1. The 2014 NAMM Global Report, 10. Retrieved online at https://www.namm.org/files/ihdp-viewer/global-report-2014/A7352D4907B25A95B2CE27A075D3956F/2014MusicUSA_final.pdf.
2. Ry Cooder, interview with the author, August 1993.
3. These interviews, and others, appear in Blues Guitar: The Men Who Made the Music, ed. Jas Obrecht (San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books, 1993); and Rollin’ and Tumblin’: The Postwar Blues Guitarists, ed. Jas Obrecht (San Francisco: Miller Freeman, 2000).
1. Dick Spottswood, email correspondence with the author, January 1, 2016.
2. John Renbourn, correspondence with the author, 1992. For more on this subject, visit “Spanish Fandango and Sebastopol,” Jas Obrecht Music Archive, http://jasobrecht.com/blues-origins-spanish-fandango-and-sebastopol/.
3. Edison Phonograph Monthly, June 1905, accessed December 31, 2015, https://archive.org/stream/edisonphonograph03moor/edisonphonograph03moor_djvu.txt
4. Dick Spottswood, “Guitar on 78s and Cylinders: A Survey of Pioneering Efforts,” Victrola and 78 Journal 7 (Winter 1996): 12. The original quote was updated via email correspondence, January 1, 2016.
5. Discography of American Historical Recordings, s.v. “Ossman-Dudley Trio (Musical group),” accessed January 4, 2016, http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/talent/detail/22244/Ossman-Dudley_Trio_Musical_group.
6. Discography of American Historical Recordings, s.v. “Octaviano Yañes (instrumentalist: guitar),” accessed January 4, 2016, http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/talent/detail/41647/Yaes_Octaviano_instrumentalist_guitar.
7. Tim Gracyk, “The First Solo Guitar Recording?,” Victrola and 78 Journal 3 (Winter 1994): 10.
8. Dick Spottswood clarifies: “Pre-1909 Hawaiian records, including a number of tracks made in Hawaii, have no slide guitars. The Toots/Kekuku cylinders are the first, as far as I know,” email correspondence with the author, January 1, 2016.
9. George S. Kanahele, Hawaiian Music and Musicians: An Illustrated History (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1979), 367.
10. Tim Gracyk, The Encyclopedia of Popular American Recording Pioneers: 1895–1925 (Granite Bay, Calif.: Victrola and 78 Journal Press, 1999), 114.
11. Ibid., 115.
12. Dick Spottswood, email correspondence with the author, January 3, 2016.
13. Gracyk, The Encyclopedia of Popular American Recording Pioneers, 115.
14. Nick Lucas rerecorded “Pickin’ the Guitar” and “Teasin’ the Frets” for Brunswick in 1923 and 1932.
15. This recording is available on the Library of Congress website, http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/8009/.
16. “George Van Eps on Eddie Lang,” as told to Jim Ferguson, Guitar Player, August 1983, 85.
17. Ry Cooder, interview with the author, February 25, 1990.
18. For detailed accounts of the lives and music of these and other 1920s bluesmen, see Jas Obrecht, Early Blues: The First Stars of Blues Guitar (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015).
19. Spottswood, email correspondence.
20. David Evans, liner notes for Atlanta Blues 1933: A Collection of Previously Unreleased Recordings by Blind Willie McTell, Curley Weaver, and Buddy Moss, John Edwards Memorial Foundation, JEMF-106, 1979, 13.
21. Dick Spottswood, “When the Wolf Knocked on Victor’s Door,” 78 Quarterly 1, no. 5 (1990): 70.
22. Ibid., 64.
23. Transcribed from a scan of the Music Trade Review article provided by Lynn Wheelwright via email, January 4, 2016.
24. Lynn Wheelwright, email correspondence with the author, January 4, 2016.
25. George Gruhn and Walter Carter, Electric Guitars and Basses: A Photographic History (San Francisco: GPI Books, 1994), 6.
26. Ibid., 9.
27. Ibid., 10.
28. Wheelwright, email correspondence.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Gruhn and Carter, Electric Guitars and Basses, 49.
34. Lynn Wheelwright, interview with the author, May 2011.
35. Dick Spottswood, email correspondence with the author, January 1, 2016.
36. Kanahele, Hawaiian Music and Musicians, 372.
37. Rich Kienzle, “The Electric Guitar in Country Music: Its Evolution and Development,” Guitar Player, November 1979, 30.
38. Dick Spottswood, “Birth of the Blast: The First Electric Guitars on Record,” Guitar Player, April 1995, 65–66. Additional information provided via email correspondence with the author, January 3, 2016.
39. Joel A. Siegel and Jas Obrecht, “Eddie Durham: Charlie Christian’s Mentor, Pioneer of the Amplified Guitar,” Guitar Player, August 1979, 60.
40. Ibid.
41. Dick Spottswood, email correspondence with the author, January 1, 2016.
42. Richard Lieberson, “Western Swing Lives on in Eldon Shamblin,” Guitar Player, April 1975, 35–36.
43. John Hammond, interview with the author, November 24, 1981.
44. “Leonard Feather: The Guitar in Jazz,” The Guitar in Jazz: An Anthology,” ed. by James Sallis (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 5.
45. Benny Goodman, interview with the author, November 20, 1981.
1. In July 1990, I ran excerpts of the Blind Willie Johnson and Robert Johnson parts of this interview in Guitar Player magazine. About a year later, the April 1991 issue of Progressive Architecture magazine arrived in the mail. Inside, Technics editor Kenneth Labs had tested Cooder’s theory about Robert Johnson facing the wall to achieve a certain sound. After four full pages of charts, diagrams, and technological analysis, Lab concluded, “Cooder is probably right.”
1. Interview with the author, May 19, 1992.
2. Jas Obrecht, “Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown: 40 Years on the Road as Picker, Fiddler, Bluesman, Jazzer,” Guitar Player, May 1979, 44.
1. Opal Louis Nations, Uncloudy Day liner notes, Mississippi Records, MRP 075, 2014.
2. Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey passed away on January 23, 1993.
1. Between 1957 and 1959, the Burnette brothers wrote the Ricky Nelson hits “Waitin’ in School,” “Believe What You Say,” and “It’s Late,” while Baker Knight composed “Lonesome Town,” “I Got a Feeling,” and “I Wanna Be Loved,” among others.
1. Brian Wilson, transcribed from the film documentary The Wrecking Crew, dir. Denny Tedesco (Lunch Box Entertainment, 2008).
2. Toni Ballard, “Berklee Welcomes Carol Kaye for BassDayze,” Berklee press release, October 18, 2000. Retrieved from https://www.berklee.edu/news/4554/berklee-welcomes-carol-kaye-for-bassdayze.
3. The T-Bones were actually members of the Wrecking Crew. The name was used to credit a variety of instrumental singles and albums, notably the 1965 hit “No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach’s In),” which was used as the soundtrack for an Alka-Seltzer ad. This group did not tour, nor was it related to the British band of the same name.
4. Carol is likely referring to the 1960s “Teaberry Shuffle” ad, also for chewing gum.
1. Sam Andrew, interview with the author, September 30, 1978. Quoted in Jas Obrecht’s “Turn On, Turn Up, Trip Out: The Rise & Fall of San Francisco Psychedelia,” Guitar Player, February 1997, 70.
2. Barry Melton, interview with the author, November 1996. Quoted in Obrecht, “Turn On, Turn Up, Trip Out,” 75. Yuri Gargarin, a Soviet cosmonaut, was the first human to journey into outer space.
3. Andrew interview, 75.
4. Ibid., 76.
5. Joel Whitburn, The Billboard Book of Top 40 Albums, revised and enlarged edition (New York: Billboard Books, 1991), 40.
1. Bob Weir interview with the author, October 1996. Quoted in Jas Obrecht’s “Turn On, Turn Up, Trip Out: The Rise & Fall of San Francisco Psychedelia,” Guitar Player, February 1997, 71.
2. Jon Sievert, email correspondence with the author, April 2010.
3. Django Reinhardt’s fretting hand was injured in a caravan fire.
1. James Rooney, Bossmen: Bill Monroe & Muddy Waters (New York: Da Capo, 1971), 145.
2. Larry Sepulvado and John Burks, “Tribute to the Lone Star State: Dispossessed Men and Mothers of Texas,” Rolling Stone, December 7, 1968. Retrieved online from http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tribute-to-the-lone-star-state-dispossessed-men-and-mothers-of-texas-19681207.
3. Transcribed by the author from the film documentary Johnny Winter: Down and Dirty, dir. Greg Olliver (Secret Weapons Films, 2014).
4. While it’s true Duane Allman played slide in standard tuning for “Dreams” and “Mountain Jam,” most of his other slide songs were in open E.
1. Tony Glover, liner notes booklet, Duane Allman: An Anthology (Capricorn Records, 2CP 0108, 1972), 10–11.
2. The photograph Gregg’s referring to was taken by Jim Marshall, who shot the covers of At Fillmore East.
3. Ten days after my interview with Gregg Allman, I asked Dickey Betts about the guitars Duane used for slide. Betts responded, “When we first started out, he used to just tune his Les Paul onstage. When we got ready to do a slide tune, he’d just tune the guitar to a straight E chord and play slide right on the guitar that he’d been playing all night, rather than switching. As he got more advanced and got into it more as a couple of years went by, he started using a Gibson SG. He liked that because of the long neck, and you can get way down to the bottom frets without any trouble.”
4. Twiggs Lyndon, road manager for the Allman Brothers Band and the Dixie Dregs, perished in a free-fall accident on November 16, 1979.
1. Jeff Baxter, interview with the author, October 1980.
2. Steve Morse, interview with the author, May 1982.
3. Eric Johnson, interview with the author, September 27, 1982.
4. Stevie Ray Vaughan, interview with the author, February 1986.
5. Johnson interview.
6. Here Eric is referring to the 1954 Fender Stratocaster used on many of his albums. Inside the body cavity, it bears the signature of a Fender inspector named Virginia.
1. “Joe Satriani: Just the Facts,” www.satriani.com/about/
2. Quoted in Jas Obrecht’s “Space Rock—the Final Frontier. These Are the Voyages of Joe Satriani,” Guitar Player, February 1988, 79.
3. “Joe Satriani,” in Guitar Player: The Inside Story of the First Two Decades of the Most Successful Guitar Magazine Ever, ed. Jim Crockett with Dara Crockett (Milwaukee: Backbeat Books, 2015), 181–82.
1. Ben Harper, interview with the author, March 1994. Quoted in Jas Obrecht’s “Ben Harper: The Importance of One Note,” Guitar Player, June 1994, 65.
2. Ibid.