Topic: Hacksaw Harney--Techniques and Tunes

[Roastfellow]

Anyone have any ideas on how to get a grip on this guy's playing. (I guess this means you, John.)

[a2tom]

once upon a time a guy that goes by Little Brother had a video lesson of one of the tunes Hacksaw played on those video clips of him.  It was quite good, but I can't seem to find it again (probably lost when the woodshed went down).  Maybe LB will see and repost.

tom

[Johnm]

Hi Roastfellow,
Though I really enjoy Hacksaw's playing, I have never figured any of his songs out and don't have any special knowledge of his pieces apart from what key/position they were played in.  With so little instructional material available on his music, the best tactic would probably be to pick a piece of his that you hear really well, and figure it out, either by ear, or using one of the transcription programs people are using nowadays.
All best,
Johnm

[uncle bud]

Anyone have any ideas on how to get a grip on this guy's playing. (I guess this means you, John.)

Well, I'd say for starters having a grip on Blind Blake and Reverend Gary Davis would help. Not that I see them as direct influences, just that the complexity of his playing would certainly require some serious chops from both a fancy picking perspective and first position perspective (Blake) and fretboard mastery (Davis).

Unfortunately, you're not likely to get much help of the instructional variety, since Hacksaw is so obscure. If you are able to run into Paul Geremia, try picking his brain. He's a big Hacksaw advocate, and I have a vague and possibly apocryphal memory that Paul said it was Hacksaw who taught him that index finger tremelo trick Paul does. The amazing thing is Hacksaw seems to do it at the same time as he's keeping bass lines running. !!!???  I think Roy Book Binder hung out with Hacksaw for awhile as well, and maybe he has some insight.

Any particular tunes you're interested in learning? Some sound a bit easier than others (relatively speaking). But that's some serious picking you'd be taking on. Good luck!

[lindy]

John:

I'm really excited to hear that you're working on transcribing a couple of Hacksaw's tunes, his Genes CD is rarely out of my short-list rotation for more than a week or so. I was listening to Delta Eagle last weekend through earphones to try and get a feeling for Harney's basic sound, and even though I didn't make the connection between it and Cottonfield Blues, I did replay that final minute you referred to for another reason: trying to figure out how he got that sound in the bass during that tempo switch. It sounds like he's raking across the bottom three strings and that he's somehow damping those strings just enough to enhance the percussive effect but still maintaining the tones of the notes. Or maybe not. If you have any insight to how he gets that sound, I'd love to hear it.

The other neat trick he seems to do, especially on "Adelphi Ramble," is an up-and-down tremolo on the high E string while maintaining a basic bass rhythm with his thumb. It sure sounds to me like he's doing that tremolo with an up-and-down motion of one finger instead of upstrokes with two. Is that true, or do I just want it to be true? If so, my, my, my. In comparison, on "Little Rock Blues II" he seems to be doing all up strokes with his index finger.

Please keep us informed when your transcriptions are available. I'll bet you'll have a lot of fun doing them, I'm in awe of Harney's chops.

Lindy

[Johnm]

Hi Lindy,
Good on you for your interest in Hacksaw's music!  Because this was moving away from Garfield Akers and the Hernando "A" sound, I thought I'd create a new topic devoted to Hacksaw's music.
On "The Delta Eagle", I don't think Hacksaw is raking the bass strings with his thumb as much as he doing a short, chopped sort of downward stroke and then putting his thumb right back on the strings, cutting off the back end of the notes and any sustain.  It's a great chunky sound. 
Your assessment of his tremolo in the treble while keeping the bass going as being played by the index finger in the right hand going both directions is right on the money, I would say.  In fact, my sense after listening to "Sweet Man" a lot is that Hacksaw, like Rev. Davis, played everything thumb and index.
All best,
Johnm

[lindy]

Thanks, John. I searched the forum for past mentions of Hacksaw and I see that Uncle Bud also mentioned the one-finger tremolo technique in a post 4-5 years ago, and reported that Paul Geremia, who spent time with Hacksaw, can also do it! I'd pay a dollar to see that . . .

Uncle Bud also beat me to mentioning that the Adelphi website has two short video clips of Hacksaw playing. If you haven't seen them yet, they're at http://www.adelphirecords.com/video/Hacksaw.html. 

[waxwing]

I'm beginning to think quite a few players used the down brushing technique for speed with the index finger, whether for a single string tremelo or for quick licks while still maintaining a fast alternating bass, or fast rhythmically varied chording. I think one who used it quite a bit was Charley Patton, as, once you hear it, it seems to permeate his playing. Others who I think used it are Henry Thomas, Lemon, of course, Big Joe Williams, and when I described the sound to Alex he said he thought Frank Stokes used it, too. I'm sure there were many more.

With practice it is very doable and opens up a looser approach to the right hand, similar to frailing a banjo, I guess.

One of the most interesting uses is just for a chang in a simple boom-chang accompaniment, which many would transcribe as a deep thumb brush, perhaps, but I think some of these players thumb a bass note, say on the 4th string, while simultaneously brushing down with the index from the 3rd string. This gives a much more explosive double emphasis sound and also allows use of the index for very quick notes or chording in between on the upsweep of the hand. Listen to Patton's Shake It and Break It or anything by Henry Thomas with quills (especially the little notes he puts in between). The hardness of the fingernail gives a crisp sound to the treble.

Now that I've begun to learn the technique, I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion of it. It's really great. But I guess it's just what I think I'm hearing.

Wax

[uncle bud]

Thanks, John. I searched the forum for past mentions of Hacksaw and I see that Uncle Bud also mentioned the one-finger tremolo technique in a post 4-5 years ago, and reported that Paul Geremia, who spent time with Hacksaw, can also do it! I'd pay a dollar to see that . . .

Just to clarify that. Paul uses one-finger tremelos, but not, I think, at the same time as a bass line with the thumb like Hacksaw. I recall him expressing amazement over that and saying he couldn't do it. I'm sure he could with about 15 minutes practice.   I think the finger he uses is his middle, not his index finger, though wouldn't swear to that.

You certainly don't see that many people using the technique these days, even without the bass (I have a vague recollection of Daddy Stovepipe doing it in some of his youtube videos). I've started using it for some of Lemon's one-note and rather more rare chord tremelos - one in Lonesome House Blues, I think. If memory serves, McTell does it sometimes too.

I think there is a distinction between this kind of finger tremelo and brush strokes with the back of one or more fingers though. Hacksaw's technique is pretty clear and audible. It's either that's what he's doing or someone snuck a second guitar player in. I still don't hear what you describe in the music of Patton and Henry Thomas, Wax, for the spots where a bass note coincides with a strum. I would say in those cases an up-stroke across multiple strings with a downstroke of the thumb, or a pinch across multiple strings, is more likely. But perhaps I need to learn the stroke you're describing and test it more. It would certainly be interesting to analyze such things, perhaps bringing Maybelle Carter strumming into the discussion. And is it possible Patton played ukulele, because that's where it looks like we're heading to me. I don't know if frailing is the right analogy, since that technique is not very loose as far as the fingers are concerned. I'm basing that on very limited experience in banjo playing. There are certainly brushes and what not. Maybe some two or three-finger banjo styles do more of what you describe, but I'm even more out of my depth there. Certainly "loose" is key here, since we now get very analytical about techniques in trying to learn this music, where I think some techniques were much more casual and idiosyncratic. Anyway, all for another thread, I'd say.

No time to explore now though. Must bake a pumpkin pie.

[waxwing]

I'm talking about using only one finger, UB, not multiple fingers. And just as often hitting single strings as brushing more than one. The most audible single string would be the repeated three note pedal on the open E string in Green River Blues. And I recall that Johnm pointed this out as an option when he taught the song at PT several years ago. At the time I thought it was unattainable. Now it seems to me like the easiest way to play it.

The real difference between this technique and using pinches is that the hand is not planted or resting on the guitar top but is moving up and down in a strumming motion as the thumb hits the alternating bass. As the hand is coming down it is more forceful to hit down on any string to be played in unison with the bass, with eighth notes played on the upstroke. It is this rhythmic hand movement that seems similar to what I see when I watch an old time banjo player. All I can see is the hand moving up and down and somehow the fingers reach out on the downstroke and strike the strings (maybe on the upstroke too?). I think this is very similar only done in unison with the thumb, altho' the thumb can be left out, too.

When I've seen someone do the Lemon tremelo (like I think Frankie) it's always been with a plant and brushing the string with the side of the finger, which is angled back toward the bridge. This is nothing like that, but then there's no bass in that.

The real key for me was Shake It and Break It. The song just does not work if you try to play it with thumb brushes down and finger brushes up, nor do I think that you could get anywhere close to speed, or the correct sound, using all up brushes with the fingers over the alternating bass. Once you get the feel from that song, though, moving toward single string accuracy is just a matter of practice.

Maybe this isn't the way anyone played and I'm just hearing things, but learning this technique has been really fun and I think really enriches the sound of songs in which I use it. Especially the sense of an alternating emphasis instead of the relative sameness of all upstroke playing, but the explosiveness I mentioned in the first post as well. And as you said, UB, not many people using a technique like this.

Wax

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I think you are right, John C., that there are places in the music where what can be heard can only be explained by the thumb and an extended index finger both striking downward simultaneously.  In the places where I've been reasonably certain that this was the technique being employed, I found that, paradoxically, though the up-and-down motion of the hand in a general sense was loose, this particular move worked best when the index was extended pretty rigidly and the space between the thumb and extended index was likewise held in a fixed position.  The return to the prevailing looseness of feel follows closely on the heels of the move; it's almost involuntary.  There's a place in the descending signature lick of Lil' Son Jackson's "Groundhog Blues", which he played in E in standard tuning which seems to require this technique to achieve a degree of forcefulness in the right hand that approximates that of Lil' Son.
Like uncle bud, I've yet to hear a sound in Henry Thomas's playing that would require such a move, but that doesn't mean he didn't do it, it may just mean I have to listen harder.  Using the fingers in a downward direction makes a great deal of sense, particularly in strumming, and as Suzy, frankie and banjo chris have noted in the past, for players who were older when they were first recorded in the '20s, like Patton, Stokes and Peg Leg Howell, it's not an unreasonable assumption to think that some of what they did in the right hand derived from banjo-playing techniques.  The right hand techniques of the great Country Blues players are definitely far more difficult to suss out than the left hand moves without having seen them play, and in the main, it's where the different players' musical individuality resides.
I've been on a bit of a Buddy Moss transcription kick recently and I'm finding what he did in the right hand a real education (and humbling).  Like Hacksaw and Rev. Davis, he sounds to be another thumb-and-index-alone player.  He almost never used his thumb for regular time-keeping, he was a demon for brushed triplets in the treble (fast, too!), was able to move fluidly between runs played by the thumb and runs picked with his index, and was shockingly deft, really a cleaner player than either Rev. Davis or Hacksaw, though perhaps not cleaner than they were in their primes. 
Attempting to figure out how Buddy Moss did what he did involves a process that any of you who have done your own transcriptions of performances by long-dead players will recognize.  You back into the technique by attempting to match the sound.  The assumption is that the technique that best enables the closest approximation of the player's sound is most likely to have been the technique employed by the player.  With some players such an approach probably yields pretty accurate conclusions as to the technique employed by the player in question, but with others, especially those with great speed and a frantic touch (Bo Weavil Jackson) or frenzied strumming and lots of percussive effects (Patton, Big Joe Williams, Robert Petway), even a close aural approximation of the player's sound may actually derive from an altogether different technical solution.  That's the difficulty and the great thing about working blind.
All best,
Johnm       

[waxwing]

The right hand techniques of the great Country Blues players are definitely far more difficult to suss out than the left hand moves without having seen them play, and in the main, it's where the different players' musical individuality resides.

The first part of that statement is self evident, of course, but I couldn't agree more with that last bit.

That's a good point about holding the distance between the thumb and the index finger at the moment of the strike, Johnm. I've worked on that very thing. And being able to make that distance be one, two or three strings apart, or following through with the finger to get a brush.

Wax

[uncle bud]

The real difference between this technique and using pinches is that the hand is not planted or resting on the guitar top but is moving up and down in a strumming motion as the thumb hits the alternating bass.

I think I should point out that I do not plant any finger ever, for any technique, on the guitar top. I don't play that way and never have. I can see why unplanting your hand might seem somewhat liberating for strumming of all types, but that's something I've been doing as long as I've been playing this music.

When I've seen someone do the Lemon tremelo (like I think Frankie) it's always been with a plant and brushing the string with the side of the finger, which is angled back toward the bridge. This is nothing like that, but then there's no bass in that.

The tremolo I do has no plant, and while there is a slight angle to the finger/hand, it's not what you seem to describe. As I recall Geremia doing it, it involves actually lifting the hand over the strings, with nothing planted, and fluttering the finger you choose back and forth over the string(s). Don't remember him planting it at all, though perhaps I'm wrong.

I also regularly do brush strokes with one or more fingers, up and down, so perhaps this is why I have not been getting what you are describing. But it still means that it comes down to one stroke we are talking about, that downstroke with the thumb and simultaneous downstroke with the finger. I still don't hear that but will listen some more. The distinction between the G, B and E strings being brushed up or brushed down on this stroke would be rather subtle, but the key, it seems, would be whether the high E string begins the simultaneous attack or comes after brushing the lower strings. I have always heard the former.

[waxwing]

The real difference between this technique and using pinches is that the hand is not planted or resting on the guitar top but is moving up and down in a strumming motion as the thumb hits the alternating bass.

I think I should point out that I do not plant any finger ever, for any technique, on the guitar top. I don't play that way and never have. I can see why unplanting your hand might seem somewhat liberating for strumming of all types, but that's something I've been doing as long as I've been playing this music.

I was speaking of myself, of course, since it was my experience of the difference that I was describing, but also generalizing for the benefit of others besides yourself. I rest the heel of the edge of my palm at the bass end of the saddle when in my "home" position for straight picking, as I've described before.

When I've seen someone do the Lemon tremelo (like I think Frankie) it's always been with a plant and brushing the string with the side of the finger, which is angled back toward the bridge. This is nothing like that, but then there's no bass in that.

The tremolo I do has no plant, and while there is a slight angle to the finger/hand, it's not what you seem to describe. As I recall Geremia doing it, it involves actually lifting the hand over the strings, with nothing planted, and fluttering the finger you choose back and forth over the string(s). Don't remember him planting it at all, though perhaps I'm wrong.

Well, I have only a dim memory of seeing Frank do it about 6 years ago, the first time I met him, so I could well be wrong about him as well?

I also regularly do brush strokes with one or more fingers, up and down, so perhaps this is why I have not been getting what you are describing. But it still means that it comes down to one stroke we are talking about, that downstroke with the thumb and simultaneous downstroke with the finger. I still don't hear that but will listen some more. The distinction between the G, B and E strings being brushed up or brushed down on this stroke would be rather subtle, but the key, it seems, would be whether the high E string begins the simultaneous attack or comes after brushing the lower strings. I have always heard the former.

I think an issue here is not so much being able to absolutely discern the sound by ear, as understanding that one's default picking style, what one considers the easiest way, and therefor, the most likely way to play something, may not be the default picking style of the player being transcribed. Having developed this technique, suggested by what I was hearing on several Patton songs, it presents itself, to me, as being easier and more fun to do, particularly allowing for greater speed, even when the audio output is not very different, per se, except for perhaps very small subtleties, like the alternating emphasis I mentioned above. My perception is that Patton was adept at this technique, and would therefore use it whenever he felt like, perhaps preferably over what today is considered the standard picking style, unless he wanted a sound that was only achievable with that style, which he was certainly adept at as well.

I believe others may have used this style equally as promiscuously. Not just when it can be proved by the sound, but most of the time when it can't be disproved.

Wax

[Jim67]

I know this topic is old as dirt, but Roy Book Binder was talking about Hacksaw Harney the other night. He and Woody Mann (who he was sharing an apartment with at the time) got to see Hacksaw. Woody got to see him a little more, as he was there when they recorded a couple of tape reels of Hacksaw. These tapes were at first thought unusable, due to a hum, but were later recovered and issued by Blue Goose, I believe. Book was very complimentary of the playing on this release. So, long story short: either Book or Woody would have had first-hand knowledge of Hack's playing. Oh, I think Book did a Hack song on a recording.

Here are a couple Hacksaw covers from YouTube: