William Brown was a man who recorded a handful of blues on Sadie Beck's Plantation on July 16, 1942 for
Alan Lomax. Once thought to be the same man as the Willie Brown who played with Son House and Charley Patton--and was immortalized in Robert Johnson's
Crossroad Blues--the consensus now is that William Brown was a different man, about
whom we know next to nothing. Certainly, the handful of recordings we have that feature him supports this. The Willie Brown who recorded
Future Blues and
M & O Blues was an archetypal Delta bluesman, with both songs being stripped down versions of Charley Patton's
Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues, among others, and
Pony Blues, respectively. The
William Brown who recorded
Mississippi Blues,
Ragged and Dirty and
Make Me a Pallet on the Floor plays and sings nothing like that Willie Brown. That we know nothing about him and never heard any more of his music is one of the many tragedies of recorded blues.
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posted by y2karl
on Aug 30, 2011 -
15 comments
"Call me nuts, but I find extraordinarily endearing the improbable blend of country music traditionalism and tastefully restrained space-age guitar pyrotechnics that can be heard in these tunes." Yes, friends, the fine folks at WFMU are back with the long-awaited 2nd installment of the tasty and wonderful
Country Fuzz Spectacular!
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posted by flapjax at midnite
on Aug 24, 2011 -
8 comments
People really
like to
hate James Taylor, but he's doing some excellent
guitar lessons on his website. Well, there's one guitar lesson and one lesson on fingernail care.
posted by jwhite1979
on Aug 21, 2011 -
140 comments
"I was unaware, in my awe of adults playing folk songs, that they would push me into a different world altogether, a world in which only some would ultimately be deemed worthy to publicly perform music: those who were ‘musically talented’. And that talent was determined by one’s ability to imitate, precisely, music written by others."
How I Learned To Play Guitar
posted by mippy
on Jul 26, 2011 -
48 comments
The most famous Steinberger design is the L-series instrument... made entirely of the Steinberger Blend, a proprietary graphite and carbon fiber mix in two pieces: the main body and a faceplate. It had no headstock for tuning, tuning instead at a redesigned tailpiece using micrometer-style tuners and special strings with a ball at both ends.
posted by Trurl
on May 13, 2011 -
43 comments
A very eloquent and tranquil performance of a young chap from Sweden playing C418's
"Sweden" that you may have heard from Minecraft on classical guitar (SLYT)
posted by Cogentesque
on Apr 14, 2011 -
6 comments
The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins A 1967 Les Blank film of Lightnin Hopkins visiting his hometown of Centerville, TX
"…a gorgeous 31-minute poem of a movie, a series of snapshots from his life as well as a look at an era fast disappearing…Watching the film is something of a revelation, at least if you ever had a doubt where the blues came from." [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive
on Feb 19, 2011 -
16 comments
Danny Gatton, 'the greatest unknown guitarist in the world' has been eulogised here
previously, but that was before someone had digitised and uploaded his instructional video and put it on You Tube. Here it is:
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posted by mhjb
on Aug 29, 2010 -
13 comments
"Tone-Quester" is generally a musician (more than likely a guitarist) who purchases/modifies amps/pedals/cabinets in search of a certain sound. They fiercely pride themselves on being able to distinquish the differences between pickups, tube amps vs. transistor amps. With this in mind,
Wolfe McCloud, a pickup designer, decided to challenge
My Les Paul forum members.
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posted by KevinSkomsvold
on Jun 18, 2010 -
34 comments
She's been called "the greatest posthumous success story in music history." But when she died of melanoma at age 33, few people outside of the Washington DC-area had heard of
Eva Marie Cassidy.
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posted by zarq
on Jun 17, 2010 -
62 comments
I stopped there, in a sort of awe. here's the new Choir teacher, (way too flamboyant for a small town in the 70's and fired the next year), sitting in his office with an ES175 and a small amp just wailing some kind of jazz I had never heard, I played guitar, but was still on a CSNY diet. He just sits up, looks at me, and says...
"What!? You telling me never heard of
Joe Pass?"
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posted by timsteil
on Jun 16, 2010 -
16 comments
Her full name is María Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Moquiere de les Esperades Santa Ana Romanguera y de la Najosa Rasten, but she's better known to the world as
Charo. According to
Wikipedia, "One of Charo's regrets is that because of her flamboyant stage presence, she has been overlooked as a serious guitar player." So here' some Charo on guitar:
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posted by Astro Zombie
on Apr 26, 2010 -
40 comments
The other day someone asked me "who's the most deeply grooving and truly exciting electric guitar player you've heard lately?" and I said
"this guy".
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Apr 10, 2010 -
82 comments
Dennis Coffey was one of the most prolific Detroit session and solo guitarists. His revamped site features a couple phenomenal podcasts of his music and interviews.
posted by klangklangston
on Mar 25, 2010 -
8 comments
