Sacred Steel is a
pedal-steel guitar style that evolved in the African-American Pentecostal denomination
The House of God, Which Is the Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of the Truth. Brothers and lap steel players
Willie and Truman Eason, inspired by the electric blues and Hawaiian steel guitar of the 1920s and 30s, brought the sound to two branches of the church, the
Keith and
Jewell dominions. Its hallmark: "talking guitar," in which the sliding steel
emphasizes and mimics the words of preachers and
singers. In the 1970s, a new "
Motor City" tradition began, featuring the more complicated pedal steel guitar. This body of music was known mainly in church circles until two things happened: first, folklorist
Robert Stone became interested in the music and relased several
CD collections. And then, church player
Robert Randolph (and his
Family Band) began taking Sunday morning's music out on
Saturday night.
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posted by Miko
on Apr 8, 2008 -
19 comments
And here we have a couple of YouTube productions, screensaverish animations of photos and lyrics to the original recordings:
Robert Petway - Catfish Blues and
Tommy McClennan - It's Hard To Be Lonesome. This is mostly about Petway and
Catfish Blues but you can't mention Petway without mentioning McClennan, as they ran together in their time and as both did versions of
Catfish, a song canonical in Delta Blues, recorded and performed by nearly everyone--
Muddy Waters - Rolling Stone, for example. Petway just happens to be the first person to record
Catfish, and quite possibly the person who wrote it and certainly. to my mind, at least, the person who nailed it... in the uptempo version at the very least.
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posted by y2karl
on Feb 28, 2008 -
8 comments
He was called "the Telemaster", "the Humbler", and " the greatest unknown guitarist in the world".
Danny Gatton, revered by guitarists great and small, never achieved popular acclaim. His refusal to stick to any particular genre of music, and his reluctance to travel had much to do with that. But to those of us lucky enough to enjoy the Washington, DC music scene of the eighties and nineties got to see arguably the most
talented electric guitar player this country has produced.
posted by Benny Andajetz
on Nov 27, 2007 -
26 comments
Consider
Aaron Thibeaux Walker--if anyone ever deserved the title
Godfather, King or Present at the Creation, it would be
T-Bone Walker. Without T-Bone, there would be no B.B. King, Albert King, no Clarence Gatemouth Brown, no Pee Wee Crayton, Johnny 'Guitar' Watson ad infinitum to every blues guitarist whoever bent a tube amplified string thereafter. For rock and blues, electric lead guitar begins with him--he invented the language and then wrote the book and style manual, too. And he wrote the
performance manual as well--dancing, doing splits, playing guitar behind his back while alternating betwen slow and smoky after hour blues and swinging combo and jazzy big band jumps. For examples of him at the height of his powers, give these Coralized mp3s--
Cold Cold Feeling and
Strollin' With Bones--a listen.
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posted by y2karl
on Nov 14, 2007 -
8 comments
The Band is one of the more user-friendly fan sites I have come across. What I appreciate most is the (unadvertised)
chord charts. They are not always right but they are often not wrong. Subtle, theatrical chromaticism, your name is
Mozart Robbie Robertson.
posted by St Urbain's Horseman
on Oct 26, 2007 -
16 comments
Pink Floyd fans may not need no education but
Gilmourish, an exhaustive review of the guitars and audio effects of Pink Floyd's David Gilmour (with help from an insider), will leave most comfortably numb.
posted by punkfloyd
on Oct 19, 2007 -
35 comments
John Fahey - Fare Forward Voyagers
John Fahey - Dance Of The Inhabitants Of The Palace Of King Phillip XIVClips from a 2 hour performance at
the Euphoria Tavern in Portland, Oregon from 1976. Among the cognoscenti at
FaheyGuitarPlayers, the consensus is that these clips display Fahey in rare form on a very good night.
Apart from Fahey,
Bohemia Visual Music aka Mike Nastra, the contributor of these clips, provides an interesting assortment of way too hip YouTubery offerings including, among others, Spike Jones, Dimandas Galas, Gene Krupa, Tuxedo Moon, Sun Ra, Pere Ubu and the Holy Modal Rounders.
posted by y2karl
on Oct 16, 2007 -
9 comments
Flamenco guitar is such a subtle and delicate mean of expression that it looks like arranging flamenco music for a number of musicians isn't practical or efficient. Nevertheless, many attempts have been made to use flamenco phrasing or colors within large ensembles : in a classical piece like
The Aranjuez Concierto, in jazz when Gil Evans teamed with Miles Davis to greate several pieces entitled
Sketches of Spain, or more recently, with the beautiful work of
Maria Schneider, or the small units of
Louis Winsberg. One of the most convincing score has been recently produced by
Juan Carmona, a gipsy guitarist from Marseille, a
work performed by many philarmonic orchestras.
posted by nicolin
on Oct 7, 2007 -
11 comments
Shoegazer 101 Shoegazing (also known as shoegaze or shoegazer; practitioners referred to as shoegazers) is a genre of alternative rock that emerged from the United Kingdom in the late 1980s. It lasted until the mid 1990s, peaking circa 1990 to 1991. The British music press (notably
NME and Melody Maker) called this genre "shoegazing" because the musicians in these bands often maintained a motionless performing style, standing on stage and staring at the floor while playing their instruments; hence, the idea that they were gazing at their shoes. The shoegazing sound featured extensive use of guitar effects, and indistinguishable vocal melodies that blended into the creative noise of the guitars. Some notable bands are
Ride,
Lush,
Swervedriver,
Slowdive,
Curve, and American bands
Lilys and the
Swirlies.
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posted by psmealey
on Oct 3, 2007 -
113 comments
Some more great french guitar players.
Nelson Veras first came to France to meet Pat Metheny (he was 14 then, it has been documented on video by Frank Cassenti) but upon meeting
some other jazzmen , he decided to stay in France and to experiment in
various settings.
Robert Crumb isn't exactly a "great french guitar player", but his decision to move to France (his or his wife's decision) and later his responsability in the creation of
Les Primitifs du Futur has played a part in the rebirth of ancient french styles ("musette") and the renewed interest in old jazz and blues forms.
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posted by nicolin
on Sep 10, 2007 -
9 comments
Flamenco clearly belongs to spain. But so many immigrants came to France to find work or escape from the civil war that there is a small community of guitarists in southern France who are playing it with original voices.
Bernardo Sandoval was the subject of a
post in mefi music some time ago.
Antonio "kiko" ruiz is about to come to the United States with Renaud-Garcia-Fons : their work can be seen
here.
Serge Lopez is another great guitarist who puts some
guitar parts on his website.
Salvador Paterna adds to the traditional sound of flamenco both the 'oud and the violin.
They are all from or nearby
Toulouse.
posted by nicolin
on Sep 4, 2007 -
8 comments
The Wacky World of beating up guitars to add value."Normally, even one of the resulting scratches or dings on a brand-new instrument would make a guitar enthusiast cringe. But in the hands of Mr. Eldred, they are the first steps in the process of creating a "relic" guitar -- a brand new instrument that has been deliberately aged to simulate decades' worth of rock-and-roll wear and tear."
posted by KevinSkomsvold
on Aug 28, 2007 -
48 comments
Jammin' with Buddy Guy You are a good guitar player, you are a really good guitar player, but you are eight years old, but whoa, here you are on the stage with one of the greatest bluesmen ever, Buddy Guy, and he is digging your sh**.
posted by caddis
on Aug 25, 2007 -
68 comments
He wasn't the greatest technician on earth (he only studied a short time with a teacher, as states his
biography), he wasn't really famous outside Brazil, in spite of the
many recordings available under his name, of his various talents (
drawing, designing a
new string instrument), but his playing is really endearing, and whatever the material,
originals,
bach or
chico buarque, he made his point across easily.
posted by nicolin
on Aug 11, 2007 -
9 comments
Flamenco guitarists on YouTube:
Paco de Lucia,
Vicente Amigo,
Sabicas,
Niño Ricardo,
Manolo Sanlucar,
Serranito,
Tomatito,
Paco Peña,
Carlos Montoya,
Gerardo Nuñez,
Diego Del Gastor, and of course, the legendary
Segovia.
posted by malocchio
on Jul 4, 2007 -
13 comments
Isaac Guillory was widely regarded as probably the best acoustic guitarist in Britain.
These three clips from a Berkeley performance in 1989 show why he is still much missed.
posted by teleskiving
on Jul 2, 2007 -
13 comments
![the hi-res picture for all the explicit functional details. [NSFW]](http://www.metasonix.com/G1000large.JPG){kind=link}
