Having fooled with some Barbecue Bob stuff in Spanish, I'm just curious what material he does in Vestapol. It may be obvious when you specify, but nothing leaps to my tired mind at the moment (not that I'm doubting you, Frank - just curious).
Having fooled with some Barbecue Bob stuff in Spanish, I'm just curious what material he does in Vestapol. It may be obvious when you specify, but nothing leaps to my tired mind at the moment (not that I'm doubting you, Frank - just curious).
She's Coming Back Some Cold Rainy Day Atlanta Moan Diddle-Da-Diddle
pretty sure there are others... The spanish list is a lot longer, though, clearly!
Hi all, As per banjochris's find of "I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down", John Hurt falls into this category, with 2 slide pieces in Spanish and one in Vestapol. All best, Johnm
Hi all, Two other players who played slide in both Spanish and Vestapol were Blind Willie McTell and Sam Butler. Butler is a little bit unusual in that of his slide pieces, the three religious ones, "When The Saints Come Marching Home", "Christians Fight On, Your Time Ain't Long", and "Heaven Is My View", sound almost definitely to be played lap style, in Vestapol, and the secular slide pieces, "You Can't Keep No Brown", "Poor Boy Blues", (both in Spanish) and the two different versions of "Jefferson County Blues" (both in Vestapol) are all played with the guitar in the conventional position, and employ conventional fretting at some point in the course of the rendition. Butler was an incredibly intense and technical player and I've never heard anyone come close to capturing his slide sound in either position. His version of "When the Saints Come Marching Home" has a particularly odd sound, because he always resolves the melody to a I note at the fifth fret of the second string, with the slide barring at the fifth fret, playing a IV chord. He always either incidentally or intentionally hits the third string (it may just be ghosting), which re-enforces the impression that he is resolving the tune to the IV chord. His cuts can all be heard on the Document "Backwood Blues", DOCD-5036, which I believe is back in print after having been unavailable new for several years. He is definitely worth checking out if you've never heard his music--he was sensational. All best, Johnm
Hi all, I realized that another singular aspect of Sam Butler's phrasing of the melody of "When the Saints Go Marching Home" is that in the opening melodic phrase, "Oh, when the saints", in which the melody notes in the scale are I-III-IV-V, Butler chooses to phrase the entire melodic passage on the second string, at frets 5-9-10-12. He may be the only slide player I've heard who would choose to phrase those melody notes that way; almost everyone else would work off of the first string in Vestapol, finding the same notes at 0-4-5-7. I suspect that Butler preferred to phrase using barred notes only because he could inflect them more. You can't do anything with an open string in terms of giving it vibrato, etc. All best, Johnm
« Last Edit: October 12, 2008, 08:35:16 AM by Johnm »