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Post by Gerry C on Feb 19, 2009 12:12:16 GMT
I got into blues by hearing a 10" LP with Big Bill Broonzy on one side and Leadbelly on the other: that was about 1962, when a school pal and I used to listen to a lot of modern jazz and pal's soldier brother brought this LP home after some kind of swapping malarkey with the local GIs.... The first time I can recall seeing slide blues was Brian Jones playing Little Red Rooster on Thank Your Lucky Stars, I think on the 'teardrop' Burns he used to play. Actually seeing someone playing slide live in the flesh was seeing Stefan Grossman in a NE folk club in about 196...? (And BTW, steadyrollinman, was Stefan the teacher you mentioned? He tells the same tale about Son House...) First time I ever played a reso was in about 1974 when my pal (and later guitar teacher) Roger Sutcliffe bowled into our local folk club with his amazing Gretsch Sho-Bro and said, "Have a go then!" I could barely get my arm over it, let alone play the gas-pipe strings about six inches off the fretboard, but when Roger played it the sounds were amazing. (Still are - Graham Robinson and I did support spots for Roger's gig in Otley last night and the Sho-Bro is still roaring like the mighty beast it is!) A few years later I came across Steve Phillips playing his National Don - and others - and thought " I have GOT to get me one of those!!" Well, never could afford a National or Beltona, but I bought (and promptly modified a great deal) an Ozark 3515 in about 1999 and then a MM Lightning last summer...
I thought of selling the Ozark but I've set it up to play 'normal' and It's rather nice...
Cheerily,
Gerry C
Edit: Forgot to mention a fellow student at college in Liverpool who was into Mike Chapman and Mike Cooper and had a home-made metal reso: his name was Andrew Mullins and he was from the Leeds/W. Yorks area, so I keep wondering whether that guitar might have been an early effort by Steve Evans: it was only several years later when I moved to Yorkshire that I got to know Steve briefly...
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Post by rickS on Feb 19, 2009 17:13:46 GMT
Likewise, early 60's blues boom (in the wake of the Stones' 1st album) got me into Chuck/Bo/Muddy, etc, & then folk clubs in c'64 gave me my first taste of acoustic blues/ragtime; Reading had some superb clubs, & happily, the above-mentioned Mike Cooper as a resident-performer in one, & later, host of his own - his Style 1 was the first reso I ever saw, & I was duly inspired to acquire a '30 dobro (which I dearly wish I still had), & soon afterward a Duolian, & all the country blues I could find, esp House & McDowell Have mostly had a reso or two around since , tho I pretty much drifted away from early blues since then, apart from always having a Charley Patton CD close to hand - but I feel very lucky to have experienced those early 'boom' days the way I did, it was quite a magical time..
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Post by robn on Feb 19, 2009 18:47:12 GMT
Mmmm..... My route to slide was a little diffrent. It didn't start with the music at all It actually started about 5 years ago with a bit of this that went wrong: In fact part of me (a section of my left index finger to be pecise ) will always be in the mountains - just somewhere at the top of these pillars (ouch ): Well, while I was recovering from that trauma I did some of this - and that went wrong too : Both incidents were followed by visits here: So I had to find another way to play guitar - I thought that I'd try slide and I sort of got hooked on it ;D ;D ;D Squareneck is actually way better for me than roundneck - and I've not looked back Robin
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Post by lewiscohen on Feb 19, 2009 19:47:31 GMT
It started for me around 3 years ago when, having been a sideman in various bands for 10 years, I found a bit of a singing voice as a result of being called on to do backing vocals for one of the bands I was in. At the same time I'd been getting frustrated trying to get a blues band together and just not hitting the mark, mainly through not being able to find a rhythm section that had any appreciation for how blues should really be played. So all that happening at the same time just made me think "sod it, I'll do it on my own".
Once I'd made that decision I went about seeking out the best players I could find and getting them to teach me everything they were wiling to. A phone call to the (late) Reso Centre asking for recommendations got me in touch with Michael and he was instrumental (no pun intended) in getting me from the basics I'd figured out on my own to understanding what could be achieved and should be aspired to. Later, I met Stuart "Marshcat" Cumberpatch who not only switched me on to huge swathes of material I'd never encountered before, but also taught me a great deal....and continues to do so (whether he realises it or not!) through the duo in which we now play together.
Not sure I qualify as a conehead as my main preoccupation is actually continuing to learn to sing blues properly, the guitar comes a definite second......maybe a mic-head with conehead tendencies might be more appropriate ;0)
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Post by Stevie on Feb 21, 2009 0:28:58 GMT
It started off for me in about 1975. I had taken classical lessons for two years from 1972 and had purchased a plywood steel strung "Kay" guitar, much to the chagrin of my teacher who could not bear anything without nylon strings. At the time, I delivered newspapers and we had to collect the money for them each week. One house only took one paper a week- on Thursdays. They were never in to pay me but their son usually was. I began talking to him at the door and a mutual interest in music resulted in a jam.
There was I, flamencoing and "Anji-ing" my butt off and he picked up an old Hofner semi and played that old Jimmy Reed thing on the bottom two strings. That was it. That was what I had been hearing in my head and I was set free. Later, a friend at school introduced me to John Fahey. Sadly, it has taken me 34 years to get a reso.
I dabbled with slide decades ago but a thin scratched chrome plated tube wasn't exactly inspiring. I found glass slides better but I had no technique and so I never continued with slide. I kept breaking them anyway. Rory Gallagher alerted me to resos but I still missed the point. Then came Lowell George and, of course, Ryland Cooder. I'm only now beginning to pick up on the older players.
I have a colleague at work who purchased a National tricone a couple of years back and he tried to nag me into it but I still failed to get it. I had an inclination for a reso in the middle of last year but could not find the combination of details that I had in my mind in any of the instruments that I saw on eBay. Now, thanks to Robin and Michael I have an MM Blues and it's full speed ahead. Stevie.
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Post by thebluesbear( al) on Feb 26, 2009 23:48:10 GMT
Hi what id like to hear is did tastes change did they come and go i.e one artist who say was the one to float your boat did you keep coming back or move forward ?? and does this artist get to you now in the same way??/
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Post by edshred on Feb 27, 2009 2:53:54 GMT
Cool thread!
As a young kid, , the only records I listened to were my dad’s records, which included some old rock ‘n’ roll, especially Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly.
I bought my first records when I was about 15. For some reason, I was always interested in the ‘spookiest’ music I could find. At that age, that meant listening to The Mission.
Around that time, I also started rooting through my dad’s records, and found a Bob Dylan EP of Don’t Think Twice, and also had Corrina, Corrina and The Hour That The Ship Comes In on it, as well as one other track. I thought The Mission were spooky, but this was spooky in a whole other way. It seemed to bring everything together, a way I could carry my childhood love of stories like Huckleberry Finn into the adult world.
So, I got some Bob Dylan LPs from the library, and that’s where it started. From Bob Dylan, I worked forwards and backwards. Working backwards meant digging into country music, American folk music, and blues. My dad had a few interesting discs, a folkways 10” called Frontier Ballads volume III, sung by Pete Seeger, and a compilation which had stuff like State of Arkansas by Lee Hays and Tanner’s Farm by Gid Tanner and Riley Puckett.
I then moved to Manchester, and it seemed that everyone was into music. I used to go to the indie gigs with my mates, but I also looked out for any authentic American music. The one gig that blew me away completely was Honeyboy Edwards, who I saw in Bury around 1990. As soon as he started playing, I went into freefall. It was like I’d just gone off a cliff. No doubt about it, he was the real deal.
That led to record buying expeditions to the Vinyl Exchange, Decoy Records, and the Corn Exchange in Manchester, and the first serious blues record picked up was a Big Joe Williams LP. I had already spontaneously started tuning down to open G, and learned a few things inspired by Big Joe.
I was at a friends house messing about when I decided to try playing the open G with the back of a kitchen knife, and the scales fell from my eyes.
I later found a copy of Mississippi Fred McDowell’s ‘First Recordings Following Discovery’, which hypnotized me completely.
As time went on, I moved on to studies and work, and played less and less, possibly because no-one at all in my age group was into blues and especially not country music. But I always meant to get back to music. Then a two things happened; a song that a cousin and myself started writing in my grandmother’s kitchen a few years ago found its way to being published when my cousin finished writing it with another songwriter, so I got a writing credit, and also they guy whose house I had first played slide became very successful as a songwriter. I was inspired to get back to music. I bought a Republic Miniolian and a telecaster, and there we have it.
I always go back to Mississippi Fred McDowell, John Lee Hooker, and RL Burnside. I’m into being hypnotized, and I like to see the spooks moving out the corner of my eye.
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