Topic: Mance Lipscomb's "electric guitar is a fraud" quote - source?

[bnemerov]

Hi all,
Not to contradict others likes and dislikes, but let me say that when the book first came out I read it straight through and completely enjoyed it.
I "heard" Mance talking to me....of course I had the good fortune to hear him talking while he was alive.

I think Alyn made the right choice in leaving the autobiography in Mance's voice.
YMMV
best,
bruce

[banjochris]

Hi all,
Not to contradict others likes and dislikes, but let me say that when the book first came out I read it straight through and completely enjoyed it.
I "heard" Mance talking to me....of course I had the good fortune to hear him talking while he was alive.

I think Alyn made the right choice in leaving the autobiography in Mance's voice.
YMMV
best,
bruce

I never got to hear Mance live (he died when I was 3), but having heard him talk quite a bit on his albums, I agree with Bruce. I can see how the phonetics could be frustrating, but for me I too could "hear" Mance speaking.
Chris

[Rivers]

People are 50/50 split on the phonetic aspect of the book. As for me, I'm a hater.

Steve James and I were discussing it one year after Port T driving back to catch the ferry to Seattle. We were generally in agreement on its great content and awful presentation. He mentioned, straight faced, that he had heard that Elijah Wald had obtained the rights to translate the book into English. I laughed so hard I nearly crashed the car!

[sofingraw]

Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and I definitely know what you mean by 'hearing' Mance talk through the text.

However, I have yet to come across another book written this way, and it came off as contrived to me. I think maybe it was overdone.

I mean, honestly, 'Horse' was written as 'Hawss'

I can understand a country accent just fine. I think examples like that, and 'code' in place of chord, and 'cone' in place of corn don't help to
understand the text more clearly. They only seem to make Mance out to be illiterate and simple, which he was not.

The ain'ts and cain'ts, etc. weren't so bad, IMO, I would even say that I liked them.

Nonetheless, an excellent piece of history that we are very lucky to have, and I am personally grateful for. Thanks to Mance and Mr. Alyn for their time!

[Lyle Lofgren]

I wasn't as bothered by it as some people are, and more bothered than some others. It was hard to read, though. Standard spelling for most of the words would have helped (any of us who have talked to southerners know how a native would pronounce "corn" and "chord." But I think it's important to keep the rhythm and some of the more exotic words (including "parable"). Mark Twain was an expert at getting across the flavor of an accent without resorting to mis-spelling. Of course, there are very few Mark Twains around, and it's better to have this flawed book than no record at all of Lipscomb's story.

Lyle

[Mr.OMuck]

I unfortunately haven't read the book. It came and went before I could get a hold of it. So what's the big deal about the phonetic spelling? Didn't Faulkner indulge in it as well? And if every other book in the universe is written in standard speech and this one isn't, why is that a problem? It sounds like an interesting and appropriate device to me.

[harriet]

The

I unfortunately haven't read the book. It came and went before I could get a hold of it. So what's the big deal about the phonetic spelling? Didn't Faulkner indulge in it as well? And if every other book in the universe is written in standard speech and this one isn't, why is that a problem? It sounds like an interesting and appropriate device to me.

I can think of 2 things. First, I don't know if phonetic spelling would really capture or evoke the cadence, speed or volume which he talked -perhaps if you listened to some of the youtube interviews with him prior to reading, something like phonetic spelling would make more sense.

Secondly, Faulkner was both writing the characters as well as the dialogue, whereas Lipscomb was a real person.

I haven't read the book, I did hear him live.

[Mr.OMuck]

My hunch is that Faulkner was working with a pallet of real people whom he synthesized from one or more, plus his own imaginings. This writer's guess I think, which was probably correct, was that anyone picking up the book would already know and have heard Mance's voice.

[eric]

Having heard Mance speak (which is kind of like improvisational poetry if you ask me), I think the author made a reasonable attempt at capturing his speech.

Getting back to the electric guitar business, wasn't Mance playing electric locally for Saturday night dances when Chris Strachwitz found him? I am quite possible wrong, but that's what I recall.

[sofingraw]

Eric, to answer your question, I think he was indeed playing electric, and another poster mentioned that he would play electric, and has even recorded some
on electric guitar.

I think (I don't presume to speak for Mance, or anyone else) but I think, that the issue he seemed to have had with 'electric guitar', is not with the
instrument itself. Nore with how it was played. Simply playing an electric guitar is not what Mance seemed to be bothered with.

It was all the use of sustain and other cool sounds that can only be produced via an amp, and which were maybe credited (in his mind) to the player, where they
should have been credited to the technology.

It seems to me that he felt that his playing, and acoustic playing or acoustic 'style', or 'straight' playing as he may have said -in general- were worthy of the praise they got.
Whereas 'electric style' playing with long sustains and things like that should have a good amount of the credit going to the gadgets (amps, tone controls, pickups, etc.)

Of course, unless we can resurrect him to clarify, we won't know for sure. This is all my view on what he may have meant.

Summary: Acoustic-electric is different from 'electric'. Acoustic-electric seems to be no problem for Mance, in theory or in practice. Electric, not his cup of tea.

[harriet]

Researching  - Here's a Weenie Campbell thread with some youtubes of Mance playing electric:
http://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=4269.45