The Flames.

Fitness Hike

I've taken a hiatus
From fitness and trim
For a few days now
I've been thinking of quim

The snail's on the vine
Manifesting itself
In my rabid snail eye
I'm a gnome not an elf

And would that I'd be
Much fitter and kind
Than the young fart
That I was at one time

Forsook by an angst
Over climbing it's true
For all the trouble I take
And the friends I've gone through

With opinions I've spake
On a topic or two
Would I this voice to quell
If only that would do

Those rockers 'n' rollers
Sure got it right
Parading the hotties
What's there not to like

Like plant life and snails
I'll go riding my bike
And keep falling down
But continue to hike

I'll never give up
And I'll never turn tail
Till I'm pushing up weeds
For the pheasants and quails
--with apologies to Bushman, MFM

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 more 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.

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The History of Blues Slide Guitar - Part 1 (of 3 parts) - by Michael Messer
(written in 2011 - published in fRoots magazine December 2013)

SLIDE BLUES ROOTS

Slide guitar blues and gospel music was of course an African American invention, but Michael Messer argues that the pre-war roots of the guitar accompaniment are much less purely African than many like to imagine...

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.


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, or Diddley Bow) are usually crude homemade one string childrenʼs i










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



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, 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.












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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 blue

was crucified, died and was buried.
2-3 days later I rose from the Dead and put Townes van Zandt on the turntable.
He wasn't doing that well in those days either, having glued his jaw shut while huffing and having to have it hammered open.