Slide On, Slide Away

 

A good friend of mine, Ruben Hilbers, has been needling me about not posting on my blog. In a fit of pique, he's begun posting things about music on his own blog. He's a great guy, and very prolific on numerous topics, most especially Sci-Fi fan fiction. You should check out his stuff: https://xanthi-rising.blogspot.com/2021/12/another-musical-post.html?spref=tw

Anyway, here's my response:

~

You would think I would be good at sliding. Grew up in rural New Hampshire riding sleds, snowmobiles, and learned to drive in the snow in big, American rear-wheel-drive cars.

Not the case, I'm afraid. I think playing slide guitar is actually more like skiing, which I never learned to do. Should have, too, having worked at Loon Mountain and Mittersill ski areas for several years. But skiing has eluded me, as has playing slide guitar. It does make sense, though, because listening to a good slide player is like watching Jean-Claude Killy carve a hill.

As much as I love slide guitar, I have to admit I don't really like very many slide guitar players. Most of them . . . Let's put our cards on the table for a minute, shall we? Rory Gallagher, Johnny Winter, Derek Trucks, George Thorogood, Gary Rossington; I love their music, hands down, no question. But as slide players, they each leave a lot to be desired. In each case, their playing without a slide on their finger is much better. You may now strike me with heavy objects.

And don't get me wrong, there are plenty of very good slide players out there. Roy Rogers, for instance; not the singing cowboy, Dale Evans' husband, rides Trigger. No, the blues musician who, last I knew, recorded on Blind Pig records. Check him out. Warren Hayes, of Gov't Mule and later Allman Bros, is also very good. Along with just about everybody on YouTube who demonstrates slide, and does it 10 times better than I do.

Basically, if you want to hear slide done right – in my humble opinion – there are five people you need to go to. The first three, I refer to as:

The Triumvirate

These are, in no particular order; Joe Walsh, Bonnie Raitt, and Duane Allman.

Joe Walsh has stated that Duane Allman taught him to play slide, which makes sense. Mr. Walsh has got a beautiful, liquid tone, and in his 1970s glory days used a lot of phase shifter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x4El47O8Zs

In this clip from 1975, he's using a metal slide on a Les Paul. In more recent ones, he seems to have switched to a glass slide. Either way, he's pretty consistent about keeping it on his middle finger, which is NOT what the teachers normally recommend.

He also doesn't seem to take a lot of care about muting his strings, which is also highly recommended. I'm guessing, since there aren't a lot of notes bleeding in from the other strings, that he might be muting with his picking hand. Even so, with all those things in his style that are supposed to be mistakes, the tone is simply beautiful. He's not fast or flashy, but the notes ring out nice and clear. He's got beautiful timing sweeping into and out of notes. Overall, just a really good player.

Duane Allman is widely regarded as the greatest slide player of all time, and it's hard to disagree. (Although, I do, later on.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezPZxfS1jys

It's been tough to find anything on YouTube that really shows Duane playing slide. There are a number of videos from that era of the Allman Brothers, but they're not very well done. So I picked this one, because it has a lot of good photographs of him playing. And the audio is from the Live At Fillmore East album, which is an all-time classic. Remember, the Allman Brothers Band was only around for about two years before he died, and had only become really popular for a few months before his untimely death, so there isn't much film on their early days.

There are a lot of instructional videos that go deep into his style and techniques. They are definitely worth a look if you're interested in a master class on slide. One of the things he's famous for is his use of a Coricidin bottle for slide. It's a cold medicine that used to come in a small glass bottle. Soon after, they switched to plastic bottles, but the Jim Dunlop company makes a replica called the Blues Bottle. I've got one. Not that it's doing me any good.

According to his Wikipedia page, he liked using a Gibson SG for slide, although film from an Allman's concert shows him playing slide on a Les Paul. He used the slide on his ring finger. It's also said by several sources that he would play in open tunings, as well as standard. Again, no obvious muting with the left hand, so maybe he muted with his right.

I have to say, Duane Allman is one of my all-time favorite guitar players. I could do a very long piece on him, and may one day, but for the sake of this essay I'll just keep to his slide playing.

Bonnie Raitt is a hero of mine, regardless of her guitar playing. She's the daughter of professional musicians who got into the blues at an early age. I haven't seen it documented anywhere, but the word going around at the time was that she would look up the old blues players and help them out. Sippie Wallace is on at least one of her early recordings, for instance.

There was a story that one time she ran into either Mississippi Fred McDowell or Mississippi John Hurt washing dishes in a restaurant, but that likely is apocryphal as I've found no documentation of it. Still, that story got around about her because she was known to champion forgotten folk and blues musicians. She has stated that some of these musicians taught her to play guitar, which I can easily believe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpTOVnd-9gA

This is a live vid of a song called “Gnawin' On It” featuring Roy Rogers, who I mention in the beginning of this piece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krF6LpUXODc&list=TLPQMTExMjIwMjHZuCnV_fj3eg&index=5

Yeah, I know, it's a music video, she ain't really playing. Still, it's a good video of a great song, and in miming and lip-synching to the recorded track, she does show a little of her chops. The live version is excellent. She's playing with a thumb pick and muting with her index finger, the slide on her middle finger.

Every picture I've ever seen of her, she's got what appears to be the same green bottleneck. She ain't flashy, but she don't have to be. Bonnie Raitt is an example of a player who can say a lot with one note. I also like this video because Dennis Quaid is one of my favorite actors, kind of a poor-man's Dustin Hoffman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW9Cu6GYqxo

I include this one because Bonnie is also one of my favorite singers. Say what you will, but if you don't like this performance, you have no heart to break.

I know I've gone a little far in presenting Ms. Raitt, but she is the only one of the three mentioned above of whom there is a sizable library of video showing her playing. There's probably quite a bit more of Joe Walsh, but Duane Allman is sadly under-documented. It's worth your while to dig around.

The Two

This is it, the two greatest slide guitarists of all time, period.

Ry Cooder: This guy has just flat-out done it all. He should be given a permanent residence at the Smithsonian Institution because he is a true national treasure. And that would be true if he'd never put a slide on his finger.

Having said that, his recorded output is a mixed bag. Some of it, I find downright unlistenable. His tastes are all over the map; hell, all over the globe, literally. He's probably best known these days for Buena Vista Social Club, which documents a trip he made to Cuba to jam with a mess of famous Cuban musicians from the pre-Castro days.

His other best-known albums by the general public are A Meeting By the River with V. M. Bhatt, a Hindustani classical musician, and Talking Timbuktu with African musician Ali Farka Toure. Early on, Ry was a member of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, featured on the Safe As Milk album. He can also be heard on the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed.

His own recorded output includes excursions into gospel, calypso, (Into the Purple Valley) ragtime, vaudeville, (Jazz) folk, (Paradise and Lunch) '50's R&B, (Bop 'Til You Drop, which was also the first album ever to be recorded digitally) Tex-Mex, Hawaiian, (Chicken Skin Music and Showtime) and, of course, blues. And that doesn't even begin to get into his movie soundtracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8TSo3fjzZ8&list=TLPQMTExMjIwMjHZuCnV_fj3eg&index=7

I believe this is from the soundtrack to the movie “Crossroads,” which starred Ralph Macchio and Joe Seneca. I love this movie, because it's a blues song writ large; campy, overblown, and beautiful. Macchio was schooled on how to appear to be playing guitar by Arlen Roth, and they did an excellent job. In fact, in this scene his playing looks fine, but this rich tone, dripping in reverb and tremolo, was supposedly being done on a Telecaster through a Pignose amp. Of course, only a guitar player would have noticed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD4o3VDnftI&list=TLPQMTExMjIwMjHZuCnV_fj3eg&index=8

This is it; the famous guitar duel from the same movie. Jack Butler vs. Eugene whatever Ralph Macchio's character was named. Except Butler is really Steve Vai, and Eugene is mimicking what Ry Cooder played in the studio. The duel is over Willie Brown's (Joe Seneca's) soul, with Vai representing the devil. In the movie, it's made to appear that Vai/Butler wins, until Eugene breaks out some bitchin' classical chops. Y'see, he's a Julliard student who … aw, watch the damned movie.

Okay, no disrespect to Vai, but COODER WON THE DUEL! Before the classical bit, which Vai actually played. But I don't care, dammit, Cooder had already won. Drop the mic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcbW8DmTvKs&list=TLPQMTExMjIwMjHZuCnV_fj3eg&index=9

Now, a lot of people believe that you have to set up a guitar almost like a lap steel, with ridiculously high action, to be able to really play slide on it. Shoot, Ry's using a capo on this tune. (That means, the action is low enough that the intonation isn't changed when he capos on a higher fret. With high action, it would be horribly out of tune.) There's a really good version of this song on the soundtrack album for the movie “Cocktail,” but here, you can see the man play.

He's really one of the few great slide players that are actually doing the things a guitar teacher will tell you to do; slide on the pinky, muting with the other three fingers. He's also using what looks like a standard-issue Dunlop glass slide. But check that guitar out! Definitely not a Strat as Leo imagined it. I remember reading about the pickups he put in it, don't remember what they were, but WOO!

Let's get one thing out of the way right now; don't matter what guitar you use. Good slide playing ain't gonna happen because you got a guitar like your hero's got. Ry uses a bastard Strat in this, who knows what in other settings. Duane used an SG or Les Paul, Bonnie likes Strats but plays all kinds of things, Joe likes Pauls and Strats and whatever, Roy Rogers usually uses that crappy little acoustic guitar with a humbucker in the soundhole.

DON'T MATTER! It's all in the fingers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TatIF6WhxM8&list=TLPQMTExMjIwMjHZuCnV_fj3eg&index=11

I don't even know if there's any slide on this, it's just a great song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InQMhyDHhJ8&list=TLPQMTExMjIwMjHZuCnV_fj3eg&index=12

Ry live on TV somewhere. There's a killer version of this on his first live album, Showtime. Here, you get to see what he's doing, and what he's doing it with. Gray glass bottleneck (although I remember reading that he sometimes uses a metal slide, depending on what he wants for a tone. I could be mistaken, though) on the pinky, muting the strings, no picks on his fingers, and that Martin guitar is to die for. A D-41, I think. I played one once. It begged me to put it back, because I wasn't worthy.

Sonny Landreth: IF there's a better slide guitar player than Ry Cooder – and that's a big IF – it is this gentleman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pdpJuX1gDE&list=TLPQMTExMjIwMjHZuCnV_fj3eg&index=13

No less than Eric Clapton has called Sonny Landreth the most advanced guitar player on the planet. Like Cooder, Landreth has played with everyone under the sun. Unlike Cooder, he remains distinctly himself. Cooder goes all over the map and is able to blend in with anybody. Sonny don't blend. He jumps out of the speakers like a runaway freight train.

This is an excellent video because it shows pretty much the whole bag of tricks with nothing to distract; from the Dumble amp, to the floor full of pedals, (There's an excellent Rig Rundown video from Premier Guitar magazine on his setup) to the magical finger gymnastics, all served up with a heaping helping of Louisiana hot sauce.

And let's get one thing straight, right out of the gate; Sonny ain't no blues player. He can play the blues, and just about anything, but his roots are in Zydeco. He got his start playing with Clifton Chenier. Zydeco, btw, is something worth your while to look into. Besides Chenier, there's Queen Ida, Boozoo Chavis, Buckwheat Zydeco, the Subdudes, Beausoleil, and a whole world of wild, crazy music to get into. If you're gonna lump Sonny in with anybody, think Dr. John.

People who write magazine articles are finally coming around and referring to his style as Slideco. For decades (he turned 70 this year) people have lumped him in with blues because he plays slide. He smiles, takes it, and moves on. A true gentleman, by all accounts.

Every couple of years he shows up in Guitar Player magazine, often on the cover, and they pick apart his style once again. The thing that seems to amaze everyone is that he frets notes behind the slide. You have to remember that, like most of these great players, he doesn't jack the action way up. He has such a delicate touch with the slide that he puts it on the string and then frets a note behind it, and there's enough room between the slide and the frets that the note rings out clearly. Try it, I dare you.

That blows me away, for sure. But so does all the other stuff he does with all the fingers of his right hand. He's a freakin' orchestra! Segovia would like to have his right-hand technique. (For you non-guitarists, Google it.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIky9KbaWc4&list=TLPQMTExMjIwMjHZuCnV_fj3eg&index=15

The artist that Sonny has probably worked with the most is John Hiatt, who just happens to be one of the great songwriters of the last 50 or so years, right up there with Dylan, Neil Young, John Prine, and a couple Englishmen named Lennon and McCartney. Among other things, he wrote one of Bonnie Raitt's big hits, Thing Called Love. He bills his back-up band as The Goners, but it's Sonny's regular band. He's only on a couple of Hiatt's albums but has toured with him extensively. In live videos, Hiatt has made it clear he knows how lucky he is to have a musician of Sonny's caliber backing him up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEhGBb2gvGI&list=TLPQMTExMjIwMjHZuCnV_fj3eg&index=18

I read a review of a Sonny Landreth album once in which the writer took him to task for not being a good singer or songwriter. Excuse me? I think he's excellent at both. In fact, I would go as far as to say that they would still be good albums if they did not include his guitar playing.

For a primer on his solo work, I recommend the albums “South of I-10,” “Outward Bound,” and “Levee Town.” All his other stuff is good, too, and very consistently so, but I consider these his best work.

One thing that becomes readily apparent at first blush is that he is very proud of being from the Mississippi bayou country, deep in the South of Louisiana. It's the central theme of most of his songs, from “Congo Square,” to “This River,” “Bayou Teche,” “USS Zydecoldsmobile,” and on and on.  Port of call, Opelousas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpydHh4MK8Y&list=TLPQMTExMjIwMjHZuCnV_fj3eg&index=19

The studio version of this song is better, IMHO, but this shows a lot of his technique. He likes open tunings, although there are some songs he does in standard tuning. He even occasionally records songs on which he doesn't play slide, but rarely more than one or two per album. He also wears the guitar quite high on his chest, which gives him a lot more control over what he's doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GfVNFEV3No&list=TLPQMTExMjIwMjHZuCnV_fj3eg&index=20

A studio version of a song for you here. This really makes his Zydeco roots jump out. Listen to that drum beat. That is not the blues. Just break out a bottle of fine gulpin' wine, and raise Cain!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35fC8VWp8nY&list=TLPQMTExMjIwMjHZuCnV_fj3eg&index=24

The first Sonny album I ever bought was “Outward Bound.” This was my exposure to someone that I'd read about for a long time, but had never heard. My mind is still blown.

~

If you've gotten this far, you may be interested in digging a little deeper. Two names I would recommend you investigate for the history of slide guitar are the two Johnsons; Robert and Blind Willie. (They are not related.) Both have been referred to as the best by such people as Ry Cooder, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and many others. It's also worth checking out players like Son House, Charlie Patton, and Tampa Red. For early electric slide go to Muddy Waters, Robert Nighthawk, Earl Hooker and Elmore James, among others.

Now, if you're sitting there wondering, where's David Lindley on your list? Or Cindy Cashdollar, or Jerry Douglas? Ahem, excuse me, but those people play Dobro or lap steel, not slide guitar. They may be able to do that, but it's not what they're known for. And if I'm not mistaken, they would be the first to explain that what they do is a different discipline from any of the people named above.

The origins of slide guitar fade into the mists of history, mostly coming from a people about whom there is little history written. Back before music could be recorded, it was made by people with whatever instruments were available. An easy way to play guitar was to tune it to an open chord and lay a metal bar, a knife, the broken-off neck from a bottle, or the bone from a ham across the strings. It was even common to string a piece of baling wire between two nails driven into a wooden fence and change the note by sliding one of these things up and down it while plucking the string. That's known as a Diddley-bo, by the way.

Around the turn of the last century, in the early days of recording, Hawaiian music became popular. Thousands, even millions, of guitars were sold to people who wanted to make the weeping, wailing sounds that magically transported them to the South Sea islands. The first electric guitars were lap steels. This craze and the early blues slammed into each other like a runaway freight train. Aloha, baby.

Most great slide players usually play slide almost exclusively. Joe Walsh is the exception on this list, but he does play a lot of slide. Bonnie and Duane played a lot of standard guitar, but slide is more prominent in both cases. Ry and Sonny rarely play any other way.

Andres Segovia, the great classical guitarist, once said that the guitar is the easiest instrument to play badly. You too can play slide guitar, which is even easier. Take a guitar and tune it to an open chord. If you don't know how, go bug a guitar player. If you don't know one, just turn those little knobs on the end of the neck until it sounds musical. Then lay something hard on the strings and pluck away. There, you're a musician!