Walkin' the Strings

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Walkin' the Strings
Walkin' the Strings.jpeg
Studio album by
Merle Travis
Released1960
Genre Folk, blues, country, gospel, traditional, Americana
Label Capitol
Producer Cliffie Stone, Ken Nelson
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [1]

Walkin' the Strings was the first solo acoustic guitar album by Merle Travis, released in 1960 but recorded in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when Travis was at the peak of his performing abilities. It is widely regarded as one of Travis's finest musical achievements.

Merle Travis American country/Western singer-songwriter and musician

Merle Robert Travis was an American country and western singer, songwriter, and guitarist born in Rosewood, Kentucky. His songs' lyrics often discussed both the lives and the economic exploitation of American coal miners. Among his many well-known songs are "Sixteen Tons," "Re-Enlistment Blues," "I am a Pilgrim," and "Dark as a Dungeon." However, it is his unique guitar style, still called Travis Picking by guitarists, as well as his interpretations of the rich musical traditions of his native Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, for which he is best known today. "Travis Picking" is a syncopated style of guitar fingerpicking rooted in ragtime music in which alternating chords and bass notes are plucked by the thumb while melodies are simultaneously plucked by the index finger. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1977.

Contents

History

Travis began playing solo guitar numbers on his radio shows as early as the late 1930s, but it was only in the mid-1940s that Travis began using his Martin D-28 acoustic guitar to record various vocals and instrumental numbers for Capitol's Electrical Transcriptions series. These recordings were originally intended for radio broadcast. Capitol's A & R executive, Lee Gillette, wanted instrumentals of varying lengths and would ask Travis to play something for a specific amount of time, typically quite short; the shortest of the numbers included on this album, "Travis Trot", lasts just 29 seconds. (The vocal numbers were of standard length.) The instrumentals could thus be used as fillers and breaks between program segments. The performances were unrehearsed, and it was said that Travis could start and stop anywhere he chose in order to meet the time constraints. [2] [ citation needed ]

C. F. Martin & Company American guitar manufacturer established in 1833

C.F. Martin & Company is an American guitar manufacturer established in 1833 by Christian Frederick Martin. It is highly respected for its steel-string acoustic guitars and is a leading manufacturer of flat top guitars. The company has also made mandolins and ukuleles as well as several models of electric guitars and electric basses, although none of these other instruments are currently in production.

Keeping his eye on the clock as he played, Travis drew on his rich repertoire of Muhlenberg County guitar licks, blues, old standards and gospel songs. Some songs were untitled when they were recorded and were only given titles by Capitol later. These songs were still lying in the vaults when Travis' fame as a guitarist began to reach a wider public in the 1950s.[ citation needed ] Following an initial instrumental album played on electric guitar, The Merle Travis Guitar (Capitol 1956), the radio transcriptions were collected and published as the present LP album in 1960 (the cover bizarrely shows Travis in Country and Western gear holding his custom-built Gibson electric guitar, rather than the Martin acoustic he actually used in these recordings). Rich Kienzle recounts the following anecdote: "Shortly after the album's original release, a fan asked Merle who was performing at a small club to play "Pigmeat Stomp". Travis was surprised, having never heard the title, not realizing that it was one that Capitol had assigned. The fan insisted he had it on a record. Only when he showed Merle a copy of Walkin' the Strings, an LP he'd never seen, did Merle realize that these were the transcriptions he'd recorded a decade ago." [2]

<i>The Merle Travis Guitar</i> 1956 studio album by Merle Travis

The Merle Travis Guitar was the first solo guitar album by Merle Travis, recorded in 1955 when Travis was at the peak of his performing abilities and released on January 1, 1956. Together with another Capitol release of the previous year, Back Home, it introduced the style of guitar playing that came to be known as Travis picking to a wide public of finger-style guitarists and folk music enthusiasts. The album contains a selection of traditional guitar pickers' tunes from Travis' native Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, and includes old standards, blues and rags.

Most of the numbers on this album, including "Saturday Night Shuffle", "Blue Bell", "Cane Break Blues", "Cannonball Stomp" (better known as "Cannonball Rag"), and the title song, have come to be regarded as classic examples of so-called Travis picking. In his liner notes to the 1996 reissue on CD, Chet Atkins states: "This collection is just the very best you will ever hear of Merle Travis."[ citation needed ]

Track listing

All songs are credited to Merle Travis except as indicated

  1. "Walkin' the Strings"
  2. "Little David Play on Your Harp" (with vocal)
  3. "Saturday Night Shuffle"
  4. "Thumbing the Bass"
  5. "Cane Break Blues"
  6. "Darby's Ram" (with vocal)
  7. "Everly Rag"
  8. "Rose Time"
  9. "Old Aunt Dinah"
  10. "Old Kentucky Home" (Stephen Foster)
  11. "Pigmeat Stomp"
  12. "Blue Smoke"
  13. "Dry Bread" (with vocal)
  14. "Louisville Clog"
  15. "On a Bicycle Built for Two" (Harry Dacre)
  16. "Green Bay Polka"
  17. "Jordan Am a Hard Road to Travel" (Daniel Emmett) (with vocal)
  18. "Travis Trot"
  19. "Cannon Ball Stomp"
  20. "Fuller Blues"
  21. "Blue Bell" (Edward Madden, Theodore Morse)
  22. "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" (Thomas A. Dorsey) (with vocal)

Personnel

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References

  1. ↑ Allmusic review
  2. 1 2 Liner notes by Rich Kienzle
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