B.H. (Before Hacker attack) there was a topic about early amplified guitar on blues records.
Masked Marvel had listened to some songs from a December 16 1938 session where Tampa Red played electric slide guitar, and wondered if that was the first.
But the very same day Casey Bill Weldon too recorded four sides playing electric slide guitar.
Weldon most likely played steel guitar - he was after all labeled "The Hawaiian Guitar Wizard" and there are no finger picked guitar notes heard on the two songs from this session that I have in my collection.
What type of instrument Tampa Red played I don't know - I have not heard any song from this session. Maybe Marvel can tell us. If there is any finger picked notes at all, it of course can't be a steel guitar (like the Rickenbacker "frying pan" or similar). On the other hand, if every note is played with a slide, it could still be a "conventional" guitar as well as a steel guitar.
However, an hour or so ago I listened to four Peetie Wheatstraw songs recorded about two months earlier then above mentioned sessions, or to be more exact: October 18 1938. On this session Lonnie Johnson plays what (at least to these ears) sounds like an electric guitar. Since it is played with the fingers (did Johnson ever record playing slide???), it is of course a "conventional" guitar.
Anybody know of any earlier example(s) of electric guitar on a blues record?
Masked Marvel had listened to some songs from a December 16 1938 session where Tampa Red played electric slide guitar, and wondered if that was the first.
But the very same day Casey Bill Weldon too recorded four sides playing electric slide guitar.
Weldon most likely played steel guitar - he was after all labeled "The Hawaiian Guitar Wizard" and there are no finger picked guitar notes heard on the two songs from this session that I have in my collection.
What type of instrument Tampa Red played I don't know - I have not heard any song from this session. Maybe Marvel can tell us. If there is any finger picked notes at all, it of course can't be a steel guitar (like the Rickenbacker "frying pan" or similar). On the other hand, if every note is played with a slide, it could still be a "conventional" guitar as well as a steel guitar.
However, an hour or so ago I listened to four Peetie Wheatstraw songs recorded about two months earlier then above mentioned sessions, or to be more exact: October 18 1938. On this session Lonnie Johnson plays what (at least to these ears) sounds like an electric guitar. Since it is played with the fingers (did Johnson ever record playing slide???), it is of course a "conventional" guitar.
Anybody know of any earlier example(s) of electric guitar on a blues record?
