He is single-handedly responsible for the extraordinary increase in acoustic flatpicking and fingerpicking guitar performance. His flatpicking style has no precedent in earlier country music history.” —Ralph Rinzler, the folklorist who “discovered” Doc Watson in 1960, in the New York Times Doc Watson, the trailblazing and beloved flatpicker from North Carolina, died yesterday at the […]
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What Scruggs had done was to begin playing a five-string banjo with three fingers. His thumb, middle, and index fingers were all picking, creating two strands of harmony to buttress the melody. In a sense, he could function as a trio all by himself. Because he alternated three fingers, Scruggs could play one note […]
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When in doubt: Minutemen. That’s a personal code and I’m passing it along to you free of charge. Don’t forget it. Etch it in your brain. Not many people got a code to live by anymore. To that end, I’ve found that playing Double Nickels On The Dime at least once a month is […]
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My original plan was to focus solely on Clarence White as an electric guitarist, but it would be professionally remiss to sidestep his formidable acoustic guitar background. So, let’s take a brief tour through CW’s stint in the Kentucky Colonels before matriculating to his work on the Telecaster. Above all, this post and the several […]
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