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Post by Old Rocker on Oct 28, 2004 12:17:14 GMT
Hi Kevin,
The song is called James Dean and was covered by The Eagles. This might be the version you heard. I don't know who originally recorded it.
Look at davemcnally.com/lyrics/TheEagles/JAMESDEAN.asp
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Post by Larry Conrad on Oct 28, 2004 21:09:57 GMT
Hi Kevin, You are actually raising some interesting issues concerning slides. Different metal and glass slides will all produce different sounds in one way or another, and some players will swear that yes, even different colours of glass will sound different. That's not because of the colour, of course, but because of the chemicals and salts (?) in the glass that produce different colours. So right you are! You would need to get through about, what, 20-30 bottles in order to cover the different possibilities? I think it's great you made your own slide. Don't ever give that one up! I remember when I was a kid some of the old-timers I saw playing were also using just a piece of pipe, or that's what it looked like. It probably made no sense to buy something when you could make it yourself, like you have done. I asked one guy did he hurt his finger! (seemed to be a good question at the time) It would be interesting to know when slides were first made commercially and advertised in the catalogues of the big mail-order companies. I guess that would give a good idea of when slides were catching on in a big way. On "James Dean", it's a great song and absolutely, it needs to be loud . I always thought the Eagles wrote it themselves, but it looks like I was wrong. It would be interesting to know who wrote it, when, and what it sounded like. I haven't heard anything by that band in ages, but yes, I do recall that they played slide in some of their music, with Joe Walsh on board?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2004 11:30:04 GMT
Gonna make another slide over the weekend & my dad will help me cos its glass. Gonna buy a bottle of wine just for how the neck looks , not me cos you have to be older here. Plus im not into wine & esp. not the red kind - tastes like medicine & dead leaves. My Dad saw that Joe Walsh guy years ago he said. He had a band called the James Gang just a trio but he said it was amazing & they played slide.
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Post by Michael Messer on Oct 29, 2004 17:40:00 GMT
Hi Kevin, I saw Joe Walsh with The James Gang in London in 1971 or 72, the concert was at the Lyceum Ballroom. He is a great player, I love that period of his work. They were a wild band on stage back then. I was 15 years old! Interestingly....or maybe not....my brother Alan Messer photographed him a few years ago for the 'Ordinary Average Guy' album cover. Shine On, Michael.
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Post by Ian McWee on Oct 30, 2004 9:54:03 GMT
Ahhh! Slides ....In answer to Larry's quiery about when slides first appeared in catalogues and stores; Jim Dunlop have been around for about 30-odd years with their huge range of stuff. Regarding what i call 'specialist' glass-based slide suppliers, the first guy to produce and sell real bottleneck slides in quantity to the playing public would be Eric Park in the States, he's been in the biz for probably 30 - plus years or more! And following (close?) behind would be Luther Tatum @ 'Big Heart Slides' in California (a lovely bloke), who produces an amazing slide range featuring glass, porcelain, aluminium, & bronze slides available in a huge array of shapes & styles; also not forgetting my good friend Gerry Glombecki from Tucson Arizona, with his great 'Original Delta Slider' bottlenecks. Both of these guy's have been around since the early nineties - same time as us at D.B's...If you Google-up 'Glass Guitar Slides' when you're next on-line, you'll find about a couple of thousand 'hits' - mainly large internet on-line suppliers, but there's also some real 'golden nuggets' hidden around there for serious slide-a-holics!!! If anyone out there in 'slide-land' would like any helpful tip's regarding the pitfalls and pleasures of making their own bottleneck slides, please drop me a line from our website below and i'll be more than happy to help.. Slide On! Ian. www.diamondbottlenecks.com
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Post by Larry Conrad on Oct 30, 2004 10:57:20 GMT
There was always a lot of guitar being played when I was a kid, and as I remember the slides were always just a length of pipe, like Kevin has made. It's an obvious choice I guess, and it sure does give a distinctive sound. My earliest memories of this would have been 1955 maybe, and the players were guys in their 60s, mainly local Pennsylvania boys but also one or two who had moved from down south. I don't remember EVER seeing anything else until the late 60s, when there seemed to be a lot of glass slides showing up. I recall seeing glass pill bottles being used.
I have never seen an old guitar catalog, but, for example, did National sell slides? I suppose they must have. But I wonder when companies like Sears and Montgomery Ward, the big mail-order houses, began to deal in these things. In rural PA that was how you bought a lot of the things you wanted, including guitars, strings, etc. Or was there no market because everyone was making their own?
To come back to a question that Kevin asked awhile back, does anyone have any views on what slide would be best for a beginner? I messed around for a long time with a thin metal slide and didn't think a lot about what other options there might be. Then I thought to ask at LRC one day and they recommended the King Slide, a fine metal slide with some weight to it. It took me a few days to get used to it, but what a difference! I would definitely recommend it, especially to a beginner - a heavier chunkier slide seemed easier to control and learn with, or at least that's how it seemed to me. It's expensive, and right, we all try other things and like them as well. But the King is one of those you keep and somehow always drift back to. If a beginner likes the sound and feel of a glass slide, I would just say again, something with some weight to it seemed easier to me. I know a lot of people who really like the Diamondback that Ian makes, for example.
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Post by Michael Messer on Oct 30, 2004 11:24:04 GMT
Hi All,
Thanks Ian for your potted history of commercial slides. Apart from yourself & Jim Dunlop, I have never heard of any of those makers you mention, although I am sure you are correct with your facts. I remember buying commercially available slides way back in the late 60s early 70s; they were either glass or metal and came in a polythene bag with a card label "Blues Bottle" I think they were made by Dunlop and resembled test tubes from the school lab' and the metal ones looked like the remains of chrome legs on 1960s dining chairs. The glass ones would snap on your finger if you hit the frets & the metal would rust after one or two gigs! As you said, Jim Dunlop has been doing this for years and I remember his range improving sometime around 10 or so years ago. Prior to that I remember buying copies of Coricidian medicine bottles from Chandler guitars in London, this would have been 86/87, they were made by a US maker but not Dunlop.
Even five years ago I was making my own slides and getting them made for me by local craftsmen. Eddie at Glass Arts in Reading would cut my bottlenecks - I had 6 made which I still have & use today. My metal slides I made myself until around 1989 when I got one made by my friend Alan Timmins (F1 Guitars) - he made it from a solid rod of stainless steel and I had it 'hard-chrome-plated' at a cost of 50 pounds (70 USD), and I still use it every day for every gig & recording. This slide was the blueprint for the King Slide brand marketed by LRC. I also sometime in the early 90s had a Hawaiian bullet made by a local metalworks and had that hard-chrome-plated too. That one I still use today and was also the blueprint for the King Slides Hawaiian bullet.
Of course bars for playing Dobro & lap steel have always been available from good US dealers - I bought my first Stevens Bar in Nashville in the late 70s, but I remember at that time they did not sell quality bottlenecks, just lap style bars.
The availability of all this stuff has really only come about in the last few years. I remember I used to read interviews with blues musicians & if they mentioned..."I play with a 2inch copper tube"...then I would rush out and find a 2 inch copper tube....and so on....
I was always checking out what various players used for a slide and because they were not commercially available, everyone had their own unique tool for the job; John Hammond's socket from a socket set, Johnny Winter's 3 inch piece of a bath tap, John Jackson's hand made brass rod....and so on.
I don't think Bukka White's six inch nail, or Mance Lipscombe's cut-throat razor were made by Jim Dunlop.....or were they?
The plot thickens.....
Shine On, Michael.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2004 18:26:38 GMT
Hey I think yr bro is really cool Michael. I saw his website and something else where hes looking at guitars thru a magnifying glass like Sherlock Holmes . Dunno how he gets great pics of bands cos everybody is moving around & the light isnt that much. I heard this six inch nail thing before - is that in a song or does it mean something? You mentioned it when you were talking about slides.
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Post by Michael Messer on Nov 1, 2004 20:50:58 GMT
Hi Kevin,
Yeah I guess my bro is cool. He has been taking photographs of musicians for a long time and his catalog of work is pretty amazing. The 'Sherlock Holmes' photo of him looking at a guitar was taken by ME!!!
The six inch nail comment - no it does not have a double meaning. Blues singer Bukka White used one to play lap-style slide guitar. It's pretty crude but it worked for him.
Shine On, Michael.
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Post by Andrew Phillips on Nov 4, 2004 14:44:33 GMT
Hi Guys Justbought a jetslide and it is pretty amazing. Problem is getting them in the UK as the UK agent is not responding. But check out the man himself and his product:. Gary Romero www.jetslide.com
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Post by Larry Conrad on Nov 5, 2004 23:08:56 GMT
MESSAGE FOR KEVIN THOMPSON:
Hi Kevin,
I was just thinking of your problem with the slide clattering across the frets. As I said previously, I think this is because you are playing a guitar with a low action. Here is a trick that Stuart Cumberpatch taught me when I just had an old Gibson acoustic to play. You need a piece of curtain wire - the white plastic stretchy wire with a metal core that your Mom uses to hang net curtains. Cut a length of that -- not off existing curtains! ;D -- to match the width of the neck of your guitar. Lessen the tension on your strings, then slip the wire under the strings at the nut, and then retune. Your action will now be too high for fretting, but it will eliminate the clattering across the frets. You can of course experiment with other materials that are not so thick, and these will raise your action by a lesser degree. It is a jury rig of course, but it should be fun to experiment with this. That's the idea actually, keep trying different things to see how things work and what you like.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2004 11:59:48 GMT
Hi & thnx for the idea about the curtain wire. I tried that & it works!!! But yeah then it was too high 4 other stuff. But now I have the idea of trying different ways so now im just looking for something that isnt so high.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2004 18:18:33 GMT
Hiya everybody, I asked stuff like this b4 and I got good answers so here I am again. I heard this really old song that was so cool. The singer says slow down yr goin way too fast, you got to gimme a little lovin, gimme a little lovin, if you want our love to last. It was on the radio a coupla weeks ago & its totally got me now I keep thinking about it. Anybody know that song? I dont think its blues but its so cool & no way you can just sit there when you hear it. You dont even think about it & there you are on yr feet.
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