Topic: The loping slide-elide

[Mr.OMuck]

One of my favorite things to hear a guitar player do is what I've come to call the Loping Slide-Elide. Its when instead of hitting a note straight on the player begins on a lower fret and slides up to the intended note giving a lot of emphasis to the slide. Big Bill did this all the time to great effect giving his music a Loping, movin' along quality that really grabs me. Authur Pettis does this too, and so does Lemon, although he's more apt to distinguish the two notes. Scrapper Blackwell and Lonnie Johnson both have instances in their music, but I'm curious as to who else employed the LSD (Loping Slide-Elide) regularly in their stuff. Any ideas?

[Prof Scratchy]

Would William Brown's backing on Broke and Hungry qualify?

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[Mr.OMuck]

What CD is it on? Most of mine are still in storage.

[waxwing]

Actually, William called it Ragged and Dirty, so as not to give away that it was the Sleepy John song he was covering, perhaps. Here it is on YouTube, improperly attributed to Willie Brown as usual.



Wax

[Stuart]

I believe the song is actually titled "Ragged and Dirty" and is on the Library of Congress album "Negro Blues and Hollers." Here's a link to the liner notes (in PDF) from the LP:

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/LP/AFSL59_BluesandHollers.pdf

Edited to add: Wax posted his reply with the Youtube link while I was working on my post, so I went back and deleted the YT link. I was surprised to see that the CD is out of print, but I guess I shouldn't be. There are a couple up on eBay for around $20, if you don't own it already. (Amazon is another story, however.)

P.S. "LSD" or "LSE"??

[Prof Scratchy]

So, anyway, does it qualify?

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[waxwing]

Stuart, I have it on this Rounder issue, which is still available:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000JMD7/ref=dm_ws_ps_cdp?ie=UTF8&qid=1409957099&s=music&sr=8-2

Wax

[Stuart]

Thanks, Wax. I missed the Rounder CD on Amazon. I picked up the LoC LP back in the early 70s and the CD later on, so I'm covered, but I wish the LoC would keep their recordings available with a CD on demand service like Smithsonian-Folkways offers.

Rounder had an "On Demand" service for some of their titles, but I'm not sure if that's still the case since they were absorbed by Concord. Here's the Rounder page:

http://www.rounder.com/2011/03/albums/negro-blues-and-hollers

[Johnm]

"Ragged and Dirty" sounds like it qualifies to me, Scratchy.  How about Geeshie Wiley's verse accompaniment on "Eagle's On A Half", Edward Thompson's "Seven Sisters Blues" and Mance Lipscomb's "'Bout A Spoonful"?
All best,
Johnm

[waxwing]

This brings up an interesting point. You call it a slide-elide, Phil, but does it necessarily imply that the player is sliding a finger up one or more frets, or could it be accomplished with a hammer-on or a bend? When you slide up a finger you still get a halftone step at the point that the finger pushes the string down enough to contact the next fret, sounding very much like a hammer-on. Sure, sliding more than one fret produces one or more half-step tones in between, and done quickly creates a sliding feel. To actually get a sound that slides through the infinite microtones between the two half-tones, either a bar, bottleneck, or a bend, is necessary.

Having fooled around with Ragged and Dirty, I felt his elides could be accomplished either by sliding a finger or hammer-ons, it was really more in the right hand strike and the timing. And Pettis, in Good Boy Blues, I think is doing a triple hammer-on into his C, at least, that's how I play it. I'm not sure there's a difference, but perhaps I get a strong tone on the final root note from a sharp hammer-on.

But if bends fit the bill that would open it up to things like Patton's Green River Blues and many more?

Possibly I don't really know what you mean.

Wax

[Johnm]

Hi Wax,
There are many slides in which the only pitch heard is the one at the fret at which the slide concludes; neither the pitch of the fret at the point of origin of the slide nor the pitches associated with any intervening frets are heard as pitches.  All that is heard is the articulation and motion of the slide and the pitch where it ends up.  I believe that is what Phil was talking about, but I may be wrong.
All best,
Johnm

[Mr.OMuck]

Right as BBB  begins to sing. Ragged and dirty sure is a beauty but its not the thing I mean.

[Johnm]

Are you talking about the way he gets into the C note at the third fret of the fifth string, Phil?  Sounds like a double rolled hammer from index at first fret to second finger at second fret to third finger at the third fret.  I don't hear a slide at all there.
All best,
Johnm

[waxwing]

Yes, Johnm, that is exactly what I was asking about in my post above in Good Boy Blues, altho' I think it's a triple hammer-on from the open string. When I was working this out (to the best of my memory as this was some years ago) I could almost get the same sound with a very controlled slide, but it was awkward either starting the slide at the nut or hammering on at the first fret and sliding to the third, and all with my weaker ring finger to end in a C chord, as the note sustains. I felt the triple hammer-on was the best way to play it, for me.

Boy, I had never heard how closely BBB's playing sounds like Pettis. Here's a YT of Good Boy Blues:


There are also several places where both players, it seems, do a slide (or hammer-on) from 3rd to 4th fret followed by the open string which also gives the feel that you might be talking about, Phil. Pettis does it from the 4th string to the open G in the intro and from the 6th string to the open A, going into a seeming Am7 that he substitutes for the I chord behind the vocal and I think into a lick in F in the outro solo. I play these all with 1 fret slides as doing a hammer-on takes my hand out of position, but the sound is pretty much the same if the timing is right, to me.

Thanks for getting me back to this song, which I haven't played in a while.

Wax

[Mr.OMuck]

Hmm. I'm definitely hearing two slides of brief duration right in front of the vocal, but then i have it in my head that they're slides, could very well be something else I suppose. Broonzy and Pettis are a school unto themselves it seems. When I first heard Pettis I just assumed he'd gotten his style from Big Bill, but i don't know. Are there any others who play like this? None that I can think of. Which raises the question, did they know each other and who came first?