Hi all,I was always intrigued by the Lesley Riddle's Carter connection because I first came across him from this photo with Brownie McGhee:
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
here's a useful page about him:
http://toto.lib.unca.edu/sounds/piedmontblues/riddle.html