Topic: Country Blues Guitarists Who Habitually Used A Capo

[alyoung]

This puts me in mind of photographs of Sleepy John Estes with a makeshift capo, namely a pencil and a rubber band. This is one by Georges Adins on Stefan Wirz's site: https://www.wirz.de/music/estes/grafik/estes44.jpg

I tried it once, just for the hell of it, and it works surprising well (as long, I guess, as your fretboard isn't too curved; I used a Stella).

[waxwing]

William Brown. IIRC he was Standard capoed up 7 for Ragged and Dirty and maybe 2 or 3 for Mississippi Blues.

Wax

[Johnm]

Hi all,
A couple of other players who used capos a lot:
   * Arthur Crudup--his original recording of "Mean Old Frisco" was played in cross-note, and sounds in B flat.  That puts him with a capo at the sixth fret, assuming he was in cross-note at E.  Cross-note at D is implausible, because it would require a capo at the eighth fret, and much of the song's fretting happens at the seventh to the ninth fret relative to capo placement.  Most of Arthur Crudup's early recordings operate at close to that same pitch, to suit his high, bright singing voice.
   * Dan Pickett--a lot of his songs are in Vestapol or E position, standard tuning with a capo placed in the neighborhood of the fourth to sixth fret.
All best,
Johnm

[Rivers]

These are later players, I hope they're not too out of scope for the intent of this thread.

I saw John Cephas using a capo many times in performance with Phil. For fans of deep trivia it was blue Kyser last time I saw him play.

Brownie McGhee was no capophobe either, Google his name and bring up images, you can see shots of him capoed at 1 and 4, maybe more.

Same goes for Josh White Sr's later work. I don't know about his early playing though where there are few pics available and I have never tried to figure it out.

Yah Lindy, I was also in the room when Larry said that, to Dewey I seem to recall, and concur with your account. It might have been pure theater though; after all he was showing us Rev Gary Davis songs at the time!

Here's Brownie clamped at 4:

[Rivers]

As a side note, WRT to Charlie Patton, Alvin Youngblood Hart has, or had anyway, a theory that Patton used a 'false nut capo' on Boll Weevil Blues and proceeded to demo it on a Stella lap style. As I recall the false nut capo consisted of a nut made of tool steel, with a slot somehow milled or ground in the base of it that allowed him to slip it under the strings, directly over the fret at which he wanted to capo. Behind the false-capoed fret he had a 'real', elasticated capo to put downforce on the strings onto the false nut.

Sounded like Patton to me.

[later: thinking about it the false nut was actually a bone nut blank with a drill-steel blank glued into the top edge of the bone. The groove that slid over the fret was milled into the base of the bone nut]

[DerZauberer]

To the point of "you should learn to play in any key and anywhere on the fingerboard" ... theoretically that's correct. However... as we all know, there are certain licks/phrases/chord shapes that "need" a certain fingering. You need the open strings, resonance, etc.

Example 1: A classic Lightnin' Hopkins style blues, let's say in the A position - if you want to play that in B, you would just capo it up two frets, because again, you want to use the same open bass string sounds and treble runs. Theoretically, you could of course transpose the song into the B position, but you would lose a lot of the original. Here, the guitar to me is fundamentally different from e.g. the piano.

Example 2: Open tunings! If you're in open G, there's really not much of a point to play for example in A without a capo. Again, it's the open strings you want, their harmonic resonance/rattling, the bass note drone, and that big all-strings-open sound.

However... you'll still find those campfire songbooks where every song is transposed to basically use C, F, G and Am, even if the original was in a completely different key. And you'll find capo tables, telling you how to play in G using your basic open chord shapes. That changes the original song and is therefore "cheating".

Long story short: Many players had (and still have) their signature chord shapes, fingerings, licks, progressions, patterns. You could theoretically emulate these in a different key altogether, but it's just so much easier to us a capo to...
- reduce strain on your voice by moving the song to a more comfortable pitch to sing along with
- reduce strain on your fingers so you can focus on the vocal delivery rather than thinking about transposing
- make it easier for your harp player to play along with you
- you think it sounds better

And to my ear, that's exactly what the guys on many of the old records did (and continue to do).

[Mr.OMuck]

It's safe to say that almost ALL Blues players used a capo at one time or another. The one glaring exception was Gary Davis who viewed them with contempt and felt that "his people (students)" ought to be able to play in any key. Not coincidently he was one of the very few players who actually had the knowledge and skill and vocal range to do this, unlike most of us mere mortals.

[Lastfirstface]

Not Country Blues, but Muddy Waters seemed to be fairly reliant on a capo for a lot of his playing.

In the "no capo" camp: did Lonnie Johnson ever really capo? He seemed to be so capable at working out of jazzy, closed positions that he didn't really need it.

[chickenlegs]

I remember one of the guitar method books I had when first leaning to play had ? think it was a brief 1 page chapter titled "capo, boon or bane". It explained that jazz guitarist frown on its use and consider it a crutch, while folk guitarists use it to there advantage to get suitable vocal keys, open string chords, and licks that would be extremely difficult if not impossible without one. I've never hesitated to use one since. I think blues falls mostly in the folk camp. The easier question might be ? Who never used one?

[Johnm]

Hi all,
Robert Petway was pitched such that he almost definitely used a capo on every one of his recordings.
All best,
Johnm

[Rivers]

Memphis Minnie is capoed up in Spanish on several recordings, sometimes quite high up the neck. Call The Fire Wagon and Pigmeat On The Line come immediately to mind but there are many.

[Guitar Jim]

All guitar players use a capo.

Can ya see that little white thing with 6 grooves in it?  It sits on the neck of the guitar about 1 1/2 inches before the 1st fret? Well, that's a capo (a 'permanent' capo). It does exactly what any other capo does, except it's in a fixed position.

Now don't you dare call me a nut.

[Johnm]

The whole point of a capo is that it is moveable.  The nut is not a capo.