Topic: Players of Slide, Vestapol only, on recordings

[Johnm]

Hi all,
We have long had threads such as "Adventures in Spanish", "Adventures in Vestapol", "Adventures in Cross-Note", and the like, but a precedent was established early on in those threads to exclude slide pieces.  I thought it might be fun and instructive to do similar list threads of players who specialized in Vestapol when playing slide, players who specialized in Spanish when playing slide, and players who played slide in both Vestapol and Spanish tunings.  I know there are players out there who played a lot of slide in standard tuning or cross-note, but this seems like a place to start, at least.  More people will be able to participate if you confine yourself to one or two players when adding to the list.  Here goes:

Two players who played slide only in Vestapol on their recorded slide pieces were Peg Leg Howell and Blind Willie Johnson.  Any others out there?
All best,
Johnm
   

[Blueshome]

Bumble Bee Slim, George Torey, Sam Montgomery, Tampa Red

[frankie]

King Solomon Hill

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I think Ramblin' Thomas falls in this category.
All best,
Johnm

[frankie]

Blind Boy Fuller

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I believe Sam Collins fits in this category.
All best,
Johnm

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I reckon Connie Williams falls into this category, too.
All best,
Johnm

[Johnm]

Hi all,
Weren't all of Blind Joe Reynolds' slide pieces in Vestapol?
All best,
Johnm

[Johnm]

Hi all,
All of Dan Pickett's recorded slide pieces were in Vestapol.
All best,
Johnm

[Johnm]

Hi all,
As per their performances on the George Mitchell Collection, Green Paschal and Robert Johnson (performer of religious music with his daughters) both fall into this category.
All best,
Johnm

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I was recently listening to Lesley Riddle's album on Rounder from the '80s (thanks, Stuart!), and he plays slide there exclusively in Vestapol, doing versions of "Frisco Moan", "Motherless Children" and "The Titanic".  He's an interesting musician and character.  Evidently, he accompanied A.P. Carter on a number of his song-hunting trips and introduced Maybelle Carter to some of the more bluesy picking she was to use on the Carter Family recordings, like "Cannonball Blues" and "I Know What It Means to Be Lonesome", which she admitted to having gotten from Riddle.  Of particular interest on that Rounder CD is a piece in E standard that sounds like it may have come from or led to Frank Hutchison's "Miner's Blues", a great eccentric E blues.  It would be interesting to know if Lesley Riddle and Frank Hutchison ever ran into each other. 
Maybelle Carter's slide playing on the early Carter Family recordings does not sound as though it derived from Lesley Riddle's slide playing, for hers is all played Hawaiian lap-style, and Riddle's is played in the conventionally fretted position
All best,
Johnm

[Blueshome]

As this has revived, I'll add the magnificent Rev.Leon Pinson.

[Johnm]

Hi all,
All of Cat Iron's slide pieces were played in Vestapol, and he sounds like he may have been a lap-style slide player.
All best,
Johnm

[uncle bud]

I was listening to the two songs recorded by Robert Lee Westmoreland today, "Good Looking Woman Blues" and "Hello Central, Give Me 209", and both are slide pieces played in Vestapol. Westmoreland recorded them in 1953 and the record was apparently the only blues issued by the Trepur label. Pretty much nothing seems to be known about him and he was last heard of living in Griffin, Georgia, in the mid-60s, according to the notes of Rare Country Blues Vol 4 DOCD-5643. Both of Westmoreland's similar-sounding sides are very enjoyable, with a delivery somewhere in the range of Booker White to my ear, but with a style his own.

[oddenda]

I found a copy of the Trepur 78 at Buckley's Records in Nashville, along with a letter from the owner of the label Ralph Rupert (spell it backwards!) McLendon who lived in LaGrange, GA. While on the road, I called Mr. McLendon, a former fiddler/singer w. The McLendon Brothers (RCA Victor, '36-38) and got him! He remembered the record, but knew little of Westmoreland, or even how he came to record him! Most of his output was country or bluegrass in the 50s. Nice to talk with him, but not very revealing. Such is life.

pbl