Rainer Ptacek's music and playing style

[janatore]

Rainer was one of the major impacts on me as a teenager who brought me into slide guitar. Luckily i purchased the released live Album after his death (1997) around 2000 and i was lost to this man's guitar and human voice.
This album is one of my main resources i got many of my playing tools and thinking from (not everything but a big part) especially when it comes to slide guitar music that i do a lot.
I am interested to talk about his playing style achievments, what drives others (like me) when listening to his records or just average talking about slide guitar approaches as such. I know some stuff i guess but i do not really know much. Every once in a while some new but acutally "old" stuff or artist appears or is mentioned by someone that i did not hear of and i am always curios to find out about that.
I acutally am driven by the idea to do ANY musical style (as iof there were borders or specific styles) on the Resonator guitar. I like playing classical pieces, rock, swing or manouche sessions with my Erfurt band Friends "Brise manouche", folk and country related stuff and so on. And there is so much more going on in the world that i do not really know and so feel invitetd to leave a hint or link, what you heard of is resonator guitar music...

Some Rainer Ptacek tunes/songs









Some random Resonator guitar Music (like "classical" or other inspired stuff to Show what i mean)

[richclough]

Thanks for sharing Jan. I had never heard of Rainer before. I do quite like this...



Cheers,
Rich

[Michael Messer]

Hello Jan,

First of all, WELCOME to our forum. It is a pleasure to read your comments and I hope you will enjoy being a contributor and being a part of our community.

The first time I became aware of Rainer Ptacek was in 1986 when the Rainer & Das Combo album, Barefoot Rock, was released. A friend of mine played it to me and I was immediately struck by Rainer's skills on the guitar and by his unusual approach to playing music. I particularly liked his recordings of Sleepwalk and Last Fair Deal Gone Down. I bought the album and played it a lot, but at the time I was right in the middle of launching my own career in the music business and was recording my first album, and as well as all that, the World Music boom was where 90% of my musical attention was going and I was really more interested in people like King Sunny Adé, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sol Hoopii and S.E. Rogie, than straightforward rock music that I had been listening to for so many years.

Then in 1992 when Rainer's Worried Spirits came out there was a bit of a buzz going around about him and the album. Rainer was a guest on my friend, Mary Costello's BBC radio show, and then he performed at The Weavers in Islington, London, which I went along to. It was a fine solo performance and I met Rainer for a moment, and somehow I ended up with a copy of the Worried Spirits CD. I didn't buy it so maybe he or the promoter gave it to me. It was nearly thirty years ago, so it's hard to remember. I liked the album, but much as before in 1986, I was so involved with my own music and my career, that while I enjoyed Rainer's performance, it didn't change my life or affect me in the way it affected some of his audience that night.

Then around a year or so later Rainer recorded the 29 Palms stuff with Robert Plant, which I bought and enjoyed very much. I liked that combination of Robert's creativity and understanding of making great records with Rainer's guitar playing. For me it was a very successful combination.

Sometimes musicians can miss each other's work because we are so busy doing our own thing, and because we can be quite competitive and very busy with our own thing, we just don't always appreciate what is going on in front of us. I could tell a similar story about another influential artist of that time, Chris Whitley. I have a couple of his albums and I appreciated his talent, but I was too busy making my own records to worry about his work. So much like with Rainer Ptacek, I never really got to fully appreciate Chris's work. And as I said earlier, right through that period I was more interested in other areas of music, making my own albums, producing albums for other artists and pushing my own career forward, to be aware of what other artists playing National guitars were doing.

Jan, you are playing really well and it is great to have you as a member of our community.

Shine On
Michael

[janatore]

Thank you very much Michael.
It means something to me that you took some time to reply here.
Your commented story and chared memories are exactly what i was up to when i thought of starting this thread.

I stumbled over Chris Whitely material once in a while.
Last year Dr. Slide played a little Blues concert in Erfurt (my actual residence) and we talked a little later. He shared some time playing with Chris when he traveled the U.S.A.

I am too young to meet these musicians we talk about here but i am lucky and happy to have the chance to talk to institutions like you Michael virtually.

Thanks
Jan

[janatore]

Hi there resonator/slide guitar related community


I have no words of wisdom or something to say theese days.
Like every one i guess i try to get from day to day.

I find more time to play guitar (besides family business and some work). That feels good to me.

I just share my Erfurt based band project "Pelican Rex" here, where i play Michael Messer guitars.





I am still interested in the many possible ways how resonator guitars are used and played in the musical worlds. Like in the context of swing or classical music. Of course the sense of that threat seems hard to guess because the resonator guitar world is so big. If you find smth. you think that fits here feel free to post it.
L

I purchased Gottfried Gfrerer's Album Polychrome last week and listen to it in the evenings. I like how he manages to express the many sound qualities of those old wooden Triolians.

Keep on playing your music and listening to your favourites and stay as sane and healthy as possible.
Greetings

[Michael Messer]

Hello Jan,

Always a pleasure to hear from you.

Your Pelican Rex duo sounds great. You guys play well together and your own playing sounds very nice in that setting.

More please!

Shine On
Michael

[janatore]

As you might realize i had some freetime and was more active than usual in that forum. It will be just temporary i guess.

Concerning this threat: i did not take the time yet to put more stuff here for my little humble collection of different musical styles delivered on resonator guitars (actually it is a big world and many sources and writers about that are there).

I did not find the topic about "slide playing in standard tuning" wich i am interested in. So i will put smth. here.
I do it (playing dlide in standard tuning) from time to time mostly in a non solo (=band) situation.
Dough Wamble has a cool jazzy attempt of doing so when he improvises slide passages in solos that sounded like a horn player or smth.

Here is a noodeling in standard tuning (in C) with slide and non slide playing.

[janatore]

Hey there, it's been a while. I did not have the time the last months so much for the resonator guitar world.
But lately i watched a clip of the german philosopher "Richard David Precht", may be a similar person to "Alain de Botton" and his school of life.

He was interviewed in a talk show and was asked if he was a "radical" (context: climate change). Precht totally understands that if there are 90% of all scinetist that say climate change happens, it can not be untrue (what the interviewer doubted). He answered that he thinks those are radical, who are not reasonable enough to see, what has to be done (f.e. forbit specific buisnes models that totally destroy environment or so).
When i saw that clip and found his statement a big one i remered my tune "Ismael's words" or in german "Ismales Worte" that i accidentely wrote in early 2013 when i totally was into open G (may main tuning besides standard tuning).



I luckily could record the tune properly (on a Tricone) and it is available on "Volkmanns Gitarren" an instrumental guitar CD that my (musician) friends in Berlin produced. We used to have a Folk band called "Volkmann" based around Peter Butschke a famous eastern german folk singer and song writer.



May be you like that track of mine.

I wish all the best to the community and although i have trouble to cope with the digitalisation i am thankfull to have it theese days. Concerning the current Covid situation:my son is inquaranteene and we care for him doing home schooling and all that stuff, not always an easy task to be a family guy you know. And infections get closer here in mid germany.
bla.
Have a good week

[chromatic]

Just found the first post in this thread and love the Last Train Home video. Great job by a left handed(?) Jan. Here's the original and the tune has another life in JoJo..



Cheers