I woke up and remember having to go into my room to get some clothes or something out of my chest of drawers. I was very quiet, as I could hear Rev snoring and didn't want to wake him. Well, I got whatever it was and I was headed toward the door when I heard in a commanding voice,"Don't move or you're dead!". I turned around to see Rev with a .38 revolver in his hand pointed in my general direction, but sort of moving around so as to cover a wider target area. I remember screaming something to the effect of, "No--don't shoot." Rev replied, "One wrong move and you're dead." Well, then I started talking a mile a minute..."Rev, it's me, it's Barry, don't shoot Rev...I was only getting something from my chest of drawers..." Finally, Rev said, "Is that you, Barry?" The incident was soon over, and I had escaped with me life. I guess, from his perspective, it must have been kind of weird to be alone, blind, on the road 3,000 miles from home and rooming with a bunch of lunatic young musicians many years his junior. But to this day, the picture of Reverend Gary Davis that sticks in my mind the most is early in the morning, half-awake and blind as a bat, with a .38 in his hand pointed in my general direction. It was one of the most frightening moments of my life - Barry Melton
Hi all, Let's slightly relax the requirement of having recorded a lot of numbers in the position/tuning for this playing position and just say, "showed notable skill/facility in the position". With that slight change in characterization, for F position in standard tuning I'd select: * Rev. Gary Davis * Leadbelly
That's a great point about William Moore, Chris, I'd say that qualifies him as a specialist in F position, standard tuning. And that's a great choice of Snooks Eaglin for F position, Wax. I think he might be the most thoroughly fluent of anyone who recorded songs in that position, including Rev. Davis. I was torn two ways on Walter Vincent, since he really used F position only in a back-up capacity, and never used it for a solo guitar accompaniment in which he was also playing melody, for example. But in thinking more about it, he did utilize the position a lot, and had moves, especially for Bb, which weren't obvious, so it seems to me that he does qualify as a stylist there. And maybe we should relax the definition of a stylist for F position anyway, since so relatively few players recorded in it at all. All best, Johnm
Hi all, Virgil Childers had two songs out of his six released, "The Preacher and the Bear" and "Traveling Man", in F position in standard tuning. All best, Johnm