Black History Month: Let's Talk About Black Guitarists

[bodia]

Ok, here are two guys EVERYONE has heard of:

Floyd Council

Pink Anderson

Wait, you say, "I've never heard of these guys?" Well, sure you have. Indirectly. A band from the early 60's called the Tea Set had to change their name because there was already another band around gigging with that name. One of the members was digging through his album collection and saw these two gentleman's names in the liner notes of a 1962 Blind Boy Fuller album. The text was written by a guy named Paul Oliver, and read, "Curley Weaver and Fred McMullen....Pink Anderson or Floyd Council - these were a few amongst the many blues singers that were to be heard in the rolling hills of the Piedmont, or meandering with the streams through the wooded valleys." He had found a new name for his band!

Whose album collection was it? Why, it was Syd Barrett's. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Pink Floyd got their name. So, you really have heard of two Piedmont blues players!

 

[alantig]

Rev. Gary Davis was mentioned earlier, but I don't remember if we had any actual samples.

This is my favorite Davis track, and was my real introduction to his music, through an instrumental cover version by a guy named Ernie Hawkins.

 

[bodia]

Funky time.....Jesse Johnson - best known as the guitarist in the original lineup of The Time.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Funky time.....Jesse Johnson - best known as the guitarist in the original lineup of The Time.

Love this guy.

 

[bodia]

Lonnie Johnson (with Willie Dixon on bass) - father of the guitar solo

Lonnie Johnson's early recordings are the first guitar recordings that display a single-note soloing style with use of string bending and vibrato. While it cannot be proven that this contains the influence of earlier players who did not record, it is the origin of blues and rock solo guitar. Johnson's influence is obvious in Django Reinhardt, T-Bone Walker and virtually all electric blues guitar players.

One of Elvis Presley's earliest recordings was a version of Johnson's blues ballad "Tomorrow Night", written by Sam Coslow and Will Grosz. Presley's vocal phrasing mimics Johnson's performance; and many of Presley's signature vibrato and baritone sounds can be heard in development. Tomorrow Night was also recorded by LaVern Baker; and in 1957 by Jerry Lee Lewis.

In the liner notes for Biograph, Bob Dylan describes his encounters with Johnson in New York City. "I was lucky to meet Lonnie Johnson at the same club I was working and I must say he greatly influenced me. You can hear it in that first record. I mean Corrina, Corrina...that's pretty much Lonnie Johnson. I used to watch him every chance I got and sometimes he'd let me play with him. I think he and Tampa Red and of course Scrapper Blackwell, that's my favorite style of guitar playing."[23] Also, Dylan wrote about the performing method he learned from Robert Johnson in Chronicles, Vol. 1. Dylan thinks Robert Johnson had learned a lot from Lonnie. Some of Robert's songs, as such, are seen as new versions of songs recorded by Lonnie.

 

[bodia]

Keepin' it funky....Roger Troutman. Founder of the Zapp band and talk-box pioneer. He helped spearhead the funk movement and influenced west coast hip hop which heavily sampled his music over the years. Sadly, he was a victim of a murder/suicide in which he was shot and killed by his brother, whose body was found with a self inflicted gunshot wound in his car not far from the scene of the fatal shooting.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Have we done Robert Randolph yet?

Damn, this guy is all kinds of rad....

 

[bodia]

Have we done Robert Randolph yet?

Damn, this guy is all kinds of rad....

Way back on page 2, post 33. But, he's cool enough to post twice. He actually caught all kinds of flack from the church for bringing that style out of the church. They apparently call it Sacred Steel. They being the church.

 

[PRSAK]

Alright...I've been waiting...but am going to throw this one in just because I have never personally seen/heard a cooler tribute performed in my life. Muddy Wolf band two years ago. What a band and even though JB took center stage, Kirk Fletcher (stage left) is one bad-azz guitar player in his own right. The reverence of the whole thing was just too cool not to post here. If you watch some of the youtube clips, most of them include performances or interviews by he "Originals" before turning back to Red Rocks. They did Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf proud!

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Way back on page 2, post 33. But, he's cool enough to post twice. He actually caught all kinds of flack from the church for bringing that style out of the church. They apparently call it Sacred Steel. They being the church.

Aww snap! I shoulda checked.

 

[bodia]

How about John Bigham. He's been with some high profile acts: Miles Davis, Everlast and Fishbone to name a few. He currently leads The Soul of John Black an alternative soul, blues, and rock duo with Christopher Thomas.

The Soul of John Black

Fishbone

 

[sergiodeblanc]

John played in my favorite period of Fishbone. Such a great band.

 

[Alan Manning]

Ouch!! What about Billy Preston?!!.

 

[veinbuster]

Ouch!! What about Billy Preston?!!.

I've been thinking of him, but assumed he just played keyboards, which I quite liked him for.

 

[PRSAK]

Tosin Abasi. Sergio nodded his hat to him in the very first post of the thread but no follow-on that I see. This is a guy that I've only recently become familiar with but, man, he is one talented cat and quite unique. I'm looking forward to catching one of the Generation Axe tour dates and see him play his new PRS 8-string! I suppose this clip illustrates his style as good as any. Great player.

 

[PRSAK]

And...if you ever want to learn the meaning of COOL....just watch Carmine Rojas (bass) perform sometime. He has laid down the groove for pretty much...uh...everyone.

WP says: "Carmine has also recorded, toured and played alongside Tina Turner, Keith Richards, Stevie Wonder, Ron Wood, Stevie Ray Vaughan, BB King, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Joe Bonamassa, Eric Johnson, Peter Frampton, Al Green, Carly Simon, Ian Anderson, Paul Rogers, John Waite, Steve Winwood, Billy Joel, Herbie Hancock, Lee Ritenour,[citation needed] Julian Lennon[2] (Musical Director/Bassist), John Hiatt, Carole King, Beth Hart, Bobby Womack, Sam Moore, Billy Squire, Olivia Newton-John, Michael Hutchence, Bernard Fowler, Blondie Chaplin, Billy Gibbons, Leslie West, Joe Lynn Turner, Carlos Santana, Todd Rundgren, Patti LaBelle, Nona Hendryx, Michael Bolton, Ivan Neville, Allen Toussaint, Phil Ramone, Kevin Shirley, Trevor Horn, Charlie Sexton, Jewel, Brandy, Dave Mason, Mike Patton, Glenn Hughes, Nektar, Tetsuya Komuro, Hitomi, Ziroq, Modern Primitives, Simranking, Sass Jordan and many others www.allmusic.com"

Now that's a freakin' resume! Jammin with Joe here:

 

[sergiodeblanc]

I would just like to say thank you to all of you who have contributed to and kept this thread going all month long. This is our little corner of the Earth and I'm so pleased to be able to share it in a loving and accepting way with you guys.

 

[Alan Manning]

Bassist's tend to fall under the radar quite undeservedly, here's one of many. Gail Ann Dorsey!!

 

[bodia]

Back to the cool name motif....Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner of The Ohio Players. Sadly passed away in 2013 at 69. As a 14 year old he ran away from home (1 of 14 kids in a poor household) in Hamilton, Ohio. He ended up in Dayton, where he connected with the musicians who would go on to form The Ohio Players. He's rockin' the double neck in this pearl from Midnight Special in 1975

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Oh no.. I feel a trip down The Midnight Special rabbit hole on youtube comin' on.