so how did all this begin ?

[thebluesbear( al)]

Hi

I hope this interests other people ,but i suspect for most of us there was a begining point on how we ended up coneheads ....my love of the blues and deep interest began one day when my sister came in with a old lp

of the bluesbreakers with Eric clapton yes the beano lp,,i couldnt stop listening too it ....then reading the lp i saw that rambling on my mind was by R Johnson and started looking for who robert johnson was

Soon enough was into slide guitar and became a conehead

maybe someone else would be interested in sharing

al

[Deleted]

Al and all (!)

By c 1970 I was a reasonable folk player, not good but ok. I got a Hofner Verithin and tried to play flash electric lead, and found I could not. Then I picked up a cheap steel slide, retuned to open D and even my brothers said it sounded pretty good. I think this was through an old and long gone Selmer amp.

Played acoustic slide and got into the Nic Jones sort of folk playing side by side, but everything ended, or seemed to in 1990 when I developed tenosynovitis of the right wrist, damaged my LHS by learning to write left handed to stay in work and never thought I would play again.

Sadly for the world I got back playing c 2002 and have discovered a genetic tendency to have a more cone shaped head the older I get. I seem to write a lot of, but not exclusively, cone shaped songs too.

[wolvoboy]

for me the love of the blues started funny enough started at the place Michael is doing a gig at what is now called the little civic, down stairs used to be called the cellar bar that was the in place to be if you loved the blues everyone played guitar of some sort or brought the latest blues album in for every one to be envious of. Eric clapton was my hero and also Peter green ,then i looked at the people who inspired them,and started buying the albums they liked ,but the british blues scene at that time was amazing.then this guy brought this album in to the pub with this guy playing a funny looking metal guitar and i thought i want one of them cool looking guitars,then many years later i saw one in a shop and had to buy it . and from that i progressed to my tricone and my Duolian.
Wolvoboy

[steadyrollinman]

Back in the 70's I had a guitar teacher who taught me Mississippi Blues and Ragged & Dirty by Willie Brown. When I listened to the original recording I could hear a "different type of guitar". My teacher went on to explain that what I could hear was a National guitar, adding that when Son House was re-discovered, he got to know him personally, gave Son a National Style O, and even had him stay as a guest with him in NY, and even recorded with him. Thus began a fascination for resonators. I kept hearing this incredible sound on many of the old records, all Nationals of course. Finally I bought one. then 2, then 3, and so on...

[leeophonic]

Growing up without realising it the subliminal sounds of Hank Williams,George Jones etc playing in the house which I found really emmbarassing as a teenager when friends would come over and the old man was Yodeling a Jimmy Rodgers tune (how naff I thought) well thats how the seed got sown.
I came across some long haired blokes (remember the Hair Mike) in about 88 playing crazy old time tunes in south Hill park and the seed got watered, around this time I saw Mike with Ted Hawkins and I couldn,t work out how this ironing Board sounded so great (Supro on a stand!).
From then on once the bug has you your infected, and you keep meeting other likeminded souls at gigs etc and the knowledge of the elusive resophonic resonators is shared and before long you end up buying the things and then want more and regret selling those to do so!
I have my Gas under control and the economic times help reinforce the urge but it,s still good to window shop.
Regards Lee

[andys]

Great thread bluesbear. Nice one.

For me I had a different start. My playing/gigging days were as a punk/post-punk, in 1979. Three chords on cheap electrics. But musicians like Joe Strummer, were often talking about Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, Leadbelly etc, and through that I started to search out deeper back into music history. Books by and about Guthrie, and Leadbelly, were where I saw the grainy shots of bluesmen with Nationals. And ever since then, I have always hankered after one, even though the music I was playing, and the lack of funds prevented me from owning one. I came very close to buying one in the mid 1980s, when I bought a 2nd hand amp off someone who also had an old National for sale (in a rather sorry state I seem to remember). The amp was £50, the guitar was £150, the amp need was greater at the time.
So quick fast forward, stopped gigging in the late 1980s, sold off many of my guitars apart from one electric and an acoustic, got more into cycling, running a world music shop, then off to study. Then travel. Then family. Meanwhile, got more back into guitar playing, and buying one or two more. Much more into acoustic playing, I started seeing more resonators in the shops, though not as many old Nationals. Something still made me want one.
But the big impetus for finally getting one was not only their availability and affordability, but huge credit must go to this forum, for making me realise that not only was I not alone, but I was in illustrious company.
So one cheap chinese reso, and then one MM Blues later, I finally got a guitar I had always secretly wanted.

Still wish that I had got that old National back then though!!!

[SoloBill]

Hi Al and all,
Good stories!

I cringed when my Dad and his brothers played Country and Western music records (not a happening style at all man ;-)) but I liked the sound of the Hawaiian music (also old fashioned but I liked it!) that they also played, that was my first introduction to slide.

Then I liked The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds etc and after a long journey arrived at the originals that they covered. I would not have liked the raw original music right away. (I made the mistake of lending my Robert Johnson CD to a colleague as an introduction to the blues, she didn't like it.)

Once I learned that there was such a thing as a resonator guitar I always associated slide and blues guitar with resonators, despite hearing it played on electric mostly.

I only recently acquired my first and so far only resonator, an MM Lightning.

[thebluesbear( al)]

well

thank you for this, ...each story is worth hearing worth knowing

Cone shaped head hahah who me? well yes exactly that came later

al

[Michael Messer]

Hi all,

This is a great thread

My own story has been documented in numerous interviews and editorials (some of which are on my website). Now the boot is on the other foot and I am enjoying reading all your stories of how you got into resonator guitars and became coneheads! Excellent ;D

Keep 'em coming...

Shine On
Michael.

[ghnarumen]

In the 60s when I was in my early teens, my brother went to uni' and started to play guitar, learning from his roommate. A year or 2 later, I started to play. Perhaps a year or 2 after that, my brother came home with a wierd metal guitar that a friend had found in his loft. It was steel (I seem to remember) but painted with a wood grain effect. The f-holes had rolled edges. The neck was horrible; it was massively thick and almost an equilateral triangle in cross section. Also the headstock had been snapped and an atrocious crude, bent metal plate had been screwed in to join the 2 parts. Despite all its disadvantages, it had a unique, gritty, dirty sound at once both unrefined and attractive.

Now, I suppose it must have been a mid-30s duolian. It was playable lap style and even (just) upright. We got 'Oh Really' by Mike Cooper and I heard a variety of these curious instruments. That was my introduction to resonator guitars. I wanted one for years afterwards but only bought a cheap wooden one, a few years ago.

My brother told me, a few weeks ago, that he could have bought the guitar for a fiver but he didn't have the money, at that time!

[Deleted]

When I was about 13 or so (early 80s) I had a friend who had an older brother that turned me on to lots of great music. At the time my tastes were pretty much limited to punk rock, and I had no interest in Clapton or the Stones or any of the other stuff I categorized as "boring longhair music" at the time (incredible to think I was even more narrow-minded then than I am today haha). One day I was over at my friend's place and as usual, his older brother was locked away in his room doing god-knows-what. As always, a strong smell of pot smoke emanated from his room, along with some of the most otherworldly and mesmerizing music I had ever heard. I didn't know it at the time, but it was one of Howlin' Wolf's mantra-like one-chord numbers, Moanin At Midnight or maybe Somebody In My Home...can't remember which it was but I can still remember the effect it had on me. I was totally blown away, the stuff didn't sound like it came from another decade....it sounded like it came from a whole other planet. I had to know what it was.
My friend's brother looked at me like I was a halfwit and said "haven't you ever heard BLUES before?"
At the time my perception of blues was "longhaired and bearded white guys singing in forced, unnatural voices in between long pointless guitar solos" so this was a real shock. After that I became a total record geek and would scour all the local record shops for anything with a similar flavor. Eventually worked my way back to the pre-WWII stuff. The moment of truth was when I discovered two records on the same record hunting excursion: Son House's Columbia record and Bukka White's Takoma LP. Both featured Duolians on the sleeve photos, that pretty much did it for me, no turning back after hearing that stuff.

[melp]

I have been playing, well trying at least, guitar since I was 9.

Back in the 60's, in my teens, I played in a band around Manchester. I joined to replace the bass player, who had become unavailable. We were doing Who/Small Faces type stuff. It was great fun and a hell of an experience.
From a music viewpoint it was OK, I always thought that it was much more fun to play than to listen too.

I was listening to anything and everything, I especially liked Eric C and Jeff Beck, and a little later Jimi just blew everybody away, myself included. When Eric joined John Mayall's Blues Breakers that's when I got the Blues bug.

I just loved the rhythm, the cool lines. The blues always seemed 'the real thing' such a simple form, but oh so complex, rich and personal. Reading of Eric's influences I got to Big Bill Broonzy and Muddy Waters ...

Ever since then I have been on a journey back in time. Did not play much in the 70's, but in the mid 80's started playing again. All the time just when you think you have found the 'guy who did' you find another before him.

I especially liked solo acoustic guitar sounds. I had been aware of slide ever since I started listening to blues, even had one, but never managed to get any good sounds out of it.
The first time, I think, I saw a resonator guitar was on the cover on Brothers in Arms, and I really liked the guitar sound on Romeo & Juliet.

Last year I was in Charlie Chandlers shop and found a book on slide. As I had some time on my hands, for the first time in a long time, I decided this was the time to have a go at slide.

Some OKish instructional DVD's followed, and finally I got a copy of Michael's introduction to Blues Slide Guitar - this was the one that changed it all for me. A trip to Blues Week followed a few weeks later and I got to have a go on some really great guitars, some great instruction and met some nice people.

When I got back I got my MM Blues. A Cannon and a Sollophonic followed. These days I am getting into all sorts of stuff, Ragtime, Calypso, Jazz and of course Blues.

Now the more I do, the more I want to do. Even getting a bit better slowly!

Cheers

Mel

[subtoxin]

Chris Whitley's album 'Dirt Floor,' before that I had never even heard of a resonator guitar. That album changed my life, while I appreciate a lot of the original delta blues I live to hear styles other than bottleneck slide being played on resos. Even Whitley got away from slide as his songwriting progressed away from blues but he still pulled a lot of expression from those vintage Nationals. I like his later albums "Hotel Vast Horizon," "Perfect Day," "Soft Dangerous Shores." Can't get enough, thanks to Whitley (RIP) I am now utterly and hopelessly a die-hard conehead

[Ian McWee]

I can pinpoint my conversion to reso's to one track on one album. I'd been 'slide-obsessed' for a few years beforehand, and my slide-hero at the time was the late, great Duane Allman.

In 1974 i bought the double album "Anthology - Vol 1", and when playing through it i came across something slightly jaw-dropping - instead of Duane's usual soaring Les Paul through a Marshall signature slidework....one of the (and still is) most beautiful acoustic tracks ever laid down on vinyl with Brother Duane playing National hit me full-on! "Please Be With Me" by an artist called "Cowboy" still is one of my favourite tunes to this day.....and the very next track on the vinyl album - "Mean Old World", Duane's reso-fuelled duet with Eric Clapton, just sealed it for me

....and it just gets better with age!!!!!

Slide On!

Ian.

[blueshome]

By the mid-60s I was a confirmed blues freak. I was also fascinated by the sound of early Muddy Waters and Kokomo Arnold. Then I saw Fred McDowell. Around the same time I saw someone play at a jazz event in Leeds and he had a shiny metal guitar - probably a Style O.

Move on 20 years and I start to learn guitar seriously and learn a little more about guitars, shiny one in my mind and by some process identified as a National.

A further 10 years and I inherit a little cash - new guitar! Start searching for a National - can't find anything at all so I picked up a Korean Dobro copy to keep me going. Then I discovered Slide & Picket in Worcester. Saw what they had there and, on Perry Foster's advice, ordered an NRP Style O. Been at it ever since. Since I got my FR tricone in 2004 I really haven't needed another reso (it's that good!) except for the feeling that I should own an old one for the sake of it.