Brian Jones & British Blues Slide

[Michael Messer]

Yesterday, forum member, Ezra, wrote me a PM asking this question...

I have been a lifelong fan of Brian Jones musical talents.
I wish things had turned out differently for him.
Somewhere I think that you posted that you had seen him with the Stones and Mick Taylor.
I have always enjoyed Brian on No Expectations.
It was not flashy , it just seemed well put together to me.
Nuanced.
I saw a video of Mick Taylor playing it at the 1969 Hyde Park concert.
His approach was different.
Not bad,just different.
I do not mean to intrude upon your time but just wanted to see what you might think.

My reply... was to post an article I wrote in 2012 that I think may have been posted on here before. Ezra messaged me this morning to ask if I would share our conversation on the forum.

Hi Ezra, I think we should have this discussion on the public forum, rather than as private messages. However, this might interest you...

This was published in fRoots Magazine a few years ago.

ʻWrite Me A Few Short Linesʼ - the story of Blues Slide Guitar in Britain by Michael Messer (copyright Michael Messer - January 2012)

For this article about blues slide ʻbottleneckʼ guitar, I am trying to uncover the story of blues slide guitar in Britain. The research I am currently doing on the history of British blues slide guitar is not yet complete, and so this article is a work in progress.....

It is very hard to trace the exact first moment that blues slide guitar was played by a British musician. There is a story that Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones was playing blues slide guitar in the late 1950s in Cheltenham, which if the theory that nobody played blues slide guitar in this country before the late 50s is true, puts him as one of the first, or ʻtheʼ first blues slide guitarist in Britain. The other contenders as the first people to be playing blues slide guitar in Britain, are Alexis Korner, Brian Knight, and possibly Jeff Beck. (At the time of writing this, I have no information about Jeff Beck, other than apparently he was playing slide in a band called the Tridents in 62/63).
Hawaiian steel guitar was very popular in Britain in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, but apart from Sam Mitchell, whose father, Sammy Mitchell, played Hawaiian guitar with Felix Mendelssohnʼs Hawaiian Serenaders, and Mike Cooper, who learnt some Hawaiian guitar from an American living in his hometown, Reading, I donʼt think there is much of a connection between British blues slide guitar and Hawaiian steel guitar. That is not the case in the USA, where Hawaiian steel guitar and blues slide guitar were very closely connected, as was discussed in depth in my first article of this series.

In this article I am going to focus on a handful of people who I believe were the British pioneers of playing blues slide guitar, but before I do that I am going to talk about three African-American blues slide players, Muddy Waters, Son House and Mississippi Fred McDowell, who visited these shores and influenced some of our most important musicians. Of these three, Muddy Waters was the first to play in Britain. He toured in 1958 with Chris Barberʼs Jazz Band and in the tour programme, which in those days featured a set list, songs played with electric slide guitar included: Honey Bee, Long Distance Call, I Canʼt Be Satisfied and Louisiana blues. This is a very important moment in the history of British blues and in the history of British blues slide guitar playing.

It is documented that two of the people I believe to be Britainʼs first blues slide guitarists, Alexis Korner and Brian Knight, saw Muddy Waters on that tour. They were certainly among the first wave of British blues musicians playing in the Muddy Waters style. While Alexis Korner did play a few slide licks using a ring (possibly his wedding ring) as a slide, it is not known exactly when he was first doing that. Many people seem to think it was early 60s, but Ron Gould (musician and authority on Skiffle in Britain) told me that he remembers seeing Alexis playing slide guitar at the Roundhouse in London in the ʻlatishʼ 1950s. Although Alexis Korner was not primarily known as a slide player, it is possible that he was the first person playing blues slide guitar in Britain. Alexis Korner was born in 1928, and is often referred to as the founding father of British blues. His legendary career has been documented extensively elsewhere. Alexis Korner died in 1984.

It is still not known which of the two Brians came first to blues slide guitar, Brian Knight or Brian Jones, but I do know that Brian Jones was playing slide guitar in London in 1962. Alexis Korner, Brian Jones and Brian Knight, are no longer with us and it is proving very difficult to research this particular area, which is so important to the story of British blues slide guitar.

Brian Knight was born in North London in 1940 and may well have been the first blues slide guitarist in Britain. In 1955 Brian Knight joined the merchant navy and spent two years in the USA. He returned to London in 1957 and played his first gig in that same year in Southall at the White Hart pub. Brian Knight was a friend of Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies, and in 1958 at their club, The Blues & Barrelhouse Club in London, Brian Knight saw Muddy Waters play. In the early 1960s Brian Knight met Brian Jones and they formed a band together with Ian Stewart on piano, Dick Taylor on bass, and Geoff Bradford on guitar. At that time Brian Jones, who was born in Cheltenham in 1942, favoured Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, and Brian Knight was a Muddy Waters disciple, and as often happens with musical differences....the band split up and the two musicians went their separate ways. Brian Jones formed the Rolling Stones with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and Brian Knight formed Blues By Six, with Charlie Watts on drums. Blues By Six were popular and had two London residencies, one at at the 100 Club and one at the Marquee, where they were often supported by the Rolling Stones. Even if Brian Knight wasnʼt the first, he is very important because he influenced some of our greatest guitarists. Among others, Ronnie Wood, Peter Green and Eric Clapton have all mentioned Brian Knight as an early influence. Brian Jones died in 1970, and Brian Knight died in 2001.

On the acoustic blues scene, all the early British players seem to stem from a blues slide guitar family tree which was started by Mississippi Fred McDowell, Son House and British musician, Tony McPhee. Fred McDowell first toured Britain in 1965, and Son House first toured here in 1967, and it was their slide playing, more than anyone elseʼs, that had such an impact on the British acoustic blues and folk musicians. Fred McDowell left an indelible impression on the people who played and spent time with him. He is still remembered by the British musicians who knew him, as a charming man and the greatest blues slide guitarist of all. Son House also left his mark on these shores and his slide guitar playing, his performance style, and his shiny National guitar, made an impression on British musicians that will last for generations. Mississippi Fred McDowell and Son Houseʼs intensity and deep old-style delta blues slide playing was so influential in Britain that it would take a whole chapter of a book to really investigate and talk about properly.

As far as I can tell at the time of writing this article, Tony McPhee was the first British musician specializing in the acoustic slide repertoire of people like Robert Johnson, Fred McDowell and Son House, and it is from Tony McPhee that two of our earliest and most influential acoustic blues slide players, Jo Ann Kelly and Dave Kelly, were introduced to playing blues slide guitar.

Tony McPhee was born in 1944, and inspired by seeing the Cyril Davies All-stars at the Marquee in London, started playing blues in the early 60s and formed his band, the Groundhogs in 1963. Tony learnt about open G tuning from working with John Lee Hooker in 1962 and figured out the slide part for himself. Tony first heard delta blues slide guitar in 1959 on the Alan Lomax record ʻBlues Roll Onʼ. The song he heard on that record was Missʼippi Fred McDowell singing ʻWrite Me A Few Short Linesʼ. It was not until he met John Lee Hooker that he understood about open tunings, which led to him learning to play slide. Tony McPhee is a major figure in the history of British blues slide guitar and although in 2009 he had a stroke, he is still playing regularly.

Dave Kelly was born in Streatham in 1947 and has consistently been at the forefront of the British & European blues scene since the mid 1960s. The first slide player that Dave recalls seeing was Brian Jones in London in 1962. Then in 1963 from reading the sleeve notes on The Freewheelinʻ Bob Dylan album, he tried to play slide guitar like Dylan did

with a lipstick tube, but according to Dave...ʼit didnʼt workʼ. Dave Kelly met Tony McPhee in 1963 and it was from Tony that Dave Kelly says he learnt to play blues slide guitar. Jo Ann and Dave Kelly were very influential among the early British acoustic blues players, and more than anyone else, Dave Kellyʼs name is mentioned as an early slide guitar influence on the acoustic blues scene of the time. Jo Ann Kelly died in 1990. Dave Kelly currently plays in the Blues Band, Paul Jones & Dave Kelly, Maggie Bell & Dave Kelly, and as a solo artist. For almost fifty years, Dave Kellyʼs superb acoustic and electric slide playing has influenced countless British and European blues guitarists.

Ian Anderson was born in 1947. He started playing blues guitar in his teens after hearing a Muddy Waters EP, and was inspired to play in public by seeing Spider John Koerner perform. In 1965, Ian saw Mississippi Fred McDowell play at the Colston Hall in Bristol, and with no assistance or knowledge of other players doing it, he went home, cut a piece off his brass curtain rail and stayed up all night trying to play delta blues slide guitar and work out open tunings. From 1965 into the late 70s, Ian Anderson was a prominent figure on the British and European acoustic blues and folk scene, and through his live performances and recordings, he has turned many people on to playing acoustic blues slide guitar. In 1979 Ian Anderson started the magazine, Southern Rag, which later became Folk Roots, and is now called fRoots. Ian Anderson is still playing blues slide guitar, but very rarely performs in public.

Mike Cooper was born in 1942, started playing guitar in 1958 and formed his first blues band in 1962. By 1965 Mike Cooper, as a solo artist, was becoming a well known name in the folk and blues clubs and from all accounts appears to have started playing blues slide guitar on his National Triplate in 1966/67. When I met Mike Cooper in 1983 I had been playing acoustic blues slide on National guitars for six years and our similar taste in guitars, blues, repertoire, and approach to playing slide guitar, led to us working together on various tours and projects through the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1984 I made my recording debut on the Mike Cooper and Ian Anderson album called ʻThe Continuous Preaching Bluesʼ, which was produced by Dave Peabody. Mike Cooperʼs blues slide playing is influenced by among others: Fred McDowell, Son House, Jo Ann Kelly and Dave Kelly. Mike Cooper is still performing, recording and playing slide guitar. He plays mostly lap steel in an avant-garde style, but still incorporates his knowledge of blues slide guitar into his music.

Sam Mitchell was born in Liverpool in 1950, his father, Sammy Mitchell, played Hawaiian guitar with Felix Mendelssohnʼs Hawaiian Serenaders, and at some point in his early teens, mostly inspired by hearing Robert Johnson records, Sam taught himself to play acoustic blues, ragtime, and blues slide guitar. He played around the Liverpool folk clubs for a while and then at seventeen years old moved to Brighton where he shared a flat with another great British blues musician and slide guitarist, Roger Hubbard. Roger recalls that when he met Sam in 1967 he was already a brilliant player with an amazing technique and knowledge of pre-war blues. Sam Mitchell moved to London in 68/69 and met up with Rod Stewart and Long John Baldry. There are various stories about Samʼs involvement with Rod Stewartʼs solo albums, Gasoline Alley and Every Picture Tells A Story; according to Roger Hubbard (a close friend of Samʼs at the time), Sam played the beautiful solo acoustic slide piece, Amazing Grace, on Every Picture Tells A Story, and that was his only contribution to those records. According to the Faces official website, Sam Mitchell played guitar on Gasoline Alley, and guitar and slide guitar on Every Picture Tells A Story. Sam Mitchell was an incredible musician and his blues slide guitar playing, through his involvement with Stefan Grossmanʼs Kicking Mule record label and guitar tuition books in the 1970s, has influenced countless students of slide guitar ever since. Sam Mitchell died in 2006.

Jeremy Spencer was born in 1948 and was the slide guitarist in the original Fleetwood Mac. His covers of Elmore James and his own songs written in the Elmore James style, that appeared on the first Fleetwood Mac album in 1968 are very important, and as well as turning the world on to Elmore James, Jeremyʼs electric slide playing influenced guitarists in Britain and all over the world. Jeremy Spencer taught himself to play slide guitar in the mid 60s. He had no knowledge of open tunings or what made the sliding sound, but with trial and error and a lot of dedication, he discovered open D tuning, got himself fixed up with a slide and worked out pretty much note for note most of Elmoreʼs repertoire. Jeremy Spencer is still playing slide guitar. Just type ʻJeremy Spencer - It Hurts Me Tooʼ into YouTube to see and hear Jeremyʼs wonderful tone and touch.
Another person I should mention in this history and continuing story of British blues slide guitar, is Seasick Steve. Steve is an American, but he has become very much a part of the British music scene, and through his appearances on British TV and at rock festivals, playing blues slide on diddley-bows, cigar box guitars, electric guitars, and a 1930s National Triolian, Seasick Steve has turned a whole new generation of teenagers on to blues slide guitar.

Slide guitar has played an important part in the story of British blues. I have to wind up by listing some British players who have contributed to the world of British blues slide guitar, that I have not been able to include in this article: Roger Hubbard, Graham Hine, Gordon Smith, Eric Clapton, Rory Gallagher, Martin Simpson, Chris Rea, Steve Phillips.....

I believe this is the first time anyone has attempted to document the history of blues slide guitar in Britain and I will be writing more on this subject over the next few months. I have tried to get the facts correct and put the story into some kind of chronological order, but it will take a lot of research to get all the dates correct and get everything in place. It is as I said in the opening paragraph - a work in progress, and if anybody reading this can provide any information about those early days of British blues slide guitar playing, or has any other information that would help me with this research, I would be very interested to hear from you.
Michael Messer

There you go, Ezra.... all done.

Shine On
Michael.

[Stevie]

What a great way to wake up! I think I've read it before but it's no less diminished for all that. Thanks MM.

e&oe...

[Michael Messer]

More!

SLIDE GUITAR ARTICLE (PART 1)

The History of Blues Slide Guitar - Part 1 - by Michael Messer

The story of slide guitar has been told many times, but because of partisan opinions and the fact that so much gets lost in the mists of time, there is some confusion about where it came from and how it became part of the African-American blues musicians repertoire in the early part of the 20th century.

I have been playing and studying the subject of slide guitar for nearly four decades and my journey of discovery has taken me from blues and rock into country, folk, western swing, bluegrass, Hawaiian, African, Indian, celtic and a few other places on the way.

I am not saying that I know all the answers about its history, but I have formed some opinions and made some interesting discoveries along the way. For this series of articles I will focus on slide guitar in the blues. This first article is about the early pre-war players.

There is a whole school of thought that talks about the roots of blues slide guitar coming from various one string African diddley bow type instruments that arrived in America with the slaves. These instruments (sometimes called a Jitterbug) are usually crude homemade one string childrenʼs instruments made by fixing bailing wire between two screws on a board, or against the side of a shack for resonance. They were played by plucking the wire with one hand and sliding a bottle, a piece of metal or a bone up and down the string to change the pitch.

While there is unquestionable evidence that the roots of the blues are in African music, there is very little evidence, apart from stories told by explorers who went to West Africa, to support the theory that slide guitar comes from Africa. The diddley bow is a much smaller part of the story than it has been credited for. Sliding an object up and down a string to change its pitch may have come into America from both Africa and Hawaii, but I believe the Hawaiian influence to be the most important.

There is however, a lot of evidence that supports the theory that slide guitar came into American culture from India via the Hawaiian Islands. In India there is evidence of polished stone slides being used on open tuned stringed instruments played lap-style like Hawaiian steel guitar, dating back thousands of years. There is a story that in the 1890s an Indian musician, Davion, who played slide on a Gottuvadyam (Indian lap steel instrument) travelled to Hawaii to perform for the royal family, but due to a storm at sea, the ship he was travelling on was damaged and his instrument was destroyed, so he borrowed a guitar to do his concerts. There are other theories about how slide guitar may have started in Hawaii, but this to me is the most logical and believable. Indian musicians were using open tunings on their traditional instruments and in Hawaii, Mexican cowboys working the cattle farms played guitars in open Spanish tuning. All these elements were brought together in the latter part of the 19th century by the first Hawaiian guitarists and to cut a long story short, Hawaiian Steel Guitar was born. (The term ʻSteelʼ does not refer to the body of the guitar, but is the name of the tool used to play the instrument).

It is true that many of the early blues slide players learnt their first tunes on one string diddley bows, but whether that instrument actually does have its roots in Africa is not really known. The first written evidence of anybody hearing blues slide guitar is from the great composer, W.C. Handy, who in 1903, while waiting for a train at Tutwiler railroad station in Mississippi, first heard an African-American musician “playing guitar with a knife as popularized by Hawaiian musicians”. Handy had spent a lot of time in Mississippi studying the music and the culture and he referred to this style as being of Hawaiian origin, not of African origin.

During the first part of the 20th century, Hawaiian steel guitar became very popular in mainland USA and the style of playing was picked up by both African-American and European-American musicians. European-American musicians mostly played it in the Spanish tuning Hawaiian-style on their lap and keeping very close to the Hawaiian sound, adapted it to fit into Country, Folk and Pop music. African-American musicians, also in the early days played mostly lap-style like the Hawaiians, but more often in the sebastopol tuning and used it to accompany their songs as a solo instrument that was capable of echoing the melody of the vocal on the top string while holding a rhythm on the bottom strings.

By the time we hear the first recordings of blues slide guitar in the early 1920s, it has already started to become more sophisticated than just a simple one string-style accompaniment instrument. I believe this sophistication comes from hearing Hawaiian steel players and not from a primitive one string diddley bow.

The first recording by an African-American of blues slide guitar was made in New York City in 1923 by a musician from Louisville, Kentucky, named Sylvester Weaver. Weaver was in New York recording with singer, Sara Martin, and while he was there he did a solo session and recorded two instrumental masterpieces, ʻGuitar Bluesʼ and ʻGuitar Ragʼ. ʻGuitar Bluesʼ is a classic blues played Hawaiian lap-style in sebastopol tuning and uses all six strings to play the melody. Based on a piano rag, ʻGuitar Ragʼ is played Hawaiian lap-style using four chords and the slide on all six strings. These recordings are far from being primitive and draw more from Hawaiian steel playing than from a one string diddley bow. Weaver recorded the tune again in 1927 and it was this recording that was ʻborrowedʼ and slightly renamed by Leon McAuliffe of Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys and became an enormous hit. ʻSteel Guitar Ragʼ is one of the staples of the Western Swing and pedal steel guitar repertoire.

The story of blues slide guitar really gets going with two people who recorded in the 1920s; Charley Patton from Mississippi and Blind Willie Johnson from Texas. Both musicians in my opinion, apart from some occasional and very important exceptions which I will talk about later, form the basis of everything that was to follow. Patton played in both sebastopol and Spanish tunings and from my research I believe he played slide in both regular guitar position and Hawaiian lap-style. His Spanish tuning songs draw a lot in their approach to playing licks and melodies from Hawaiian steel guitar, whereas many of his sebastopol tunes are played in a style closer to the one string diddley bow approach. However, in one of Pattonʼs tunes, ʻSpoonfulʼ, he plays in sebastopol, a ragtime progression with more of a Hawaiian approach that is very similar to Weaverʼs ʻGuitar Ragʼ. There is no proof, but I believe Patton may have heard Weaverʼs recordings. Pattonʼs repertoire of slide guitar tunes is one of the most important and influential in the history of the instrument. Charley Patton influenced Son House and Robert Johnson, who in turn influenced Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton and countless blues and rock musicians.

Blind Willie Johnson played slide guitar held in the regular guitar position in the sebastopol tuning to accompany his repertoire of Spiritual songs. Whether he played with a knife or a bottleneck is not known, but he had incredible accuracy, tonal control and vibrato when playing melodies with the slide. Most unusual in Western players, especially back in the 20s (apart from his friend, Blind Willie McTell), was his use of quarter-tones in his melodies and slide runs. His playing probably draws more from the one string diddley bow approach than it does from Hawaiian steel. Blind Willie Johnson recorded 15 or so slide guitar Spirituals that have become the definitive textbook or bible for playing slide in sebastopol tuning. Blind Willie Johnson and Charley Patton played their sebastopol tuning songs in a very similar style to each other. As Johnson first recorded in in 1927, it is possible that he influenced Patton who was first recorded playing in this style in 1929. Like Patton, Blind Willie Johnson has influenced so many players that it would be impossible to list them all, but some names include Blind Willie McTell, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Kokomo Arnold, Ry Cooder and Chris Rea. Blind Willie Johnsonʼs most important contribution to 20th century history is that his recording of the baptist hymn, ʻDark was the Night, Cold was the Groundʼ was included as ʻan example of human achievements in artʼ on the Voyager spacecraft interstellar mission in 1977. Ry Cooder, who based his soundtrack to the movie, Paris, Texas on "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground", described it as "the most soulful, transcendent piece in all American music."

The most famous of the early blues slide players and although not an originator like Charley Patton, Son House & Willie Johnson, is the most influential blues musician of all time, Robert Johnson. Johnson was a master musician and he had a tone and touch with a slide that has never been equalled. He played slide in both Spanish and sebastopol tunings and he was influenced by music from all over the southern states and not just from his locality, as with earlier musicians. Johnsonʼs slide guitar songs were based on works by Charley Patton, Hambone Willie Newbern, Son House and Kokomo Arnold. Contrary to popular opinion, I think that Johnsonʼs ʻPreaching Bluesʼ draws more as a slide guitar tour- de-force from Kokomo Arnold than it does from Son House. This does make sense as we know that Johnson based two of his songs ʻSweet Home Chicagoʼ and ʻMilkcow Calfʼs Bluesʼ on Arnoldʼs work. Robert Johnsonʼs repertoire of slide guitar recordings are definitive and form a large part of the well that every slide player since then has drawn influences from. While the slide playing on ʻPreaching Bluesʼ in sebastopol tuning has a distinct diddley bow approach, all but two of Johnsonʼs slide guitar blues songs draw more from the Hawaiian style in Spanish tuning than from the diddley bow.

It is impossible in these articles I am writing to include and talk about every important blues slide player, so at this point I will briefly mention four important early players...

Son House, from Mississippi, was born in 1902 and he played slide guitar in a similar style to his friends, Charley Patton and Robert Johnson. Son House cut some definitive blues records in two early sessions; one in 1930 for Paramount and one in 1942 for the Library of Congress. In these recordings, the young Son House was easily the equal of his friends, Patton & Johnson. Son House was Muddy Watersʼ biggest influence, but it is mostly for his 1960s recordings that I will talk about in the next part of this series, that Son House is so well known and respected.

Kokomo Arnold, from Georgia, made his first recordings in Memphis in 1930 and later in the 30s became an important musician on the Chicago blues scene. Arnold played in both Spanish and sebastopol tunings and played hard-edged juke joint blues on slide guitar with incredible technical wizardry, accuracy and speed. Arnold was interviewed a few times in the 1960s, but sadly he never talked about his guitar playing techniques, so we have no idea about how this incredible slide guitarist, one of the greatest slide players ever, actually played. We donʼt know if he played regular or Hawaiian lap-style with a bottle or a knife and as a left-handed guitarist, whether he restrung, or played upside-down guitars. Of all the masters of the blues slide guitar, Kokomo Arnoldʼs style is without question the most difficult to approach and ironically, is the one that we have the least knowledge about.

Blind Willie McTell from Georgia, played 6 and 12 string guitars and recorded some incredible slide guitar blues and spirituals. He played in the regular bottleneck style in Spanish and sebastopol tunings and his repertoire of slide guitar tunes contains some of the most beautiful slide guitar blues and spirituals ever recorded. Although McTellʼs melodies and some of his songs played in sebastopol tuning draw from the Blind Willie Johnson approach, I believe there is much more of a Hawaiian steel guitar influence in his playing and for me that is evident in the sweetness of his tone and in his use of Spanish tuning.

Hambone Willie Newbern from Tennessee, was born in 1899 and his contribution to the history of slide guitar cannot be underestimated. In 1929, Newbern recorded a song that he called ʻRoll & Tumble Bluesʼ. This recording is so important because even more than Pattonʼs Spanish-tuned slide guitar repertoire, it forms the basis of two of Robert Johnsonʼs recordings and was where Muddy Watersʼ ʻRolling & Tumblingʼ was drawn from.

Muddy Waters was born in Mississippi in 1913 and learned most of his acoustic slide guitar chops from local musicians, Son House, Robert Johnson and Charley Patton. Muddy Waters was first recorded by Alan Lomax on Stovallʼs Plantation in 1941. On that first session Muddy recorded ʻI Beʼs Troubledʼ and ʻCountry Bluesʼ in Spanish tuning. A few months later in 1942 Lomax returned to record Muddy again, this time he recorded a duet with Charles Berry on second slide guitar. The duet of two slide guitars in Spanish tuning, (one National guitar and one acoustic) on ʻI Be Bound To Write To Youʼ, is unique and beautiful in the way the two slide guitars respond to each other. Also on that session he recorded three songs in sebastopol tuning - ʻYou Got To Take Sick & Die Some of These Daysʼ, ʻWhy Donʼt You Live So God Can Use Youʼ and ʻYou Gonna Miss Me When Iʼm Gone”, the last of which contains elements in the playing that Muddy brought to the fore in stinging guitar solos on his electric Chicago recordings. Muddy Waters is most famous for his Chicago recordings on electric guitar with Aristocrat & Chess, but there is no question that his mastery of acoustic Mississippi delta blues slide guitar was equal to that of his peers.

This is not the story of Muddy Waters, so I will leave him for the time being and talk about Chicago in the 1930s, which in terms of slide guitar, was a hive of activity. As well as the blues players, there were a handful of slide players in Chicago in the 30s that I believe may have had more of an influence on the music of Chicago than they are credited for. Historians credit Tampa Red and Kokomo Arnold as being the most important slide players in Chicago in the late 20s and 30s and that they were the major influences on the music of the great Elmore James and electric Chicago blues, but I believe there is more to this period in Chicago slide guitar than blues historians might be aware of. As well as Tampa Red and Kokomo Arnold, who were both masters of slide guitar and who of course did leave their mark on Elmore James and Chicago blues as a whole, there was a slide guitarist whose mastery of the instrument and whose influence on electric Chicago blues is underestimated. The musician I am talking about is the African-American blues musician, Casey Bill Weldon, who moved from Arkansas to Chicago sometime in the 20s and at one time was married to Memphis Minnie. Weldon played slide guitar Hawaiian-style on National guitars and was billed as the ʻHawaiian Guitar Wizardʼ. He played mostly in Spanish tuning and his playing style is heavily influenced by Hawaiian steel guitar. He led a big band (that sometimes included Tampa Red on rhythm guitar) and approached his hard-edged house-rocking blues in away that no other player, as far as I know, had done before. The slide guitar weaves around the voice and the band hold down heavy dance grooves, creating an energy that is possibly more rock & roll than it is blues. Weldonʼs slide guitar licks and the way that he places them around the voice are the nearest thing I can find to Elmore James. James is more delta-sounding than Weldon and did adapt and cover some of Tampa Red, Robert Johnson and Kokomo Arnoldʼs songs, but the Weldon licks and the phrasing are there.

Hawaiian steel guitar was very fashionable in the 1930s and one of Chicagoʼs most notorious figures, Al Capone, was a big fan. Capone hired Hawaiian bands to play in his clubs and at private parties - and even to play behind a curtain in his boudoir while he wooed the dames! One of the musicians he brought to Chicago to work for him was the Brazilian Hawaiian steel guitarist, Ralph Kolsiana, who became a well known musician on the Chicago scene during the 30s. Another steel guitarist Capone hired to play in some of his clubs was the legendary Dobro player, Bashful Brother Oswald, who at the time was an unknown jobbing Hawaiian guitarist. Also in Chicago in the 30s, broadcasting a radio show every week were the incredible Hawaiian steel guitar duo, Jim & Bob. Bob Pauole was one of the greatest Hawaiian steel guitarists ever, he played a National guitar and along with his musical partner Jim Holstein, recorded some of the most beautiful and sometimes very bluesy guitar duets of all time. I believe it is quite possible that Casey Bill Weldon was influenced directly by these Chicago-based Hawaiian players, from hearing them on the radio and maybe seeing them play in clubs. We will never know, but it could answer the question about Casey Bill Weldon, why he played in the Hawaiian style and how he learnt it. I believe there was a lot of cross-pollination happening and that all these musicians playing slide guitar in various styles, influenced each other.

FOOTNOTE: The names of the tunings - Spanish, is any tuning with the same intervals as open G tuning, DGDGBD. Sebastopol (sometimes written as Vastopol & Vesterpol), is any tuning with the same intervals as open D tuning, DADF#AD. These names became popular because in 1860 the composer, Henry Worrall, published two guitar instrumentals, the first was called ʻSpanish Fandangoʼ and was to be played in open G tuning and the second ʻSebastopolʼ was to be played in open D tuning. The sheet music for these instrumentals was so popular that it found its way into almost every guitar case in the land. As time went by people started referring to the tunings, not as open G & D type tunings, but as Spanish & Sebastopol.

[Michael Messer]

Part one & a half! (This has already been on the forum, but it fits this thread perfectly...

I have been aware of Bo Weavil Jackson for many decades, but I have to say that until a member of my online forum, Frank, asked me about his playing, I had not really taken it in.

I spent a few days listening to his recordings and doing what I call 'decoding' them. He is a fascinating musician, especially considering we are talking 1926. I believe he is an important influence on what was to follow a year or two later, and indirectly, that influence is still alive today.

It took me a while to get into some of his music, especially the lap steel spirituals. However, once I did, just like any acquired taste, I now really love his style and am fascinated by his technique.

Of the handful of recordings he made, his music falls into what I see as four categories:

There are the non-slide fingerpicked blues tunes - Pistol Blues, Some Scream High Yellow, Why Do You Moan, Devil & My Brown, and, You Can't Keep No Brown (Vocalion). These appear to played in open Spanish tuning and regular tuning. The most interesting of these to me are Devil & My Brown Blues and You Can't Keep No Brown (Vocalion), as BWJ's playing is excellent on both of these recordings. Devil & My Brown Blues, in Spanish tuning is really wonderful, as is Some Scream High Yellow. The latter contains some classic blues and rock'n'roll lyrics that predate anything I have heard.

Then there is category two which consists of only one recording that I know of; I'm On My Way To The Kingdom Land. This is played in regular tuning and is an average 1920s rural recording of a religious / spiritual song.

Category three has three recordings of spirituals; When The Saints Go Marching In, Christians Fight On Your Time Ain't Long, and, Heaven Is My View. All three are played Hawaiian-style as lap steel guitar pieces. His lap steel playing is very unusual on these recordings. He plays them in D tuning in the key of G with a very strange approach to playing the melody that creates an unusual sound.

Now we come to category four which consists of four recordings; You Can't Keep No Brown, Poor Boy Blues, and two takes of Jefferson County Blues. This where my comment about BWJ being something of an enigma comes around, because although all four songs are based around a similar-ish blues theme, his playing and creativity within this area of his music, is for a recording artist recording in 1926, quite extraordinary. These four songs, two played in open Spanish tuning (You Can't Keep No Brown, Poor Boy Blues) and two in Vastapol tuning (Jefferson County Blues takes 1 & 2), as bottleneck slide pieces with the guitar held in regular position, are played with amazing control, precision, virtuosity and inventiveness, and represent pre-war country blues at its very best.

This is very early for someone to be playing bottleneck blues in both Spanish and Vastapol tunings with such skill and virtuosity, and for me it throws a bit of a curveball into the history of blues slide guitar. We have no idea what happened in the early part of the 20th century because there are no recordings of blues slide guitar until Sylvester Weaver recorded in 1923, and Bo Weavil Jackson in 1926. Both are very different musicians, Weaver has a sweet tone and Jackson has the speed and dexterity, and until this recent study of his music, I had not considered the importance of Bo Weavil Jackson in the history of blues slide guitar.

I have worked out his bottleneck playing style and this is no rural musician singing a few spirituals with an out of tune guitar, this is high class very skilled slide and lap steel playing. Don't forget that we are talking about 1926, and as a blues slide player, apart from Sylvester Weaver, Bo Weavil Jackson predates everyone.

I have never read anything about Bo Weavil Jackson's guitar playing and would be interested to know if anyone else has done some research into this very early and interesting slide player.

I have more to add to these ramblings about Bo Weavil Jackson, mostly about the musicians that I believe he may have influenced……..stay tuned…..

Shine On
Michael

[Michael Messer]

THE HISTORY OF BLUES SLIDE GUITAR - PART TWO (POST-WAR) by Michael Messer - Written in 2012 and so far has not been published or properly proof-read. I would call it a draft.

To most blues and rock slide guitar fans, the post-war period (1945 onwards) is the most important as it not only documents the development of blues slide guitar, but it includes the dawn of electric blues and more importantly the most influential style of this music, the Chicago blues. The history of post-war blues slide guitar also takes us to Britain in the 1960s which I will talk about, but as the third part of my article is about the history of blues slide guitar in Britain, I will only mention the British artists whose influences went worldwide.

As in my first article about pre-war blues slide guitar where I cited Blind Willie Johnson and Charley Patton as the root of almost everything that was to follow, in this article I will approach it in the same way and that brings me to the two most important and influential post-war American Blues slide guitarists, Muddy Waters and Elmore James. These two musicians created a sound and played slide guitar in a way that although it had its roots in rural Mississippi Blues, was totally new, and via two British bands - the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac, who exported that sound back to America and out to the rest of the world, Chicago blues slide guitar is the root of all things post-war blues slide guitar related.

Exactly where and When Muddy Waters first plugged a guitar into an amplifier is not really known, but what is known is that in 1948 he cut two songs for the Aristocrat label that were essentially the first electric blues slide guitar recordings; ‘I Can’t Be Satisfied’ and ‘I Feel Like Going Home’. Both songs were reworks of acoustic solo delta blues material that Muddy had recorded a few years earlier for Alan Lomax. With a Gretsch archtop guitar fitted with a DeArmond pickup in ‘Spanish’ (open G tuning), accompanied by Ernest ‘Big’ Crawford on double bass and with the Chess brothers in the control room, Muddy Waters recorded his guitar in a way that at the time was unique with its slightly overdriven edgy tone that Muddy had developed while playing in the clubs in Chicago as a way to cut through the noise of a crowded barroom. ‘I Can’t Be Satisfied’ was released as the ‘A’ side and within hours of it going on the shelves in the stores it became a hit record in Chicago. Muddy was essentially playing a reworking of his song ‘I Be’s Troubled’, but in those intervening years from when he recorded it for Lomax, the structure had simplified into a straight twelve bar blues and the licks played through a slightly overdriven amplifier had so much power and cut that it changed the way electric guitars would be recorded forever. The ‘B’ side of that record, ‘I Feel Like Going Home’ is also a rework of Muddy’s earlier acoustic work in Spanish tuning, but once again with the overdriven electric sound it gave the guitar so much more power. The sound of this track with Muddy’s stinging guitar solo became a trademark sound and was the first of many recordings that he made in this style for the Chess brothers in the late 40s early 50s; ‘Mean Red Spider’, ‘Streamline Woman’, ‘Little Geneva’, ‘Rollin’ and Tumblin’, ‘Walking Blues’, ‘Louisiana Blues’, and ‘Honey Bee’ are some the great electric slide guitar blues that Muddy Waters recorded in this period. Muddy Waters continued playing electric slide guitar all through his life and there is no doubt whatsoever that through his lifetime he made some of the greatest blues records of all time, but I believe it is these early recordings of him playing electric slide that are so important and definitive. Muddy Waters influenced everyone in Chicago and his influence on the whole world as a blues slide guitar player is just enormous. The Rolling Stones were serious Muddy Waters disciples and it is through their music and especially Brian Jones’ slide guitar playing, that the new Rock audience were turned on to the music and slide guitar of Muddy Waters.

Elmore James was born in Mississippi in 1918 and only lived for forty five years. He died in Chicago in 1963 and is possibly the most influential of all post-war blues slide guitarists. Elmore was influenced by the pre-war players; Robert Johnson, Tampa Red, Kokomo Arnold, and I believe....although it has never been documented, by Casey Bill Weldon and Muddy Waters. Although famed as being a Chicago blues artist, Elmore actually cut many of his records for labels based elsewhere. An important part of Elmore’s story begins with him working in an electrical store in Canton Mississippi and using electrical parts from the store to enhance his sound, such as fitting DeArmond pickups to an acoustic guitar and according to Louisiana Red, using a hollowed out glass amplifier valve (tube) as a slide. Elmore James, backed by a full band that in many ways reminds me of soul bands, made a string of incredible blues slide guitar records that arguably more than anyone else’s work defines the sound and mood of electric blues slide guitar. His signature song ‘Dust My Broom’ is without question the most famous slide guitar riff of all and probably one of the most famous guitar riffs from any genre of all time. Tuned in ‘Vasterpol’ (open D tuning) and with amp turned up loud to get overdrive, Elmore played this and most of his slide repertoire up around the 12th fret where he mastered the art of picking out blues scale melodies all from a few frets around the 12th. The melodies were not new, but the idea of picking the whole melody from around the 12th fret in Vasterpol tuning, rather than using the whole length of the strings to find melodies as Kokomo Arnold and Tampa Red did in that tuning, Elmore’s simplified and most effective approach was not only infectious to listen to, but it was also quite easy (unlike Muddy Waters and earlier slide players) to imitate. Elmore’s slide guitar sound on such recordings as ‘Dust My Broom’, ‘It Hurts Me Too’, ‘The Sky Is Crying’, ‘I’m Worried’, ‘Done Somebody Wrong’, ‘Fine Little Mama’, ‘Shake Your Moneymaker’, ‘Something Inside Me’ and many others are among the most important recordings in the history of slide guitar as they influenced among others, Duane Allman (Allman Brothers Band) and Jeremy Spencer (Fleetwood Mac), who in turn took Elmore’s sound and introduced it to a new audience. Although Duane’s sound and approach was influenced by Elmore James, it was on the first Fleetwood Mac album that Jeremy Spencer with his incredible covers of Elmore’s songs and his superb imitations of Elmore’s guitar style that really took Elmore James’ music to the new rock audience. I will talk more about Jeremy Spencer is part three of this series of articles, but his importance in the history of blues slide guitar and turning the world on to Elmore James cannot be under-estimated.

The post-war period of blues slide guitar is actually more difficult to write about than the pre-war, because apart from the introduction of electric slide, there has been less innovation in this period than the the earlier one. There have of course been many incredible blues slide guitar players and this point I will name some of them...in no particular order; Robert Nighthawk, Earl Hooker, Louisiana Red, Hound Dog Taylor, Duane Allman, Rory Gallagher, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Clapton, Jeremy Spencer, Roy Rogers, Derek Trucks, Al Wilson, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Johnny Winter, Lowell George, Bob Brozman, John Hammond, Jack White and Ry Cooder. I could single out any one of those musicians and enthuse about their playing, but for this article I want to talk about Ry Cooder, who in the 1960s played with Taj Mahal and Captain Beefheart, did sessions for the Rolling Stones and later in the 70s with Little Feat playing slide guitar on their classic ‘Willin’. Cooder has played slide guitar on many great recordings, but it is his contribution to blues slide guitar that I am focusing on and with that in mind, the most influential and possibly most important piece of slide guitar that Ry Cooder has recorded is his soundtrack to the ‘Paris Texas’ movie. Based on Blind Willie Johnson’s ‘Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground’, the ‘Paris Texas’ theme recorded in 1984 and played in Vasterpol (open D tuning) is pure acoustic blues spiritual slide guitar and its influence on the world of blues slide guitar cannot be under-estimated. I remember that in the mid 1980s there wasn’t a slide guitarist on the planet that didn’t have a version of this piece in their repertoire. It also inspired countless guitarists to pick up a slide and try to play in that style. The Ry Cooder ‘Paris Texas’ soundtrack is one of ‘the’ moments in post-war blues slide guitar.

This article is limited in the fact that I cannot write about everyone and some of the names listed above are so well known that their influence on post war blues slide players is well documented, so another name that I will pull out from that list is Bob Brozman. Although not a mainstream artist, or by any means a pure blues player, his name is now tarnished forever, but his influence at grass-roots level on acoustic blues slide guitar playing throughout the world was enormous. I remember when he first started to get known in the 1980s, that almost every acoustic slide player was affected and influenced from hearing his records and seeing him perform live. What he was playing was not new, but it was the first time for so many blues slide players that they had seen anyone close up playing with such mastery, control and technical wizardry. Brozman did play slide in Vasterpol (open D tuning), but most of his slide playing was in Spanish (open G tuning), and it was his covers of classic blues by Robert Johnson and Charley Patton that impressed and influenced so many blues slide guitarists.

Although primarily known as an electric guitar gunslinger and for his wonderful production work with Muddy Waters, I believe that via his occasional and incredible acoustic blues recordings, Johnny Winter has also been a major influence on post-war acoustic blues slide guitar, far more so than he and many blues historians realize. Along with Son House, Johnny Winter was certainly one the key figures who turned me and many others on to playing acoustic blues slide on a National guitar.

Johnny Winter’s liquid style, weaving his way through songs such as ‘Broke Down Engine’, ‘TV Mama’ and ‘Bladie Mae’, are just about as good as it can get, and not only did Johnny, a mainstream artist, turn thousands of people on to acoustic blues slide guitar, but he also turned as many people on to playing acoustic blues slide on National guitars. However, it goes one step further than that, because as well as his own solo recordings, he also recorded two acoustic songs in which he plays slide guitar with Muddy Waters on two of Muddy’s most famous songs, ‘I Can’t Be Satisfied‘ and ‘I Feel Like Going Home’. Johnny’s slide guitar playing in Spanish tuning on these two cuts is extraordinarily good and in my opinion these are two of the greatest acoustic blues recordings ever. Johnny’s playing on these two cuts is superb and although the playing is based on Muddy’s originals, they are in no way copies or regurgitated versions of Muddy’s guitar playing. Johnny brings new life to this well trodden path and he does it so well. I have no doubts that Johnny Winter is one of the major figures in the history of post-war acoustic blues slide guitar.

I will now focus on one of the older acoustic blues musicians who is so important for his post-war contributions to the world of blues slide guitar, Son House. I am not going to talk about Son House’s life and his classic pre-war recordings, as that is not the subject of this article. I am just going to focus on his 1965 sessions recorded by John Hammond Senior, which for so many people have got to be among the most important post-war acoustic blues recordings. Playing a 1930s National guitar in Spanish and Vasterpol tunings and singing with an intensity that is rarely heard on studio recordings, in 1965 Son House redefined the art of playing delta blues and in the 46 years since its release, via these recordings Son House has turned tens of thousands of musicians on to the idea of playing blues on National guitars. Possibly the most amazing part of the whole story of the rediscovery of Son House is that after so many years of not playing music, he was unsure if he would be able to sing again and he was even more concerned that he could no longer play the guitar, or remember how he played his repertoire of songs. This is where the guitarist best known for being a member of Canned Heat made his most important contribution to the history of post-war blues and blues slide guitar, because it was Al Wilson who re-taught Son House how to play Son House!

The most famous and influential slide guitar recording from these sessions has got to be ‘Death Letter’. Played in Spanish tuning in a style so old and primitive with a copper slide scratching out the notes and Son’s preacher-like intense vocals about losing a loved one and battling between good and evil, that the listener is not only transported back to Mississippi in the early part of the twentieth century, but is also touch and moved in a way that very few recordings can do. This intensity and power is so infectious that it has caused numerous musicians all over the world, including myself, to pick up a National guitar and play Mississippi delta blues.

This brings me to end of this article and leads me into the next and last chapter in my little potted history of blues slide guitar, which because of where we are and who we are, is going to be the history of blues slide guitar in Britain.

Michael Messer

[Michael Messer]

PHEW....well that's got that lot of slidey gibberish off my chest!

Shine On
Michael

[Deleted]

Great stuff.
"Death Letter... the listener is... transported back to Mississippi in the early part of the twentieth century...".
Yes, and I picture myself in the morgue, cemetery and alone with the shoes.
TT

[ricks]

Hi Michael - thanks for the very interesting read - I'd just like to chuck in one extra name for the weird-&-wonderful category- Fred McMullen; I don't listen so much to this stuff nowadays, but once in a while I'll revisit, & when I do, McMullen is someone I continue to be intrigued by - great tone, & some harmonic ideas all his own,

happy listenin',

Rick

[Deleted]

Excellent essays on the subject Michael. An interesting side aspect to explore might be an investigation of the distribution channels of records and, to a lesser extent, films between the USA and UK thruout the 20 th century. Were American pre war jazz, blues and popular recordings distributed thruout the UK and Europe at the time of origination?

[ezra1]

Thank you Michael.

[slideplayer14]

What was said about Brian Jones being one of the first, possibly the first slide guitarist in Britain sounds on par with the very thorough research of Paul Trynka who wrote a fantastic biography with lots of focus on his earlier music work before the Stones. A must read for any Brian fan.

[Michael Messer]

Oct 5, 2018 22:21:44 GMT slideplayer14 said:

What was said about Brian Jones being one of the first, possibly the first slide guitarist in Britain sounds on par with the very thorough research of Paul Trynka who wrote a fantastic biography with lots of focus on his earlier music work before the Stones. A must read for any Brian fan.

I haven't read that book, but it sounds interesting. I will seek it out. Thanks



Shine On
Michael.

[jono1uk]

its here if anyone wants to get a copy

www.amazon.co.uk/Brian-Jones-Making-Rolling-Stones/dp/0147516455/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1538811822&sr=1-3&keywords=Brian+jones

This one looks good as well.

www.amazon.co.uk/Sympathy-Devil-Birth-Rolling-Stones-ebook/dp/B00KY3MZBK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1538811822&sr=1-1&keywords=Brian+jones

[slideplayer14]

Oct 6, 2018 7:50:12 GMT jono1uk said:

its here if anyone wants to get a copy

www.amazon.co.uk/Brian-Jones-Making-Rolling-Stones/dp/0147516455/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1538811822&sr=1-3&keywords=Brian+jones

This one looks good as well.

www.amazon.co.uk/Sympathy-Devil-Birth-Rolling-Stones-ebook/dp/B00KY3MZBK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1538811822&sr=1-1&keywords=Brian+jones

Those are both the same book. "Sympathy" is the British release name. 

[ezra1]

I want to read that book.