A Hundred Years Of Acoustic Blues

In this fascinating feature Tristan Seume takes a stylistically in-depth look at the acoustic blues greats of the last century, from Son House and Mississippi John Hurt up to Eric Bibb and Kelly Joe Phelps...

- Tristan Seume

Few playing styles provide us with the same level of satisfaction as acoustic blues. In spite of the sorrowful tales the lyrics often tell, there is something deeply appealing about the image of sitting on the front porch with nothing but three chords and a beat-up Gibson, Harmony or Kay. With that in mind, for this feature, we’ll be looking in depth at the tricks and idiosyncrasies of the acoustic blues greats from the likes of Robert Johnson and Blind Blake, right up to date with modern day masters such as Eric Bibb and Kelly Joe Phelps.

One classic sound identifying early Delta Blues was bottleneck or slide guitar, in which players would adopt an open tuning, typically open E or A, and move an object such as the neck of a bottle, a piece of copper tubing or even a knife up and down the neck creating rudimentary harmonies, and microtonal increments. Charley Patton, Son House and Bukka White were influential exponents of this style who used National resonators to play repetitive open- and single-finger chords interspersed with slide fills, usually with a simple bass-string accompaniment.