The exotic scent of the slide guitar first wafted up from the Mississippi Delta back in the early 1900s. The sound was all liquid, and haunting, not at all the familiar chunk-a-chunk strumming guitar we know now, and just a little bit dangerous, too.
A knife blade pressed against the strings, or maybe a bottle neck, and in later years a glass pill bottle or steel socket wrench all provided the slippery surface and resulting portamento that gave the slide guitar its personality. Players such as Robert Johnson, Son House and Elmore James will forever be associated with the development of the slide guitar in American music.
In January, CBC Vancouver hosted a Slide Guitar Summit, featuring three masters of the technique, Sonny Landreth, Colin Linden and Steve Dawson. On Thursday, April 11 at 7 p.m., Radio Two's Canada Live will broadcast the entire concert. To help you get in the mood, we've assembled some of the coolest examples of slide guitar from the worlds of blues and rock.
First, check out guitarist Jack White building and demoing a crude, but effective, slide guitar called a diddley bow, which in name sounds like the reverse of a famous guitar-playing entertainer. But this simple, single-string slide guitar predates Bo Diddley by many decades, tracing its lineage back to pre-slavery era Ghana.
Here's Canadian slide guitar maven Steve Dawson, employing his uncommonly stellar technique on some common household objects. Blackberry lovers, did you think your beloved Canadian-designed phone would ever be put into such direct musical service? We are calling this video an "extreme slide guitar demo." And it all goes down in 60 seconds or less!
Musicians love the sound of the slide guitar for many reasons, including the fact that it mimics the human voice as well as any instrument. A good slide player gets his axe to cry and moan. Check out Steve Miller's slide-generated cat calls on his classic song, "The Joker."
Back in the '60s and '70s when blues-inspired rockers, many from the U.K., were injecting the blues into their own work, the slide cropped up in songs by Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers, Foghat, George Harrison, Badfinger, Joe Walsh, Stompin' Tom Connors and others.
Arguably the all-time greatest slide guitar statement in pop and rock music comes to us from Eric Clapton, in his song "Layla," recorded when he was part of the short-lived band Derek and the Dominos.
In recent years, Clapton has developed the now consistently sold-out Crossroads Festival into one of the most admired public worship sessions for a musical instrument ever conceived. Featuring some of the most gifted guitarists anywhere, Slowhand lets loose with his next two-day, guitar-fuelled extravagance on April 12 and 13 at Madison Square Gardens.
In the lineup is Louisiana-based slide guitarist Sonny Landreth, a man whom Clapton calls "probably the most underestimated musician on the planet, and also probably one of the most advanced." Clapton has invited Landreth to all four editions of Crossroads, and CBC Music was thrilled to land Landreth for the recent Slide Guitar Summit. He was joined by Nashville-based Canadian slider Colin Linden and Vancouver's own Steve Dawson.
Here they are, playing together on Landreth's song about a musical meeting place in New Orleans called "Congo Square."
Check out all six featured Slide Guitar Summit videos on CBC Music and be sure to tune into Canada Live to hear the whole concert on April 11 at 7 p.m. on CBC Radio Two.
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