John Miller: Hillbilly Blues Guitar
As the Country Blues began to be recorded, in the mid-1920s, it soon became apparent that the music was being played and appreciated not only by African-American musicians and audiences, but by white musicians and audiences as well. Many of these white musicians played with and learned from black musicians, for even in the Jim Crow Era there was always a good deal of musical interaction and exchange. So it is that the term "Hillbilly Blues" can be used to describe the music made by white musicians of that era in the Country Blues style. Included on this DVD are songs from Clarence Greene, known mostly as a fiddler, but an ace guitarist, Dick Justice, who in his one day in the recording studio waxed ten masterful performances, Frank Hutchison who excelled at lap slide, harmonica on a rack and conventional blues picking, Sam McGee, a banjo and guitar master who went on to star on the Grand Ole Opry, Hobart Smith, a musical powerhouse, Maybelle Carter, a rocksteady and beautifully lyrical player who may have been the most influential of the bunch and Emry Arthur, a soulful singer and player who recorded one of the earliest versions of Man Of Constant Sorrow.The songs selected for inclusion on the DVD have been chosen to introduce you to a variety of different keys and playing positions, as well as a host of different right hand techniques.A PDF included on the DVD offers not only detailed transcriptions of the songs, but the songs' lyrics, too. All of the original performances by the musicians are included on the DVD as bonus tracks, both as references and for your listening enjoyment.
