TRAVIS

One of the greatest guitarists in the history of country music, Merle Travis was also a prolific and original songwriter. He started out on the acoustic guitar and developed the technique that is named after him, and he is also credited with inventing the idea for the solid-body electric guitar that was developed for him by Leo Fender.

Merle Travis was born on November 29, 1917, in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. His father was a tobacco farmer but, when Merle was four years old, he moved to work in the Kentucky coal mines. Travis’s father taught him the rudiments of the mountain banjo, and later his brother made a guitar for him. Under the tutelage of local coal-mining musicians Mose Rager and Ike Everly (father of the famous Esc>VERLY/sc> Bsc>ROTHERS/sc>), Travis learned the two-finger picking style on the guitar.

After finishing grade school, Travis began his career in earnest playing at square dances, and then joined the Knox County Knockabouts, playing live music on radio station WBGF in Evansville, Indiana. After a stint with the Tennessee Tomcats, Travis joined Clayton McMichen’s renowned Georgia Wildcats, and eventually landed at Cincinnati’s WLW as a member of the Drifting Pioneers. He was then reaching much wider audiences through the National Barn Dance and Plantation Party radio programmes.

Travis also worked with the gospel quartet, the Brown’s Ferry Four, which included Grandpa Jones and the Delmore Brothers. The group became important cast members on Cincinnati’s Boone County Jamboree (later renamed Midwestern Hayride), and recorded various projects in different configurations for King Records.

In the years following his service in the U.S. Marines in World War II, Travis perfected his innovative style of guitar picking—one that would become widely imitated and credited as “Travis picking.” His technique involved damping the bass strings with the palm of the hand, then picking them with the thumb, and playing the melody on the higher strings with one or two fingers. At this time, he is also said to have invented the solid-body electric guitar, now a standard instrument in most country and rock bands. Travis returned to WLW briefly, then in 1946 relocated to southern California to do session work and record for Capitol Records. His solo and duet recordings during his 23 years with Capitol included several of his biggest hits, including “Divorce Me C.O.D.,” “So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed,” “Smoke, Smoke, Smoke (That Cigarette),” “Dark as a Dungeon,” the very famous “Sixteen Tons” and the “Nine Pound Hammer.” This was the period when Travis was using material from his coal-mining background to write folk songs about the lives of the miners.

In 1954, Travis played a young GI in the movie From Here to Eternity, singing “Re-Enlistment Blues,” and in 1955, with Hank Thompson, had a country hit with a reworking of the Csc>ARTER/sc> Fsc>AMILY’s/sc> “Wildwood Flower.” With the ensuing folk music revival, Travis rode another wave of popularity in the late 1950s, as his tradition-rooted mountain ballads and guitar wizardry were re-discovered by college students and festival audiences around the world.

Travis took part in Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s monumental 1971 album celebrating country music, Will the Circle Be Unbroken? His duet recording with Chet sc>Asc>TKINS/sc>/sc> produced a Grammy for best country instrumental performance. In 1977, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Travis died in Oklahoma in 1983.

The music of Merle Travis had a profound impact on the next generation of country guitar pickers, including Atkins and Johnny Watson, and his influence still lives on for country music guitar players.

Todd Denton

MERLE

TRAVIS