to).

Things changed with the advent of rock'n'roll and soul music, black kids started to see blues as something that wasn't cool (a generational thing more than a racial one IMO), the folk revivalist movement of the early 60's and endorsements of artists by popular young white acts saw a transition from a predimantly black audience to a largely white audience.(except for older generations of black folk)

 

[Spion]

Initially blues music was recorded with a black audience in mind, it was intended as a vehicle to sell gramophones to black folk (they wouldn't buy one if they didn't have anything to listen to).)

And most of the early recorded stuff, AFAIK, was by full sized bands (the 1st recorded being the Victor Military Band in 1916?) also often with female singers like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith.. It was pop music, all of which is far from the rustic image of the later male singers from Mississippi etc. There were also lots of white blues artists early on I believe.

 

[rosa]

No mention of Johnny Depp's slide guitar on Fade In/Out off Be Here Now by Oasis?

 

[EddyBlack]

A good bit of sliding here:



And how did I forget this gem:

 

[seeformiles]

"In my time of Dying" - Led Zep