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Bill Neubauer
Aloha
USA
34 Posts |
 Posted - 11/27/2004 : 3:48:35 PM
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I don't play either, but just out of curiosity, has it ever been discussed here in the T.P. who actually put the bar to the strings first - the Southern Blues artists or the Island Slackers? I remember reading once about the popularity of Hawaiian bands touring the mainland around the turn of the century, and the theory offered was that the Blues guys got the idea from the Hawaiians. But both are heavily oral traditions, I'm wondering if that academic argument has ever been...academically...settled? Just curious.
Bill
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Kika Pila |
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2004 : 10:11:06 AM
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Hi Bill -
Though some bottle neck blues players have said they were influenced by the Hawaiian steel, most weren't.
For one thing, there's an old "instrument" called a diddly bow (as in Bo Diddly) that, in one form, consists of a single strand of wire nailed between the barn and the barn door and played with a knife. (Another version is a one string box guitar played the same way.) The contraption's been around forever and probably goes back to Africa.
Also, John Handy, the "Father of the Blues," writes about hearing a guitarist playing bottle neck guitar sometime in the late 19th century (1880's, if memory serves) -- which would be well before any of the big trade expositions that brought Hawaiian music to the mainland.
Boy, lot's of interest in history all of a sudden. Must be those long, cold nights!
See ya in June!
cheers,
Mark
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Fran Guidry
Ha`aha`a
USA
1583 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2004 : 10:42:19 AM
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I'm quoting from "Guitar Player Magazine" August 1994, "Blues with a Feeling, the Great Slidemen" by Jas Obrecht:
"The earliest known description of a blues guitarist occurs in W.C. Handy's autobiographical 'Father of the Blues,' which recounts an unforgettable 1903 performance by an unknown African American in a Mississippi train station. "As he played," Handy wrote, "he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by the Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars.""
The article goes on to mention other evidence of Hawaiian influence on blues slide styles, as well as a providing a description of the diddley bow.
Fran
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E ho`okani pila kakou ma Kaleponi
Slack Key on YouTube
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2004 : 1:42:55 PM
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Well shut my mouth!
Thanks for setting the record straight, Fran.
Cheers,
Mark, who needs a spellchekker |
Edited by - Mark on 12/04/2004 12:30:05 PM |
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Auntie Nancy
`Olu`olu
USA
593 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2004 : 2:58:00 PM
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Aloha Mark -
The interest in history is probably not the long cold nights, but the interesting subject matter and the absolutely awesome bunch of historians and other smart people. I don't remember having many of those in school...
And I think other things come of long, cold nights.
auntie -
Mahalo for sharing so much |
nancy cook |
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Fran Guidry
Ha`aha`a
USA
1583 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2004 : 3:03:55 PM
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I just stumbled over that copy of GP mag a couple of weeks ago and was amazed at the impact of Hawaiian music on mainland styles. Actually, amazed at my ignorance of the impact.
Fran
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E ho`okani pila kakou ma Kaleponi
Slack Key on YouTube
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2004 : 04:31:27 AM
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Sarah's grandparents' lives exactly spanned the 20th century. Both born in 1900 and passed away in 2000. Her grandfather was born and brought up in Kentucky and became a professor at Vanderbilt. After Sarah took up slack key,one of his students (then 88 years old and also from Kentucky) visited them in Nashville and recalled that in 1917, when he was a young boy living in a rural Kentucky cabin, he somehow acquired what he, and everyone else in 1917, called a "Hawaiian" (lap slide) guitar. He told Sarah's grandmother, who wrote her about it, that these guitars were very common and popular in the countryside at the time, but that he had no talent for it and passed on it.
So, the folks in the rural mid south mountains early on, knew that the slide guitar was Hawaiian.
Incidentally, by sheet music sales in the first third of the 20th century, Hawaiian music was the most popular genre in the country.
...Reid |
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IzAwGd
Aloha
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2004 : 08:54:24 AM
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| I'm not sure how this ties in, but Fran brought up Mississippi. Check out anything by Mississippi John Hurt. He has a 3 CD set you have to hear. He plays an alternating base with some good old pickin. I think he was born in the late 1800's and his music was rediscovered not to long before his death in the 60's. His lyrics are basic and to the point for the time they were written. If you get a chance five him an ear, its classic. |
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 12/04/2004 : 12:33:21 PM
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Mississippi John Hurt is the guy, all right. He's why I grew out my nails back in high school.
Check out his wonderful arrangement of "Spanish Flangdang." Yep, same old song.
cheers,
M |
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Larry Miller
Akahai
USA
65 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2005 : 05:42:05 AM
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I've tried mixing slack key with bottle neck, with somewhat mixed results. I put the glass slide on my little finger, as I would do for playing blues or Kottke-style stuff, then tried playing slack key and adding some slide to it. (Aloha Oe in G tuning)
Anybody else ever tried that?
(footnote: being an old geezer, I got see Mississippi John play in a coffee house in Detroit back in 64-65- I still know a few of his licks. I think I had him in mind when I worked out my arrangement of Hawaiian Cowboy...)
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Whee ha!
Larry M |
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`Ilio Nui
`Olu`olu
USA
826 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2005 : 06:00:34 AM
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I've heard Mark Nelson rip some pretty nasty blues in Taro a couple time. I don't recall what finger he had the slide on, but it was down and funky.
Dave |
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Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2005 : 08:33:08 AM
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I play bottle neck in G and D tunings primarily. Since G is the same as Taro Patch, I've fooled around with slide on some standards, with mixed results. By and large, bottle neck isn't very sweet -- at least when I play it. Not nahenahe like steel (though not when I play that, either.)
I do play a slide version of Opihi Moemoe (Keola Donaghy dubbed my version "Opihi Noenoe," which means something else entirely!) I favor a Gen-u-wine glass bottle neck -- made by Eric Park. Though I have a honkin' brass job that lives in my flight case after I arrived at a gig to find my bottleneck shattered.
Little finger, not a lot of muting and really primative technique.
cheers,
m |
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wdf
Ha`aha`a
USA
1154 Posts |
Posted - 01/18/2005 : 6:03:35 PM
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Listen to Ken Emerson. He's a real master at mixing slide (on his ring finger), steel (on his lap - regular guitar) and slack - no slide - all in the same song and same instrument! |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2183 Posts |
Posted - 03/05/2005 : 1:19:01 PM
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| Low bass open "G"--taropatch, has been called "Spanish" tuning because "Spanish Fandango" was played in that tuning. It was originally from Mexico (vaquero connection with paniolos?). My grandma played a variant of taropatch, she was from northern Sweden. Low bass G has been found in 400+ year old German lute tablature. (Musical notation is based on lute tablature, tab came first). |
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