Just recently I've been listening to Josh White Jnr's tuition record. josh senior was the first fingerstyle guitarist i ever heard apart from John Williams. Josh had a TV show in England in the 1960's.

Josh could play a lot of different styles. He used to have this great upstroke with his index finger a bit like a flamenco guitarist - but it gave this great fractured beat in amongst his picking. I couldn't identify the style it comes from - although it sounds it a little bit like Leadbelly. so maybe Louisiana.

You've done it again Richard - calling Mr Blandriver a pompous idiot!
It actually obscures the point you are making.

I think it was Kingsley Amis who accused Ezra Pound and Eliot of creating poetry that sounded like the ramblings of a maniac in a museum - so littered with references and allusions to obscure bits of literature and world culture were the works of the two poets.

I think this is what I am trying to say - we treat 'the tradition' as a ragbag of techniques we can delve into. Whereas the cogency of Blind Lemon's message came from having spent thirty years in a small Texas village learning his craft cut off from other sources. Really we can only tip our caps to the greats of yesteryear, Thankfully we have not lived the impoverished lives that they led.