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Message 7035
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| Subject: | [RESOGUIT-L] RE: Joshs' Style | | Date: | Sunday, July 1, 2007 11:13:36 (-0400) | | From: | Randolph E. Getz <bgdobro @...net>
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Here is the updated version after we spoke on the phone. Randy
Don Hergert asks about Joshs' style:
Don I don't even play the instrument but have a deep love of the
instruments sound. Before Josh there basically were no players in any
of the major bluegrass bands of the time, as a matter of fact the
majority of Dobro music being heard in the 40's and early 50's in a
country/hillbilly band was being played by Brother Oswald who was
working with Roy Acuff. Oswald had a style that included lots of
slants, harmonic slides and had a heavy Hawaiian influence as he had
been taught by a Hawaiian player in Detroit. One thing that Oswald
never used was the three finger roll as his style did not call for
that type of playing and he held true to his style of playing to the
end. Just a little story told to me and others by Mike Webb who was
hand picked by Oswald to continue his music. When Mike was being
taught by Os Mike felt it necessary to show how he was progressing
and threw in a three fingered roll on a song he was demonstrating for
OS, immediately Os layed his hand across the strings and told Mike
you don't play that on this instrument or words to that effect.
Now along comes Josh who had been playing with Esco Hankins & Wilma
Lee and Stoney Cooper in the late 40's and early 50's. Josh had a
very strong Blues influence in his playing style as he spent many
hours picking with many black blues players during his formative
years and long after he had established himself. Since the first four
strings on a banjo are tuned the same as a Dobro he became interested
in learning the three fingered banjo roll which Earl Scruggs was
having so much success with, he picked Earls brain backstage whenever
Flatt & Scruggs would be working in the same venue where he was. The
result of him perfecting the three fingered roll on the Dobro gave a
much fuller sound to his playing as well as increased speed. By the
end of the 40's he had learned the three fingered roll well enough to
use it for the first time on stage while still working with Wilma Lee
and Stoney, and he also used it on a recording for the first time
with Wilma Lee and Stoney. When Josh was asked to join F&S in 1955 it
wasn't to play the Dobro but rather to play bass, after a short while
Flatt who was looking to change the bands sound asked Josh to play
Dobro on several tunes at various shows, the Dobro playing went over
so well that it was integrated into the band as a full time
instrument thus changing the sound of F&S bluegrass band forever. As
I said I do not play but the style and the sound that Josh brought to
bluegrass is a direct result of his perfection of the three fingered
roll and his bluesy styling on that instrument. He once said that if
Flatt would ever figure out what he was doing he probably would have
been fired.
Many of the great players of today took Josh's style as a starting
point and then expanded on it to create yet another style that became
known as their particular style, but for the most part every player
today will tell you that their style is patterned either after
Oswalds' or Joshs' style of playing.
Randy
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