Thursday, November 16, 2006

20 top slide guitarists

If you want some inspiration for your slide playing, check out the playing of these guys:-

Mississippi Fred McDowell
Robert Johnson
Bukka White
Son House
Muddy Waters
Blind Willie Johnson
Elmore James
Hound Dog Taylor
Homesick James
Taj Mahal
Bonnie Rait
Johhny Winter
Ry Cooder
Rory Gallagher
Duane Allman
Chris Rea
Jeremy Spencer (early Fleetwood Mac)
George Thorogood
David Gilmour
Joe Walsh

Read about these and more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Slide_guitarists

Be sure to check out my other posts regularly here at :-
http://www.smojo-cigar-box-guitars.blogspot.com/

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi david, my wife just bought me a cigar box guitar, and in the process of looking she came across your blog and forwarded it to me. i love playing it. so much fun. your blog is really good. i just wanted to add a couple of notable slide guitarists to your already fantastic roster, if thats okay. tampa red, for one. and for someone a bit more recent, jack white. if you've ever seen the white stripes version of son house's 'death letter' on 'live under blackpool lights' you'd know why i say so. also, there is a compilation cd from the national reso-phonic guitar co. that has a bunch of good slide players. okay, i'm off to check out your website. keep up the good work. jake.

Anonymous said...

oh, also, i loved the post about the blues being the devils music. that was quite a highly regarded opinion back then. son house thought that just touching a guitar was sinful. lucky for us he came to terms with that little issue. if you ever watched 'searcing for robert johnson' there is this super old women from the delta talking about how evil and in league with the devil the blues are/were. funny. jake.

David said...

Jake - nice to hear from you and ancouraging comments. CBG's are a helluva lot of fun and far more versatile than you'd expect. I'm familiar with both names you mentioned but not their music. Son Houses "Death Letter" is one of my favourite numbers. I have him on DVD playing that when he was quite old. The emotion and angst he portrays makes you want to weep!

Anonymous said...

david, i know what you mean about son house. i also have a couple of dvd performances. i'm not sure what you have but here are the one's i have, because they are definitely worth checking out. first, "the american folk blues festival vol. 3". it also has an amazing skip james performance of "all night long" on it. son house does "death letter". second, "son house & bukka white: masters of the country blues." very good. son house does "john the revelator" with just him clapping. and seeing bukka play "po' boy" with a butter knife is worth the price of admission. the sound quality isn't amazing, but it's good enough for capturing the power of these giants. both dvd's can be found on amazon if your interested. also, another incredible slide player, bob brozman. take care david. jake.

David said...

Cheers Jake I'll check them out. The piece I have is on a Stefan Grosman DVD I think?

Anonymous said...

What about George?

David said...

Do you mean Harrison? Yeah he's OK but not one of my top 20. I do rate him highly as a great musician but as a slide player he doesn't generate the same excitement. I would like to add Bob Brozman to my list though. Check him out on Youtube.