Interested in learning more about slide guitar players? Check out these masters of the style:
Elmore James (1918-1963): In the 1950s, James was billed as the King of the Slide Guitar. He wasn't the best to ever play the instrument, but he did more to popularize the slide in the world of electrified music than anyone else. His acoustic, hollow-body guitar was modified as an electric instrument and his soaring slides created an unmistakable style. He not only influenced fellow blues players, but he left a heavy legacy for such blues rockers as George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Duane Allman and George Thorogood.
Lowell George (1945-1979): The founder of Little Feat was a unique musician, who played guitar differently and whose voice was distinctively soulful. Part of that may be because he pulled his music from blues, country, jazz, rock and funk. His slide guitar could send shivers up your spine – and often did. Nobody before or since really replicates his sound, which he obtained by using a Sears, Roebuck and Co. socket wrench for a guitar slide.
Jeremy Spencer (1948-): From 1967 to 1970, Jeremy Spencer slashed away with his slide guitar as fiercely as anyone. Spencer joined Mick Fleetwood and Peter Green in a blues band that would eventually become known as Fleetwood Mac. For its day, his slide raced with fearless abandon, borrowing heavily from Elmore James, but with a recklessness that was pure 1960s. Spencer left Fleetwood Mac in 1970; a 2006 comeback CD, “Precious Little,” shows that his slide playing has lost its bite and is now gentle.
Blind Willie Johnson (1897-1945): Texan Willie Johnson wasn't born blind and no one seems to know what age he went blind, but it must have been a frightening experience. Blind Willie Johnson sang and played chilling blues and spirituals on the streets, eventually attracting enough attention that he made his first records in the 1920s. Johnson's slide coaxed a haunting sound off his guitar strings that sounded like a human voice – and it was always a human voice in distress. There were other Johnsons better known in the early days of the blues – Robert Johnson and Lonnie Johnson – but Blind Willie's sound is as dark as anything in recorded history.
Derek Trucks (1979-): Sure, Derek Trucks is the nephew of Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks and is a disciple of slide guitarist Duane Allman, but he stands alone as a slide player. He was encouraged and tutored by the older members of the Allman Brothers and finally joined the band, but it is his curiosity and intellect that have helped distinguish his slide work as among the best of all time. Only 29, Trucks listens to jazz visionaries John Coltrane and Charlie Parker, which not only has broadened his approach to blues-rock, but sparked an intense drive to create with his slide guitar.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
The Sonny Landreth/David Lindley concert at the Museum of Making Music Saturday night is already sold out, but there are more slide performances at the Carlsbad museum in the month ahead:
Nov. 1: N. Ravikiran, an Indian Chitravina guru
Nov. 19: Martin Simpson, English folk artist
Jan. 10: Bob Brozman, Hawaiian and world fusion guitarist
Feb. 7: Cindy Cashdollar, country steel guitarist
March 7: Freddie Roulette, blues lap steel guitarist, and Henry Kaiser, free improviser
