Well, that may be because Brownie is playing the blues harp. (Just keedin').

Fuller and Davis share that driving thumb and flair for melodic inventions built on pinched pairings and sliding couplets in the top end, subordinated (as mentioned above) to that driving bass. Elizabeth Cotton, playing a much milder style overall, still makes it clear that it's melodic filigree riding on a timeline borrowed from the thumb, and not the other way around. I remember a Gary Davis concert in 1963 or thereabouts, particularly, "All I Want (Is a Little More Faith in Jesus)". That bass line filled the air, and the fingered melodic inventions always seemed miraculous and surprising.

A