playing 1930s country guitar style

Subject: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 08:08 PM

Well, after about a 20-year hiatus, I'm back to playing guitar. My dearie has facilitated the acquisition of an OM type from John S. Kinnard.

I got my start on guitar on an old Stella that was in the family, then for my 16th birthday got a Yamaha classical, which I mostly fingerpicked.

About 20 years ago, I took up clawhammer banjo, and neglected the guitar in the meantime. astro wanted to get me back to the guitar and thought that if I had a new one, I'd feel obligated to play it... I guess he's right.

I've been trying to figure out what kind of music I'd want a guitar for and now that I'm starting to noodle about on it, what comes out is sort of an old 1930's country sort of thing - Woody Guthrie, Maybelle Carter, "Goodbye Old Paint", etc.: strummy, with a little bit of melody in the bass or middle strings, or some simple bass runs. Definitely song accompaniment, not solo instrumentals. Nothing particularly fast, either,

I didn't use picks on my classical guitar (I'm no Willie Nelson ;-) I find I'm inclined to use a flat pick on steel strings: the downpicking feels like what I do on banjo. When I put on a thumbpick, I get confused, though I know that's what some folks who I like the sound of use.

(This guitar would do fine for fingerpicking, too, so that may come later, also string band accompaniment strumming, if I can get the speed up...)

Anybody else into making that kind of sound (the Guthrie, Carter one)? How do you go at it?

Any songs or players or albums you'd recommend of that era or flavor?

Any other thoughts or encouragements?

Muchas gracias in advance --

~ Becky in Long Beach

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 08:22 PM

And as I posted on Facebook today: [I was] Listening to Woody Guthrie's "Dust Bowl Ballads" and thinking that my new mission is to be as good an "indifferent" guitar player as he was. (That adjective from something I read yesterday.)

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 08:40 PM

Hi Becky!

The basic Maybelle Scratch is with thumb and first finger. Can you say BOOM-chukka-BOOM? Okay, now make your thumb the "BOOM" and your finger(s) the "chukka" with the down strum on the chuk and then upstroke on the ka....Repeat. After awhile you can add in the bass lines or melody. I think you can find some decent examples on YouTube.


Spaw

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Leadfingers
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 08:47 PM

DONT COPY ! Do your own thing , work out your own style and let it happen ! Good Luck and HAVE FUN !

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 08:50 PM

Ain't all that different than what the blues players were doing and what I still play today...

B~

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 09:05 PM

Thanks, Spaw. There is one bit of good video from the Johnny Cash show, and a lot of questionable other stuff with the "Carter Scratch" label on it...

I may have to work on the thumb pick thing. I find my clawhammer brain keeps slipping in gear when I do the finger scratch part I want to hit the low string like a banjo's 5th string... it doesn't quite work right. But, a bit of practice might help!

~ B in LB

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 09:07 PM

And while I was contemplating that scratching, a couple of other voices are heard!

Leadfingers, I'm not too worried about slavishly copying, just exploring the possibilities at this point, and seeking inspiration.

Bobert, got any players I should listen to & look at?

Thanks, folks.

~ B in LB

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Cool Beans
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 09:13 PM

What Spaw said also applies to flatpicking, which is how I usually play that kind of music. (I don't liek thumbpicks.) A strong downstroke (BOOM), then a lighter down-up (Chukka). Not on every note, though. with practice, you'll get the feel of when to Chukka.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: olddude
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 09:24 PM

i use finger picks only on a banjo, for what you want to do i flat pick like cool beans suggested. normally i just finger pick bare handed. you may want to drag our some art thieme songs also he used fingerpicks . whatever you are most comfortable with. they all work

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 09:29 PM

ALso what Cool said! IF you want to see a video, I suggest you watch and listen to Emmylou, Linda, and Dolly doing The Sweetest Gift with Emmyloy on guitar. You can hear it exactly with some easily added embellishments and watch on a couple of excellent side views. Though her hand looks closed as if on a flat pick, you can see its not. This is also a notable clip here because the "Gibson Girl" is playing a Martin.

The second song, Bury Me Beneath the Willow, has Dolly on guitar and again with an embellished Carter Scratch. Dolly is a much better picker than most know and how she does it with those damn nails is sorta' amazing.

The camera gives you several good pictures on each song and about half of learning this strum is in the listening.


Spaw

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 09:30 PM

BTW....I use this a lot and play with a thumbpick but no fingerpicks.

Spaw

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 23 Mar 10 - 10:46 PM

Spaw - Gosh they sure look cute (natural!!) in that one, before the 1980s hit their hair and costumes. Dolly is amazing with her nails - no picks needed, but how does she get anything with her left hand??

[I've just paid Smithsonian-Folkways $0.99 for two tracks from Pete Seeger's "Folksinger's Guitar Guide". Am trying to figure out if the "church lick" and "Carter scratch" are one and the same, or if the term "church lick" ever existed independently...]

I do have some idea about strumming. I used to strum the nylon-string guitar with the backs of my fingernails (down on the index and middle, up on the thumb). For a flatpick, I've got to learn to hold on to it... and I find if I hold it close to the point, I don't have too much trouble finding individual strings if I want to.

Overall, I'm think I'm a better player now, having played the banjo this long, than I was when I left off. I have a lot more skill in my left hand than I did.

Need a lot of work on the callouses, though. And it sure takes a lot more to hammer on or especially to pull off on guitar strings than on banjo strings!

~ B in T

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 08:35 AM

"Anybody else into making that kind of sound (the Guthrie, Carter one)? How do you go at it?"

Some years ago, I found that I wasn't getting any better just pattern-picking, so I worked on playing chord melodies. Then, I found it was possible to play melodies and patterns, except that I could vary the patterns now instead of being locked into them. For practicing, I recommend concentrating on the melodies and finding positions for the chords that will get you the melody note and not worrying too much about the accompaniment at first. It will come.

This will get you to play all over the fretboard and you'll learn the individual notes of the chord positions instead of just that one position is "G", another is "Em", etc. You'll also be able to relate melodies to the chords and know what's possible with one voicing or another.

A nice thing about the bass notes of the guitar is that the fifth is on the next-lower string on the same fret (where there is a next-lower string, of course). This makes alternating between the fifth and the tonic very easy, which is nice, because this is the basis of most accompaniments. With practice, it can be varied.

Lately, I've been "thinning out" my style, playing less rather than more. It's nice to have the ability to play more, but less usually sounds better and it's easier on the hands.

I usually play with my bare fingers, but then I only have a classical guitar. I also keep my fingernails very short. I sometimes play with a flatpick and sometimes with a thumb pick and fingerpicks (metal) just for practice. In my opinion, the main thing about picks is: It doesn't matter. Use whatever you feel comfortable with. Each technique has its advantages and disadvantages.

I like the flatpick for single-line (or mostly single-line) playing. Otherwise, I prefer fingerpicking.

This sort of style seems to demand fairly simple chord changes with long periods of staying on one chord. If you use fancier chords, it starts to sound like Western Swing --- also good, but different. The simpler chord changes make it possible to really "stretch out" and play extended patterns. I recommend just experimenting with picking the strings in different orders, using different rhythms, etc. I didn't find that learning patterns out of a book helped me very much.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Will Fly
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 08:42 AM

I personally love the simplicity of Jimmie Rodgers's pick style, and the playing of Alton Delmore. Plenty of listening there - box sets of their complete recordings are available for a very good price.

Jimmie Rodgers's "Blue Yodel # 1(T for Texas)" is a classic example of his style. :-)

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: HarleySpirit
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 08:43 AM

Hi Becky,

I think you would be a great candidate for this "natural fingerpicking" style

Along with that, check out my Alternate Tunings Chord Charts link:
http://users.eastlink.ca/~harleyspi/tunings.html

Have Fun!
Harley

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 09:27 AM

if you tune your guitar dgdgbd[spanish tuning],youcan play tunes like wildwood flower and carter family songs plus five string banjo tunes using thumb for melody and brushing down with index and playing up with index,to get bum ditty rhythm of the banjo but using top string to replaceshort banjo g string,this is quite similiar to a 5 string banjo style known as thumb melody lead.not quite the same as harley but not disssimiliar.
this is also agreat tuning for playing melody picking with alternating basses[piedmont style guitar.
with this tuning if you replace the 5[a] string with an octave 12 string guitar string[3 gstring]youcan also play banjo tunes and do the bum dittyor clawhammer old timey etc as if you were using the high short g banjo string,so if you are used to playing 5string banjo you can do it on a guitar.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 11:17 AM

One thing about strumming is that it can become a dead-end. It doesn't have to, but I think it often does. If you're going to strum, one thing you might want to practice is hitting only some of the strings. I mean particular ones, like the top four or 5, 4, and 3. I remember finding this difficult, but now it's no problem for me at all. I usually pull multiple strings rather than strum, but you can't do this with a flatpick. The face of your guitar will thank you for the improved pick control.

Even if you only want to accompany, I think it would be a good idea to practice playing the melody, especially by ear. It seems like playing melodies on the guitar should be easy, but it isn't. At least, I still have trouble playing them accurately, i.e., without making mistakes, even though I practice a lot. I should have started learning to do this sooner.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 12:08 PM

heris an example of pretypolly iam in dgddgcd[sawmill banjo tuning]iam playing carter style guitar,but as wel,as playing melody i
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAuc6rFXb1E
I also play single line harmony,iam using the same tuning for polly vaughan but playing in a different fingerpickingstyle

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 12:10 PM

capo onthe second fret so i am in A

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Cool Beans
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 12:34 PM

It's been a long time since I learned to play from Pete Seeger's wonderful "Folksinger's
Guitar Guide" but I believe the church lick is indeed the same as the Carter scratch. I remember combining it with hammering on and practicing for hours.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Will Fly
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 12:51 PM

I usually pull multiple strings rather than strum, but you can't do this with a flatpick.

Don't forget "hybrid" picking - pick and fingers. You get the best of both worlds - flatpicking and fingerpicking combined. :-)

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 01:36 PM

Even though the original "Carter Family" strum was achieved with thumbpick and fingers, I would advise using a plectrum. For me, Norman Blake carried that style to its highest point. Listen to the following track and marvel at how full a sound Norman gets with just a plectrum.

Norman Blake - flatpicking King.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 01:43 PM

the church licvk is the carter scratch,there is avery good dvd homespumn tapes mike seeger with jeanette carter with booklet,
the thing is I bet Maybelle would have used more open tunings if she was starting today,from spanish tuning dgdgbd,it is so easy to go to other banjo tunings like sawmill and double c which is effectively [orkney tuning]cgcgcd,from spanish you can also go easily to dgdgbflat d,and it is much easier than standard,although i like to play carter stuff in standard too.
desert dancer is a banjo player,so she must be used to these tunings.
with a flatpick,you can strum two adjacent strings like fiddle double stop,plus you can do the equivalent of banjo drop thumbing on an up pick after the melody,on the string imediately above or below it
if you are in standard tuning this works easily in the key of c,on leaving of liverpool and wild wood flower.
of course you can finger pick doing banjo drop thumbing with two adjacent fingers,index middle or middle ring ,on an up

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Will Fly
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 01:44 PM

Ah - Norman Blake. Here's the Master in action on video:

Salty

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Piers Plowman
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 02:12 PM

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Will Fly - PM
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 12:51 PM

'Don't forget "hybrid" picking - pick and fingers. You get the best of both worlds - flatpicking and fingerpicking combined. :-)'

True. I've tried this a few times, but it doesn't seem to suit me. I'm sure it's a good technique for those who like it. I like to have the support of the middle finger on the pick. I could never warm up to lightweight picks, either. I've never understood how anyone could play with picks that bend, but I suppose that's what makes ballgames.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 02:47 PM

It sounds like Jimmie Rodgers was all downstroke and (almost) no upstroke. Sure wish I could yodel...

And Norman Blake - oh, yeah! as long as he's singing, and not picking a fiddle tune! Have to watch some more... and what Nancy's doing, too.

In the throwback category, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, anyone?

Thanks for all the thoughts and links, folks.

~ Becky in Long Beach

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 02:57 PM

yodellings not to difficult,just practise,mind you I have always found singing easy,I like to yodel when i am driving., it is good if you are in a glider too.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 03:00 PM

he is ok ,but go and listen to doc watson.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 03:05 PM

I think hang gliding would get me yodeling... I've always thought the nice thing about regular gliding would be the quiet...

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 03:28 PM

Doc's wonderful; way out of my league.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 04:22 PM

yes the quiet is great ,but now and again youhave to yodel toshow appreciation of life

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: pdq
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 04:37 PM

Bill Clifton uses a flatpick with his classic Martin to get a sorta "loopy" Carter-based sound.

Oddly, his records are more common in England than the U.S. He did a novelty number called "Beatle Crazy" while living and working in Britain.

Anyone who wants to here a near-perfect folk backup should get "Step By Step" by Lesley Riddle. It was recorded over about 15 years by Mike Seeger, but sound very coherent. Riddle was a friend of the Carters.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 12:40 AM

And I'm getting more input here from the UK than the US... what does it mean?

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Will Fly
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 04:41 AM

It means, Becky, that a number of us Brits on the Mudcat Forum have a deep and abiding love for early American country music. I've listened to and played the music of Doc Watson, the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, the Delmore Brothers et al for many, many years, and I'm very fond of it. (I'm also a guitarist, as are others here, which is why we can contribute to your question). Perhaps we don't take such music for granted. :-)

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 07:00 AM

Riddle taught Maybelle Carter how to play,[I believe]in return he was given a new wooden leg

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Melissa
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 11:06 AM

I'm in the US and would be glad to post to this thread..except I'm not sure that I have anything useful to say. It sounds like you're working toward a style similar to what I do.

I use a very small, thin pick. To keep it from making that annoying buzzy/clicky sound, I hold it very near the end so barely any pick is sticking out..close enough to the end that my fingers end up with stringdirt patches on them when I play.
Holding the pick like most folks seem to doesn't give me as much control over where I hit. A regular size pick also doesn't give me as much control because it's harder for me to tell where the point is when my hand is full of plastic.

If you've got your chords and a good ear, you'll probably be able to pick it up fairly easily.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 11:25 AM

maybelle used a thumb pick and a fingerpick on her index i think

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 11:36 AM

Hi, Melissa, that's the way I've been inclined to hold a pick as well, whatever size or thickness it is.

Lesley Riddle's not flatpicking, and I hear very little strumming. Nice, though...

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 11:46 AM

lesley riidle used to fingerpick carter style thumbplaying melody index brushing up and sometimes doing bum ditty,but on the top 1 string,he also taught maybelle two finger piedmiont[cannonball blues] style finger picking with alternating bass on every beat

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Melissa
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 11:53 AM

DD,
Do you like to pretend that the stringdirt on your pick hand are scorch marks?

I never thought of it before, but now I think I'm going to use the dirty smears to show people just how hot my playing is!

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 04:36 PM

Melissa, I'll keep that one in mind! (works for frailing banjo, too!)

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 05:40 PM

I long since outgrew this but, every once in a while, I catch a bit of an old Gene Autry or Roy Rogers movie from the thirties and early forties on one of the cable channels. Inevitably, there would be two or three (or more) seques into musical interludes with players like "Sons of the Pioneers" or "Riders of the Purple Sage" to name two examples. The strumming technique on these old Hollywood "cowboy" songs is probably fairly close to what you're looking for. "Riders in the Sky" still does a lot of that kind of music.

As an aside, years ago, we referred to the old "boom-chukka-boom" sound (orchestrally) as the "businessman's bounce."

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 06:52 PM

GSS, regarding Lesley Riddle, it's a big step to go from
"he also taught maybelle two finger piedmiont[cannonball blues] style finger picking with alternating bass on every beat"
to
   "Riddle taught Maybelle Carter how to play,[I believe]in return he was given a new wooden leg "

Where did that latter come from?? (Especially since she was already playing before they met...)

Here's a good link for Lesley Riddle.

~ Becky in Long Beach

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 07:14 PM

HE said Maybelle just listened and added what she wanted because as he put it, "She was that good."

I think a lot of folk players over the years have owed much to Maybelle and as far as the most popular style of fingerpicking goes, they owe Mississippi John.

Spaw

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: pdq
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 07:36 PM

Here is another under-appreciated folk picker that we can all learn from:

                                                                            John Jackson

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: foggers
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 07:46 PM

Hi - not got much to add to the find mix already going on in this thread; just chiming in agreement!

I started out as a finger style guitar player on a classical guitar. At 18 I got my first steel strung guitar and tried a plectrum but just could not get the hang of it, so I tried a thumb pick and liked the extra oomph it gave my finger picking style. I was very influenced by the classic Maybelle Carter alternating thumb pick and finger brushing when I started to sing some gospel and early country. Lots of the names mentioned here have been players I have aspired to - MIssissipi John, Maybelle, Leabelly, Emylou Harris,

Then just 4 years ago I got a 5 string banjo and after a bit of three finger picking I also branched out and got the hang of clawhammer. Then came the Appalachian dulcimer and I have had to grapple wiith a plectrum in my right hand after all, in order to get to grips with noter and drone style playing.

What fascinates me is that I think this has made me more versatile player and musician all round, when I used to just think of meself as a one-trick pony.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 06:40 AM

desert dancer,
I have read a lot about the carter family, lesley riddle ,listened to jeannette carter talking to mike seeger ,somewhere in all that reading,it was stated more than once and by different people that Riddle helped to develop her style gave her guitar lessons and in return AP CARTER,bought him a new wooden leg ,if you dont believe me go and do some research.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: Will Fly
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 08:04 AM

I've always loved John Hurt's guitar style, and Doc Waton's - but no-one seems to mention Etta Baker. Her "One Dime Blues" is a beautiful piece of guitar work - well worth a listen.

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 09:08 AM

yes there are good you tube videos of her,mance lipscomb[texan songster ]is worth checking out too,all this illustrates how close balck and white music were back in those days,jimmie rodgers used earl hines and louis armstrong on recordings

Subject: RE: playing 1930s country guitar style
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 09:58 AM

Lesley Riddle

http://www.tvgnc.org/index.php?option=com_...e&id=4&Itemid=2

Much of the inspiration and development of country music has been attributed by the genre's founders to the African-American musicians of the South. Jimmie Rodgers and his youthful association with black railroad section gangs; Hank Williams and the street singer, Rufus "Tee-Tot" Payne; Bill Monroe, as well as Merle Travis learning from Arnold Shultz. So it goes with the Carter Family and Lesley Riddle of Burnsville, NC.

Lesley was born in 1905 in the western part of Yancey County but spent the years between 1913 and 1943 in a series of moves between there and Kingsport, TN. It was while in Kingsport in 1927 that he encountered A.P. Carter at a favorite hang out of black musicians. Lesley, who had learned guitar from his uncle, played some songs for Carter. This began a five to seven year friendship and musical partnership with The First Family of Country Music.

A.P. took Lesley home with him to Mace's Springs, VA on that occasion and many more thereafter. There, Sara, Maybelle and A.P. learned many of the old gospel, blues and railroad tunes from Lesley's repertoire. Maybelle also watched the young black man's slide and finger picking guitar technique and adapted much of it to her style---a style that countless country pickers have copied.

The Carters were in constant need of new material for Victor recording sessions. Thus, A.P. and Lesley would travel for two and three weeks at a time to the remote hollows and the few black sections of the southern Appalachians, where Carter would write down the lyrics and Riddle would play along and memorize the melody. After returning to the Springs, the Carters and Lesley would re-work the tunes into versions acceptable for the studio.

The Carters continued to record after Sara and A.P. divorced in 1933 but their move to Del Rio, TX to perform on the XERA radio station ended Lesley's association with them.

The Lesley Riddle Story

http://www.tvgnc.org/index.php?option=com_...atid=6&Itemid=3

Lesley Riddle is one of the unheralded contributors to the formation of early commercial country music.

Lesley Riddle was born June 13, 1905 in the Silvers Gap community of western Yancey County, NC. Before he entered his teens, his parents, Ed and Hattie, separated and Hattie took the three children and moved to Kingsport, Tennessee. The CCC Railroad had just finished construction from near Burnsville to Johnson City, which made travel much easier. Easier as in a train ride of six hours as opposed to a horseback trip of three days. The Riddle family would move back and forth between Burnsville and Kingsport several times over the next twenty years.

When he was in his mid-teens Lesley had a horrific accident on a visit to the Clinchfield Cement plant to see a friend, in which his right foot slipped into an auger in the floor. The giant screw chewed his leg off up to the knee. By all rights, he should have died, if not from shock then infection. He lived and the state of North Carolina provided him some rehabilitation and education at a facility in Durham.

This handicap allowed Lesley a lot of down time and he became interested in the guitar. His mother's brother, Ed Martin, played guitar and knew dozens of blues and gospel numbers. Ed taught Lesley some guitar techniques and introduced him to other musicians around Kingsport.
Lesley was barely healed from his leg amputation when he and Uncle Ed were arguing over a shotgun. The gun disch arged while Lesley's right hand gripped the end of the barrel. He lost the middle and ring fingers of his hand. Later, Lesley had to adjust his picking techniques to use only his thumb, index and little fingers.

John Henry Lyon's front porch was a favorite hang out for East Tennessee musicians and others traveling through the area. Blind Lemon Jefferson, Sticks and Brownie McGhee, Steve Tartar and others frequented the porch. On a Sunday morning in late 1927, A.P. Carter paid a visit to the porch looking for songs for the Carter Family's second recording session with Ralph Peer of Victor Records. As Lesley described it, John Henry passed a guitar to Lesley and told him to "play Mr. Carter a piece. I played him a couple of pieces and Mr. Carter wanted me to go home with him right then and there."

This began a musical partnership that lasted over five years and a friendship that endured for half a century. Lesley would spend as much as two weeks at a time with A.P. and Sara Carter in their home in Mace's Springs, Virginia. Just down the road lived Maybelle and Ezra Carter. As Lesley would later describe it to Mike Seeger, "I played somewhere all the time. Sometimes, down at Ecks (Ezra), most times at Mr. Carter's, just playing and singing, that's all we would do."
What the Carters got from these jam sessions were Lesley's repertoire of blues and gospel songs; songs he had learned from Steve, Blind Lemon, Brownie and John Henry and others he had had heard his mother and Ed Martin sing. Lesley told Seeger that the Carters rarely ever played for him.

Forty years later, when Seeger was recording Lesley, he could see and hear the similarities between Lesley's picking style and that of Maybelle Carter so he asked him if he ever gave her lessons. Lesley replied, "No, I didn't have to. She would just watch and learn. She was that good." Both Lesley and Maybelle used a pocketknife for their slide guitar work.

The Carter Family quickly became, along with Jimmie Rodgers, the top two recording artists of the Victor Company and Peer pushed them constantly to get new songs for recording sessions. None of the Carter's was a prolific songwriter and they had exhausted the ones their neighbors knew, so it fell to A.P. and Lesley to hit the road in search of new material. The unlikely pair, a gangly, palsied near forty year old white man and a black double handicapped handsome twenty something, made for a strange sight as they would knock on doors at head of the hollow cabins as well as hovels in the few black sections of the southern Appalachians. If the residents had some old songs, A.P. would write down the lyrics and Lesley would strum along and memorize the melody. These excursions would sometimes last three weeks with A.P. having to find accommodations, usually in someone's home, where both a black and white guy were welcome. Most times they slept in separate dwellings. Finding a meal presented the same problem with A.P. dining at the family table and Lesley eating in the kitchen.

A.P. and Lesley would return to the Spring's and, along with Sara and Maybelle, rework the tunes into something acceptable to Peer. We can be sure that most of the tunes with A.P. getting the credit as the writer came from these song-gathering trips. Music historians have puzzled for years over which songs the Carters got from Lesley.

From Barry O'Connell: Maybelle Carter always credited Lesley as the source for "The Cannonball," especially for her guitar runs, the influence of which is everywhere in subsequent country music. We can say with reasonable certainty that Lesley taught the Carters: "The Cannonball," "Lonesome For You," "If You See My Savior," "One Kind Favor," "The Storms Are On The Ocean," "Out On The Ocean A-Sailing," "Working On A Building," "Let The Church Roll On," "Wouldn't Mind Dying," "On A Hill Lone And Gray," and "On Jordan's Stormy Banks."

In early 1933, Sara and A.P. separated, partly over his absences and his temper when he was home and her too-close friendship with A.P.'s cousin, Coy Bates. Sara abandoned her home and children and went to live with an aunt several miles away. The Carters continued as a recording and performing group for several more years but the divorce effectively ended Lesley's trips to Mace's Springs although Jeanette and Gladys, two of the Carter children, later vowed that Lesley kept them from starvation by teaching them how to make gravy and biscuits.

The Carters got a job playing over XERA in Del Rio, Texas and Lesley married Allie Rhea of Kingsport in 1937 and soon moved to Rochester, NY where Allie had family. Lesley played some with Son House but soon sold his guitar and quit music all together except for what he did in church. Lesley and Allie visited Kingsport and Burnsville infrequently from 1942 to 1978.

In the mid-60's, the Johnny Cash Show with Maybelle and her daughters, along with Mike Seeger and the New Lost City Ramblers, was playing a gig in Los Angeles. When Maybelle came off stage after her set, Mike asked her where she had learned "The Cannonball" and she answered "Esley Riddle of Kingsport, Tennessee." The next show was in Tucson, Arizona and Maybelle rode with Mike in his Studebaker and related the Esley Riddle story to him. ("Esley" was a name he picked up when one of Maybelle or Sara's small children could not pronounce his name. All present day Carters and many of his own relatives, call him by that name, even now.) Seeger set out to find this person, visiting Kingsport and inquiring of other musicians who performed at the folk festivals that were springing up all over the USA and Canada. Finally, at the Newport Folk Festival, Mike asked Brownie McGhee, whom Lesley had played mandolin with on a tour of the rough Kentucky coal camps when they were just in their teens, and Brownie replied, "Oh yeah, Rochester, one leg and eight fingers!"

In Rochester was where Mike found him and persuaded him to be interviewed and recorded in his living room and his shoeshine stand. Esley also accompanied the Ramblers and Seeger to some local clubs and music halls to play with them. He got Lesley into some of the more prestigious folk festivals of the time: Newport, Smithsonian and Mariposa. Mike returned to Rochester several times over the next fifteen years to visit Esley, sometimes to no avail when Esley would be out "socializing."

Allie died in 1976 and not long after, Esley, who had smoked since the age of five, found out he had lung cancer. He moved to Asheville and lived there with his brother, John Young, finally dying there in a rest home on July 13, 1979. He, Allie and his mother are buried in Horton Cemetery in Burnsville. Janette and Joe Carter spoke at his funeral.

Although Esley was as talented as his contemporaries, he never made a living at music. He subsisted as a shine boy, presser and school crossing guard. Fifteen years after Esley's death, Mike Seeger persuaded Rounder Records to release a CD of the music they had recorded in Rochester. The title track is the one song there is no debate about the authorship of, "Step By Step," which Esley was inspired to write after watching children walk across his intersection.
desert dancer:please note.
From Barry O'Connell: Maybelle Carter always credited Lesley as the source for "The Cannonball," especially for her guitar runs, the influence of which is everywhere in subsequent country music. We can say with reasonable certainty that Lesley taught the Carters: "The Cannonball," "Lonesome For You," "If You See My Savior," "One Kind Favor," "The Storms Are On The Ocean," "Out On The Ocean A-Sailing," "Working On A Building," "Let The Church Roll On," "Wouldn't Mind Dying," "On A Hill Lone And Gray," and "On Jordan's Stormy Banks."